Business Spotlight: Learn what all the buzz is about at The Beekeeper

The next time you see honeybees pollinating the flora in your yard, you may want to thank your neighbor, says Heather Angeloff, owner of The Beekeeper in Carson City.

Angeloff said beekeeping has been growing in popularity in Northwestern Nevada where she has served customers for the past two years at her retail store located within the Colonial Village Business Park in Carson City.

"Around here I've seen an increase in backyard beekeepers and that really makes me happy," she said.

Backyard beekeepers are those who place a hive or two in their backyards to pollinate their flower beds, trees and other plants. Their bees then buzz around the neighborhood helping to pollinate other flora.

"Their neighbors appreciate that, because the bees help out the flora all around the neighborhood," Angeloff said.

Not all of Angeloff's customers are backyard beekeepers, though. Others are hobbyists who may keep several hives, operating businesses from the honey and wax produced by the bees.

"For hobbyist beekeepers, they usually have 10 or more hives," she said. "They tend to be the ones that make other things out of bee products, and they do have little cottage industries associated with beekeeping and the products the bees provide for us."

Wax harvested from the hives can be used to make candles, lip balms, lotions or bars.

Angeloff has been beekeeping for about six years. She started while living in Alaska and continued after moving to Northern Nevada in 2013.

The book "Honeybee Democracy" captured her interest in beekeeping, she said, inspiring her to start her own hives and raise a colony of honeybees.

"I found the whole social structure of bees fascinating," she said. "When I got my first hive, I could just sit there and watch them for hours."

Angeloff said bees can survive Northern Nevada winters as long as people take care of them. That means keeping them fed when their natural food sources run out of nectar.

"You have to take care of your hive year round," she said. "If you don't feed them, they could go rob somebody else's hive, or go through their stores of food and abandon their hive."

Angeloff recommends paying attention to the nectar flow of plants. After an average Northern Nevada winter, the nectar flow can dry up by mid-summer. But the flow can fluctuate depending on how wet or dry the winter has been.

Beekeepers, she said, should be watchful of nectar levels and be ready to feed their bees once that flow as stopped. Bees need to store up enough food to get them through the winter, so feeding them is an essential part of beekeeping.

The typical hive features two deep boxes, Angeloff said, the bottom is reserved for the queen and her brood. The top deep box is where bees store their honey and pollen to feed upon in winter.

"You always leave them with that second box," she said. "That's for them and is their store."

Add a third deep box for any honey or wax that you want to harvest for yourself, Angeloff advised.

Bees go into a cluster when winter sets in to keep themselves and their queen warm. They eat about a millimeter of food a day, gradually moving up the comb.

Angeloff said bees can reach the very top of the comb by January, so it's important that beekeepers take advantage of a temperate day that month to check the hive and make sure they still have enough food left on the combs.

"Do a quick opening of the cover to see where they are at," she said. "If they are all at the top, you are going to want to feed them, because that means they've run out of the center honey."

Feed bees simple carbohydrate sugar sources, Angeloff said, such as fondant or winter patties during the winter. Avoid products with pollen, because that could signal to the queen it's time to start laying her eggs. Winter is too early for that, she said.

Leftover candy canes are a good source of sugar for the bees, she said. Plus those holiday confections repel mites, one of the major scourges of a hive and a reason for some colony collapses.

Improper application of pesticides can also cause a honeybee colony to collapse, Angeloff said, because those chemicals seep into the nectar, which is transported to the hive and ingested by every bee from adult to larvae.

"It works at the genetic level and contaminates the hive," she said. "If you use pesticides, follow directions and don't overapply. Do it early in the morning so it can dry before the bees come out, or after dark when the bees go back in the hive."

Hives should be checked at least once every two weeks, about every 7-10 days, but not so frequent that the bees become disturbed.

Although honeybees are not native to North America, Angeloff said, beekeepers are still tasked with being good stewards of animals taken out of the wild.

"We have to take care of them if we are going to put them in these constructs that we've made for them," she said.

To learn more about beekeeping visit Angeloff at The Beekeeper, at 1801 East William Street, Unit 1, or call 775-432-8198. Also visit wwww.beekeepernv.com or email thebeekeepernv@gmail.com.