That doesn’t prevent 91-year-old Oswego beekeeper Jim Howard from working with bees. “It’s a business. But it’s a fun business,” he says
By Jolene Cleaver
What is the local cost of keeping food naturally sweetened with honey in a global food market?
Longtime Central New York apiaries, who say the pursuit of beekeeping is so much more than a hobby, have their finger on the comb when it comes to making hives profitable — which can be a challenge amid rising costs.
Looking broadly, the average price of honey in 2023 was about $2.52 per pound in the United States, according to reports published by statista.com, a market research tool.
Following a trend line analysis of price per pound, data shows a steady increase, in line with rising prices of all other consumer goods, from $1.60 per pound in 2010.
While that price hike trickles to the store shelf, apiaries continue to share messages of importance and education surrounding hive health and pollination best practices.
“We feel we are doing something for humanity,” 91-year-old Oswego beekeeper Jim Howard said. “Everybody needs to taste honey. Without bees there can be food shortages.”
Underscoring Howard’s remarks, the United States Department of Agriculture has long noted honeybees and other native pollinators are responsible for one in every three bites of food that we eat. It’s estimated pollination helps increase the United State’s crop value by $15 billion each year.
Further, New York’s Cornell Cooperative Extension notes that nearly 75% of all crops around the world are at least partially dependent on pollinators.
For local beekeepers like Howard, who has maintained hives for more than 50 years, his “Hives of Howard” enterprise produces healthy, raw honey products that supports the mission of maintaining local pollination practices that in turn support food growth systems.
Howard currently has four apiaries located west of the Oswego River. Honey produced in his hives is a blend of floral, orchard and farmland sources.
Decades ago he was introduced to the art by a family member who was then living in California.
After seeing the process of bees working as a team to create the natural sweetener, he was hooked, he said. “I became an instant honey-taker, not just a beekeeper.”
He started out with one hive. His hobby grew into a small business over the years. With the mission of community education, Howard provides mentorship to students at SUNY Oswego. Every fall, associate professor Karen Sime counts on Howard and his hives as an enrichment experience for students taking her entomology class.
Over the decades, Howard has sold his glass-jarred honey gathered from all wooden hive boxes (“I tend to not grab onto anything that isn’t natural.”) at farmers’ markets. This year, Howard said he’s slowing down just a bit and is selling his honey to dedicated customers right from his back door.
But, Howard and other beekeepers point out the work of keeping hives isn’t always warm and sweet.
In late fall and winter, farmers’ markets are sometimes tricky to get to for beekeepers who are busy getting their hives ready to last through the winter, Howard explained. The cold winter winds of Lake Ontario cause many beekeepers to find ways to make their boxes cozy and warm enough for the winter, he added.
But, fall and spring are busy times for hive maintenance, he said.
While hives are getting winterized in the late fall, March is a time when they start opening back up, he said.
That work doesn’t get done without proper gear. Equipment costs have gone up in recent years, he added.
Then, there is the mental work that needs to be done. The romanticism of bees comes with a bit of self-reflection, Howard said.
In order to get into beekeeping, “you have to understand how bees operate. You also have to understand yourself. What frightens you? How your body movements impact the space around you. Bees are very intuitive and can pick up on emotion,” he explained.
Some area beekeepers speculate that on average, 80% of beekeepers will quit after two years.
Once you understand how bees operate, you can watch them and find ways to minimize losses to the hive every year, Howard said, pointing out the amount of work that goes into keeping bees.
Equipment costs and shortages
Elsewhere around the region, turning the conversation to hive upkeep, beekeepers like Bill Kaufman in Bridgeport report costs and equipment of keeping bees has been on the rise recently, which is driving up the cost of local honey at markets.
According to the Bee Informed Partnership Inc., a nation-wide organization that surveys beekeepers, there is nearly a 40% winter loss rate for bee colonies in New York state. Honeybee populations have largely been maintained because beekeepers have remained vigilant in replacing their dead colonies every year.
However, these replacement percentages are not sustainable. They point to a much larger problem. Not only are we seeing losses in honeybees, but there is also good evidence to suggest we’re witnessing population declines in both wild bees and other native pollinators as well, according to information from Cornell Cooperative Extension.
Talking about the struggles of local apiaries, Kaufman, who both keeps bees and rescues and relocates honey bee swarms, said large scale agriculture engages in practices like monocropping that are leading to bees not frequenting areas that would be beneficial.
Monocropping is the practice of planting thousands of acres of a single crop that may not be pollinator-friendly. This leads to honeybees abandoning an area in search of plots where they can forage due to lack of biodiversity.
“That’s why there’s a shortage of honey bees,” Kaufman said, adding that commercial pesticides being used are a death sentence.
If pesticides are applied near hives at certain times of the year when honeybees are most active, “It definitely poisons the bee colony. It sets them back several days,” he said. “Typically pesticides aren’t sprayed if there is a blooming cycle. But not everyone adheres to only spraying during certain times of the growing season.”
“It’s a business. But it’s a fun business,” Howard said. “But the cost of beekeeping now has made it a little out of reach for some.”
At the end of the day, Kaufman and Howard agree for those interested, there are community resources and collective knowledge to learn from.
