Bees Vanishing but Not Fear : Honey Makers Going Way of Citrus Groves; Sting Anxiety Can Be Eased
As much as the men who planted the trees, it was the bees who put the Orange in Orange County.
Living in man-made hives, the bees’ purpose was as simple as spring itself--to pollinate the fragrant orange blossoms so the trees would bear fruit.
But like the fast-disappearing orange tree, the bees have also become a casualty of the housing boom. In 1965, more than 200,000 beehives existed in Orange County, according to local bee experts. Only about 12,000 remain today.
Many of those hives belong to members of the Orange County Beekeepers Assn., a group of about 100 apiarists who are dedicated to preserving their craft.
“Without bees, life would be quite different,” said Robert Cosgrove, owner of Aliso Canyon Honey, a Laguna Beach company. Cosgrove sells honey, performs household bee removals and gives supermarket demonstrations on the benefits of bees.
“But even if they disappear from Orange County, they’ll be hard at work somewhere else,” he said.
After the bulldozers come through and condominiums replace the fields, cities often step in to enact laws against beekeeping, Lewis said. And the number of hives continues to shrink.
Ray Lewis, president of the beekeepers group, believes that anti-bee sentiment will only increase when so-called “killer bees,” a highly aggressive African species that has been slowly migrating north since its introduction in Brazil, make their way to Southern California in the next few years. The first detected swarms crossed into Texas last year.
“In other places like Central America, they’ve wiped out all bees, just to make sure” the African variety was eradicated, Lewis said. “I hope that doesn’t happen here.”
But the bee’s prime enemy is fear, beekeepers say. The stinger on a bee is less than an eighth of an inch long, yet the fear it elicits is almost primal, Lewis said.
“I’ve seen people go crazy. They run and wave their arms around,” he said. “But the ironic thing is that only serves to attract the bee.”
The association’s weapon against fear is education. Outreach efforts to schools and marketplaces have convinced the group that once the public’s initial fright is overcome, fascination sets in.
“People are extremely interested about bees,” said Cosgrove. In 1991, the Orange County Fair chose bees and honey as its theme for that year. Cosgrove and others made hundreds of bee demonstrations to schools and other groups in a six-month period.
Among their tools is the observation hive, a glass-enclosed case that works like an ant farm. People can watch bees going about their business of maintaining the hive.
And, for a touch of drama, there is the “bee-beard.” Using pheromones as a calming agent, the beekeeper allows thousands of bees to assemble on his or her face, literally forming a beard.
“Some people say I’m brave, some people think I’m crazy,” said Vinciana Pasierb, an association member who has given hundreds of lectures on bees. “I tell them the bees think I’m their queen. Students wind up fascinated by bees. Adults want to know how they can get their own beehives. Bees are wonderful.”
Bees are definitely productive. A 1989 Cornell University study put the value of pollination to U.S. agriculture at $9.7 billion. California remains the leading producer of honey in the United States, yielding 30 million pounds, worth about $17 million in 1991, according to the National Honey Board.
During the spring, beehives are loaded onto trucks and shipped to farms throughout California. From almonds to avocados, the types of fruits and vegetables they pollinate and the varieties of honey made as a result are as varied as items in a produce stand.
Locally, production has been limited by the decline in beekeeping. Honey producers like Cosgrove and Pasierb draw a few thousand pounds of honey from their hives (about 50 to 100 pounds per hive) and sell the sweet, sticky stuff to local markets.
Pasierb and other beekeepers say their product has better flavor than the national brands. Both also harvest bee pollen, a grainy substance with a sweet, almost nut-like flavor, that is sold in health-food stores for between $10 and $15 per pound.
Beehives are generally located in out-of-the-way places. Cosgrove has a few in a field outside Saddleback College, a few more tucked into an orange grove at Irvine Valley College and several in other locations.
He doesn’t usually wear protective clothing when he maintains the hives or harvests the honey. Cosgrove uses a small canister filled with smoke, pumping a few billows into the hive to pacify the bees.
“I’ve been stung a few times,” said the T-shirt-clad beekeeper as he pulled out a sheet of waxy, dripping honeycomb, bees buzzing around him in wide circles. “It doesn’t bother me much.”
Cosgrove got into beekeeping at age 5, after he purposefully knocked down the hive of a neighbor. But instead of yelling at the child, the hive owner talked to him about bees, and Cosgrove grew interested. The beekeeper eventually made the 5-year-old a tiny beekeeper’s protective outfit.
The Laguna Beach man sometimes remembers his introduction to bees when he gives demonstrations to schoolchildren in the county.
“I’m not so afraid about development pushing beekeeping out of the county,” he said. “My fear is that the generation to come could lose track of what beekeeping is about. That would be a shame.”
Harvesting the Hives The number of bee colonies producing honey in Orange County has fallen, more or less steadily, during the past five years. Total honey production , however, has varied during the same period because production averages per colony have increased. The gross value of the honey crop declined 25% last year, but still exceeded the levels recorded in 1987-1989. Producing Colonies 1987: 6,373 1988: 3,986 1989: 3,647 1990: 3,689 1991: 1,959* * Most of the 1990-91 loss occurred when one beekeeper moved out of the county. *
Pounds of Honey Produced 1987: 222,673 1988: 187,581 1989: 246,976 1990: 288,148 1991: 149,805 *
Average Pounds Per Colony 1987: 34.9 1988: 47.1 1989: 67.7 1990: 78.1 1991: 76.5 *
Crop Value Gross value in thousands 1987: $128.9 1988: $100.3 1989: $142.3 1990: $226.5 1991: $169.3 Source: Orange County Agricultural Commissioner Researched by APRIL JACKSON / Los Angeles Times
