INDIANAPOLIS (WRTV) -- Ross Harding has been a beekeeper for more than 20 years. He started his journey with a single beehive found on Craigslist and a borrowed suit. Today, he manages an operation of more than 330 hives across central Indiana.
“Everything is stuck shut with propolis. It's so sticky,” Harding said while working with his hives. He noted that once a colony is strong, the bees can draw out new comb in a matter of days.
Harding tries to average around 60 pounds of honey per beehive, but the middle of summer presents a seasonal challenge for the insects.
“It's the dearth time. It's the time there's no flowers for bees,” Harding said. “People always want to know what they can do to help our bees here locally, and that is to plant flowers, which bloom mid-to-late summer and into fall.”
With the sheer volume of honey that can come from a single hive, several central Indiana residents who started beekeeping as a hobby are now running businesses right from the end of their driveways.
Ross Williams is one of them.
“It became a hobby for us about 15 years ago with one hive, and then we continued to two hives and three hives, and now we manage up to 60 hives,” Williams said.
Williams processes the honey in his home before bringing it out to his neighborhood stand. “Most people do really enjoy that the honey comes from across the street from our house,” he said.
To keep their businesses operating smoothly, beekeepers will start planning for next year in just a few weeks. “We say our new year starts Aug. 1,” Williams said. “So we make sure we have a good population, that we're leaving plenty of honey in the hive, that they're free of any mites or diseases.”
With all of that hard work and year-round planning comes a sweet reward.
“It's extremely rewarding to put the work into something and to have the vision and see it turn into a product, and then have someone buy the product and then tell you how great it is,” Williams said.
Beyond selling local honey, Williams hopes to continue educating the next generation of beekeepers and environmental stewards.
“We will continue to educate people and enlighten people of how the bees live, work, reproduce, and create wonderful honey,” Williams said. “We love it. It's just a passion of ours now."
