World Bee Day: the buzz on North Dakota’s beekeeping industry

BISMARCK, N.D. (KXNET) — In terms of a state identified for heavy wind, freezing chilly temperatures and the occasional blizzard, it makes it very laborious to think about how that very same state is also a hive of exercise for beekeepers.

Regardless of the drawbacks, nevertheless, the beekeeping enterprise is vastly fashionable within the rural states — with North Dakota being the queen of United States honey manufacturing.

In 2021, in North Dakota alone, there have been 325 registered beekeepers, proudly owning a mixed 740,000 hives. At the very least one-third of all registered beehives in the US spend a minimum of a while yearly in rural areas within the state.

Honey is a serious export for a lot of of our rural beekeepers, and considered one of our most surprising main property that we produce. In truth, North Dakota has held the title of lead honey-producing state for greater than 9 years with a reported 38.6 million kilos, value over $61 million, produced in 2020 in response to the North Dakota Division of Agriculture.

“We produce what’s known as ‘white honey,’” mentioned Gregg Stewart, proprietor of Stewart Apiaries in Bismarck. “It’s an actual light-colored honey, and it’s most well-liked by lots of people and packers.”

Seeing a state like ours host a few of America’s finest beekeeping is relatively odd, given the setting and local weather we’ve grown to know. Occasions just like the latest blizzards present that the injury nature does to out of doors buildings right here is sufficient to bury total barns of animals. If Mom Nature can take out a steady, one causes, why can’t she take care of a beehive?

Because it seems, beekeepers do have plans ready for the winter climate. And plenty of occasions, it boils all the way down to “don’t be within the storm to start with.”

“Most of North Dakota beekeepers are industrial,” defined Stewart, “and so they’re additionally migratory. In order that they have a number of thousand hives, and so they sometimes then migrate or transfer their bees within the fall to a greater place for the winter. lot of them will go to California, some nonetheless go to Texas, some go to Florida. You additionally see some folks construct and hire out entire insulated warehouses to maintain their bees protected and producing all by way of the winter.”

These methods of circumventing the issues of North Dakota life have allowed beekeepers to not solely maintain the honey flowing however to enhance their craft as properly. New advances in beekeeping collaboration and know-how have additionally helped to permit the trade to develop additional, and assist maintain our legacy as the highest honey producer in the US in full bloom.