To bee or not to bee? A Wilmington woman is helping locals get into backyard beekeeping

Jessy O’Keefe waved the smoker around as she prepared to inspect the hive, one of nearly half-dozen stored in the backyard of the house near Wilmington’s Bradley Creek.

“It redirects their focus and interferes with their alarm pheromones,” she said of the smoke, which in effect calms the bees down and makes it safer for both the insects and their human caretakers.

This is one of the busiest times of year for O’Keefe. Her business, Seaside Honeybees, installs and manages backyard hives for Wilmington-area residents and businesses. With starter colonies arriving from warmer climates, local ones sometimes swarming, and interest in backyard hives peaking as the weather warms up, O’Keefe and her handful of employees are busy setting up and maintaining her nearly 75 hives for more than 60 clients.

“You don’t have to do anything with the bees,” she said, although some of her customers do put out a water source and flowering plants to provide a nearby food source, even though bees will easily travel several miles for a meal. “We do it all for you.”

O’Keefe said reasons why people get into beekeeping vary.

That includes the production of honey, which can reach a gallon or more per hive per year.

“But honey really isn’t the main focus of most of my clients,” O’Keefe said.

Many folks rent a hive to help improve their neighborhood’s gardens, since bees are incredible and valuable pollinators. O’Keefe said many customers also like seeing bees because it’s a sign of a healthy and natural garden.

“I think people like the idea of helping bees and the environment,” she said. “Plus, it’s something unique to talk about and watch right there in your backyard.”

And, according to researchers and beekeepers, honey bees need every little bit of help they can get these days.

Lots of challenges

Honey bees are not native to the New World. They were brought here from Europe in the 1500s and 1600s by the first colonists to help pollinate many of the European-based crops the first settlers also brought with them, since they evolved in the same places as honey bees.

But while raising bees anywhere in the world has always had its ups and downs, the challenges facing bees have really started to sting in recent decades.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, major factors threatening honey bee health can be divided into four general areas: parasites and pests, pathogens, poor nutrition, and sublethal exposure to pesticides.

“What’s really good at keeping a pest insect of our crops and plants is also very good at killing off a beneficial insect, too,” said Dr. David Tarpy, a bee expert with N.C. State University, noting the importance of following an insecticide’s application rules to minimize unintended consequences. “So it becomes extremely complicated very quickly.”

Colony collapse disorder, where worker bees suddenly desert a hive, leaving the queen largely alone, is another concern. While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says hive loss from colony collapse disorder has declined in recent years, it is still a problem for beekeepers − and one researchers still have yet to determine what causes it.

Tarpy said on average beekeepers suffer about 40% colony loss every year.

“Even so, honey bees aren’t going extinct,” he said. “We can grow them back. But that way isn’t really sustainable and the uncertainty makes it a big problem.”

Recent months have been especially tough for the state’s bees, he added, noting the series of droughts and heavy rain events last year were followed by a unusually cold winter.

“The bees had a lot more stressors than normal, and we’re seeing that in the numbers,” Tarpy said, noting that anecdotal evidence shows hive loss in N.C. could have reached 60% this winter. “But bees are resilient.”

Native bees, of which there are more than 500 species native to N.C., also are on the ropes due to many of the same factors impacting their European brethren, along with habitat loss.

Pollinators in general also are feeling pressure from climate change as warming temperatures change when certain plants bloom. If specific plants that are favorites of insects bloom before the pollinators arrive, the insects can go hungry and fewer plants get pollinated.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the number of North American bumblebees has fallen nearly 50% since 1974. The biggest losses have occurred in places where temperatures have risen the highest.

Bees also play a vital role that goes well beyond keeping gardens full of pretty flowers.

About one mouthful in three in our diet directly or indirectly benefits from honey bee pollination, according to the federal agriculture department. Commercial production of many high-value and specialty crops like almonds, berries, fruits and vegetables are also almost completely dependent on pollination by honey bees.

“Their contribution really can’t be overstated,” Tarpy said.

THE BUZZ IN BLUE: Why does the Wilmington Police Department patch include a beehive?

‘Not like a regular job’

O’Keefe, who runs one of the few bee-rental businesses in the state, first caught the bee bug while working with a similar company in the Boston area for six years.

After arriving in the Port City earlier this decade, she decided to start her own business.

While it can be hectic at times, and not many businesses have to deal with bears taking out their products − as sometimes happens to one of her customer’s hives in Pender County, O’Keefe said she enjoys the connection she has to her bees and her clients.

“It’s not like a regular job,” she said smiling.

And the buzz about bees appears to have a growing following in North Carolina. While there’s no mandatory registration for beekeepers in the Tar Heel State, Tarpy said the best guess is there are an estimated 15,000 active beekeepers in the state, the most per capita in the nation.

“We have a vibrant, amazing beekeeping community here in North Carolina,” he said. “And it’s a hobby that has pretty positive impacts for the local landscape and the environment as a whole.”

State/local beekeeping resources

Reporter Gareth McGrath can be reached at GMcGrath@Gannett.com or @GarethMcGrathSN on X/Twitter. This story was produced with financial support from the Green South Foundation and the Prentice Foundation. The USA TODAY Network maintains full editorial control of the work. 

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Seaside Honeybees in Wilmington, NC, helps locals get into beekeeping