- April 18, 2024
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Beekeepers Marlin Athearn and Jack Dunlop have been taking care of the hive at the EDC since the facility was built. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Bees work inside the hive at the EDC. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Honeybees are not native to the U.S. They were brought by colonists from Europe. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
Beekeeper Marlin Athearn points out bee behavior inside the hive. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
A carpenter bee pollinates plants outside the Environmental Discovery Center. It is a native species. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
The Environmental Discovery Center has a honeybee hive on display year-round. Photo by Jarleene Almenas
While strolling the grounds at the Environmental Discovery Center, visitors might hear a soft buzz in the air.
Since the city of Ormond Beach opened the facility in 2016, a honeybee hive has been on constant display. Screened on both sides with glass, the hive provides the public with an educational opportunity to learn about the inner workings of perhaps what is one of the sweetest working environments in nature.
Beekeepers Marlin Athearn and Jack Dunlop have been instrumental to the hive's success from the start. Both members of the Beekeepers of Volusia County organization, the men describe beekeeping as both an art and a science.
"You have to do it," said Dunlop, an Ormond Beach resident. "You can read all the books you want, but until you open that hive, and start getting into it, you don’t really learn how to be a beekeeper.”
Despite the decades of experience collectively between them both, there is still learning to be done.
“Usually with beekeeping, the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know," Athearn said.
Athearn, a New Smyrna Beach resident, was brought in to the EDC as a consultant to help put the honeybee program together. Dunlop, being a local resident, answered his call for volunteered help, and the pair has been overseeing the colony of bees ever since.
Beekeeping was always an interesting topic for Athearn. Around 2005, a friend of his, who happened to be a beekeeper, was leaving the state and wanted to leave his bees with someone to take care of them. Athearn picked them up, and even though he didn't know what he was doing — there was no local beekeeper club at the time — he decided to give it a go.
"I just read books and messed it up” said Athearn as he laughed. “You do a lot of that with beekeeping. You learn from your mistakes.”
Now, 16 years later, Athearn has enough successful hives that he is able to sell his honey at local farmer's markets and events.
Dunlop knew he wanted to be a beekeeper when he retired. In 2013, a friend who used to be a beekeeper mentored him and helped him get started. He met Athearn when he joined the Beekeepers of Volusia County, which was formed in 2010 by Tom Bartlett.
What makes a good beekeeper? The continuing educational programs such as the Bee College hosted by the University of Florida's Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab. A lot of beekeeping today pertains to keeping bees alive, Dunlop said, and programs and new research help make that possible, especially as honey bees are not native to the United States; they were brought over from Europe by the colonists.
Most of the work Athearn and Dunlop do at the EDC's hive is monitor it for issues. If there's nothing wrong, they don't touch the hive.
“In beekeeping, the beekeeper is basically a steward," Athearn said. "So you basically only need to interject yourself when the hives start to have an issue, or you can see an issue coming on. The objective is to try to fix the problem, or help them through the problem so that [the hive] continues on its way.”
Some common issues that may arise have to do with swarming, the honey bees' way of reproduction where a colony splits into two or more. Unborn queens are left behind, and once born, they must leave the hive, mate, and return. Sometimes, due to predators like dragon flies and windshields, the queen bees don't return.
That's when the beekeeper comes in. Without a queen, the hive will die. The beekeeper then can either put resources in place to breed a new queen, or simply buy one.
The current queen bee in the EDC is fairly young. The hive swarmed a couple times last month, and re-queened itself without Dunlop or Athearn's help. That's a sign of a successful hive, confirmed Athearn.
What about the honey the bees produce? Generally, the honey sold for public consumption is excess honey from the hive, or what the bees won't need to sustain themselves in the winter. At the EDC, they leave it alone.
When the slogan "Save the Bees" is used, it's not referring to honey bees — it's the native bees that need help.
In the state of Florida, there are over 300 species of native bees. Loss of habitat and the use of pesticides in lawns are some of the biggest threats to native bees, many of which nest underground. Using native plants in yards is one way to help.
"People will want to save nature, except in their yard," Dunlop said. "Weeds are where the native bees get their food from.”
During the honey bee programs he leads at the EDC, Dunlop will often focus on the basic biology of honeybees and his role as a beekeeper. The hope is that, by getting the public interested in honey bees, they will also take an interest in native bee species.
“The more the community learns about honeybees, the more vigilant they’ll be about helping bees in general," Athearn said.
