Living the Hive Life

A visit to beekeeper Pete Roberts’ Tall Pines Apiaries in Winter Beach is akin to taking a step back into Old Florida. Located on 5 acres thick with palmettos, cabbage palms, Florida slash pines, and other native vegetation, it’s where his thriving bee colonies are hard at work producing honey that is a popular product at the Ocean Drive Farmers Market and other specialty markets in Vero Beach.

For Roberts, who has been raising bees in Indian River County for over 45 years—full-time for the last 25 years—it’s a profession he loves. Part of it is the solitary work outdoors. “I’m out in the woods by myself,” the soft-spoken beekeeper says, “with no one to bother me. A snake crawls by, I don’t even notice, and he doesn’t notice me.”

There’s no denying the work is also gratifying when you consider the importance of bees to our ecosystem and economy. “We all know that bees pollinate endless crops,” Roberts shrugs at this no-brainer. Indeed, according to the Florida Department of Agriculture, the state is home to more than 300 species of bees that enhance our food supply. Without the honeybee, certain crops, such as blueberries, watermelons, cucumbers, and onions, would produce little to no fruit at all.

Roberts’ journey into the beekeeping business started with his two brothers after they moved from South Florida. They grew up in Dania, and one by one they moved to Vero Beach to get away from the urban congestion. “One brother had the bees in Dania as a hobby, and when he moved up here, he brought the bees with him,” he says. “My other brother, who was already here, started helping him. I followed in 1978.”

He adds, “We moved it up from a hobby to a small commercial operation, and we had about 150 hives and made honey on the side.”

Roberts’ brothers eventually gave up beekeeping, but he stayed in while working as a cabinetmaker until the early 2000s, when he phased out of that work to become a full-time beekeeper.

“It was a natural progression for me,” he says, “and I like the bees.” There is, in fact, a lot to appreciate about bees and how they work in their colonies.

Highly social, honeybees operate in a structured network. The worker bees, all females, are foragers. They collect nectar and pollen from flowers, and this serves as the carbohydrate and protein for the bees and brood back at the hive. The workers also visit ponds and moisture-filled sources such as mud for water needed to hydrate the larvae and dilute the honey produced in the hive. Another stop might be to a tree to collect propolis, a sticky sap used as a glue or caulking to make the hive airtight.

Back at the colony, the bees work as a relay team. Incoming foraging bees hand off their newly acquired nectar and pollen to household bees who process the substances and place them in the appropriate honeycomb storage cells. Nurse bees feed the larvae; other bees mix propolis with wax, deposited from their wax glands, to reinforce the structure and close gaps.

The queen is the only fertile female in the hive, and her job is to reproduce, with the help of male drone bees, whose only role is to mate with the queen.

As Roberts put it, the hive is a model of productivity and efficiency. “There is no question in the hive. If something needs to be done, it gets done; if it needs cleaning, it gets cleaned; if it needs water, they collect water. They know what to do and do it.”

Issues outside the bees’ control, however, account for the loss of some 30 to 40 percent of Roberts’ hives each year. “Through globalization we now have all kinds of issues that come to our door. We have a mite from Asia and a beetle from Africa. But the main problem is the mite, and it’s very hard to control.” Roberts does not use the pesticides that large commercial bee operations resort to. “I use formic acid,” he explains. “It naturally occurs in bees and is EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] approved.” To make up for the yearly attrition, Roberts is constantly rebuilding or creating new colonies.

The beekeeper relies on the pollination of four major crops for his honey: oranges, palmettos, wildflowers, and Brazilian peppers. Bees have a range of 2 miles comfortably and can travel as far as 5 miles to forage. The demise of many of the area’s citrus groves and the continuing commercial development is another concern for beekeepers. “I can’t make honey out of asphalt and concrete,” Roberts laments.

He maintains between 150 and 200 hives on his land in Winter Beach and Fellsmere, and on Indian River Land Trust property along the lagoon. Local beekeepers have hives on four Land Trust properties, and it is a mutually beneficial arrangement, according to David Fuss, the Land Trust’s director of land stewardship.

“The beekeepers are particularly interested in our riverfront properties because of the access to the mangroves,” Fuss says. “Black and white mangroves bloom once a year from about mid-May into July, and that provides a really good food source for their bees. As housing developments go in, that displaces the existing habitat.”

Fuss adds, “Mangroves are becoming increasingly scarce, and they are state-protected species. So, from the Land Trust’s perspective, it is beneficial for us to have a ready group of pollinators for those mangroves as well as the many varieties of wildflowers that are native to our area.”

Besides honey, beeswax is another important by-product of keeping hives. “It’s actually worth more than honey because of its commercial and industrial uses,” Roberts says, adding a little-known historical fact: “During World War II there were more beehives in the United States than today because people were encouraged to keep bees for the war effort. The wax was used to coat steel and bullets.” Roberts sells about 50 pounds of excess beeswax per year.

When the time comes to harvest the honey, Roberts first cuts the combs from the frames with a hot knife and then uses a centrifugal force extractor to remove the honey from the tightly packed cells. Honey is valued as a natural sweetener and is considered a highly nutritious food that can be eaten in its natural state and included in a wide variety of recipes.

It is also believed to have medicinal properties, and remedies abound for its use to treat ulcers, colds, coughs, bladder infections, and other maladies. It also promises to induce sleep and even cure a hangover.

Another claim many people hold is that eating locally produced honey will develop an immunity to hay fever and other allergies. Unfortunately, medical experts disagree. Vero Beach allergy specialist Dr. Michael Wein says, “I love honey, but it does not treat pollen allergy.”

He explains, “There is a widespread and false belief that eating local, raw honey can help allergies by regularly exposing you to pollen. There are several factors to consider. First, the concept is appealing. Allergy injections are a similar concept, using pollen, and are very effective—and also FDA approved. The allergy injections work by exposing people to small amounts of pollen at regular intervals. An important difference is that an allergist uses a precise dose of pollen, which is slowly increased for optimum results. Hundreds of studies have shown allergy shots are very effective for decreasing pollen allergy symptoms. Interestingly, the dose of pollen in an allergist’s office is increased over time by a factor of 100,000, and sometimes up to one million. That would be a lot of honey!”

Second, Wein points out, the small amounts of pollen contained in local, unprocessed honey is the wrong kind. “Pollen from trees, grasses, and weeds, which are the true allergy-causing culprits, are called ‘anemophilous,’ wind pollinated, and these plants are not pollinated by bees.” The pollen in honey, however, is primarily from flowers; carried by bees and not by wind, it is known as ‘entymophilous’ and, he says, “does not generally cause allergy symptoms.”

Third, Wein says, not only is there “no scientific proof that eating local honey will improve allergies,” there is at least one study that provides positive evidence that no such connection exists.

He concludes, “That being said, I am a fan of local honey. Honey is wonderful, offers other health benefits, and you are supporting the bees and the local economy, too. I fully support buying local honey; just don’t ask the bees to cure your pollen allergies.”

While Roberts is in the business of beekeeping for the honey, he also sees it as his business to educate people about the importance of bees. “There are places in China where they are pollinating pears by hand. They have talked about pollinating with robotics and miniature drones because they have lost a lot of bees.”

We are indeed fortunate to have bees in our workforce right here in Indian River County, and we have Pete Roberts and other local beekeepers, with their knowledge, experience, and fortitude, to thank for that.