It’s all the buzz
Backyard beekeeping can be a honey of a hobby
Have you checked the price
By Fred Mays
of honey lately at the
grocery store? Satisfying
that sweet tooth has
gotten expensive. And to
think, some people get
their supply of honey for
free. A growing number
of people in Brevard County are turning to
backyard beekeeping as a hobby, and for some, a
source of income.
Beekeeping has been popular for some time, but
the year of lockdown from COVID-19 prompted
some people to turn to their backyards for an
opportunity to get away from the daily dose of
bad pandemic news.
There are two beekeeping clubs in Brevard
County. The Brevard Backyard Beekeepers is in
Cocoa, and the South Brevard Beekeepers club is
in Melbourne. Between them they have several
hundred members who tend to their hives in
their backyards or at communal locations.
Florida’s beekeeping guru is Jamie Ellis of the
University of Florida. He says across the state
there are more than 600,000 bee colonies. The
bee population is healthy and expanding. Ellis
attributes this to warm weather, abundance of
flowers and pollinator-friendly vegetation, and
climate change.
FRED MAYS
Lew Kontnik and his wife, Brenna Sorensen, wear protective clothing when tending to
their backyard hive in West Melbourne.
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