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Community Corner

What Do Farmington's Bees Do During Winter?

Don't worry. They're warmer than you are.

As hard as this winter has been for us, have you ever wondered what it’s been like to be a bee in winter?

It's apparently not as bad as I feared. Ted Jones, who runs Jones Apiaries with his wife Becky, explained.

“In the fall, when the temperature drops below the 50s, the bees get into a cluster that looks like a basketball. The bees on the outside of the cluster are interlocked. The bees on the inside are flying around. The temperature inside the ball goes into the 70s,” she said.

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It hasn’t been so good for Jones. “This winter has been unusually hard for me to get to the hives to check on them. I try to snowshoe in.”

The Jones leaves 80 to 100 pounds of honey in each hive for the bees to survive on through the winter. If a hive is running low on honey he will add more or add a supplement. Starvation is a leading cause of hive loss.

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“You can’t take too much off,” he explained. “The average hive produces a surplus of 60 to 80 pounds of honey, but you can’t start taking it until late June.”

Ted and Becky Jones' career as beekeepers began in 1972 when they were given a beehive as a wedding gift. They began their business of beekeeping for pollination and honey in 1977.

“There has always been beekeeping in Farmington,” Jones said, “but a lot of beekeepers gave up in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the varroa mite attacked the honeybee population. It is much harder to keep bees now.”

Jones Apiaries grew from a few hives in the early '90s to around 200 by 2,000. They now care for over 300 colonies all over the state of Connecticut.

“When the temperature gets above 55 degrees the bees will start to come out for short flights. Once the willows and skunk cabbage are in bloom, they will be back to gathering pollen.”

Both Ted and Becky have been active in educating others about the importance of bees. They are very concerned about the increase in colony collapse and the decrease in the number of hives statewide as about 80 percent of our food depends on the honeybee for pollination. In addition to teaching beekeeping classes, Ted is president of Connecticut Beekeepers Association and Becky is on the Board of Directors of the American Beekeeping Federation.

Learn more about bees on March 16 when the American Honey Queen visits Connecticut for the first time to participate in Ag Day at the State Capital. Becky Jones will exhibit an observation hive.

For more information contact Becky Jones at 860.677.9391.

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