GRANDFATHER STAFF TAKES UP BEEKEEPING

Visitors to the travel attraction will probably never know it, but Grandfather Mountain has started raising its own honey bees.

Sharing a commitment to the health of the environment, Grandfather Mountain President Crae Morton and Trails Manager Luke Appling realized that they also share an interest in honey bees.

“As part of our greening program Luke and I understand that bees help create a healthy environment for flowering plants,” explained Morton. “Establishing our own hives can only help our conservation efforts.”

As a first step toward developing their interest in bees, the pair sought advice from the former Director of North Carolina Travel & Tourism Charles Heatherly who now serves as President of the North Carolina State Beekeepers Association.

Heatherly hooked the pair up with Amy Johnston, the president of the Watauga Chapter of the Beekeepers Association. Johnson visited the site in March to look at different locations that Morton and Appling thought might work for bee hives. Before she departed, Johnston offered to serve as their mentor through the Beekeepers Association mentoring program.

With Johnston's guidance, the apprentice beekeepers decided that the most secure location for the new bee hives would be in a cage located behind the animal habitats. The cage was originally constructed to hold Aspen the cougar when he first arrived on the mountain and was too small to introduce into the habitat with the Mountain’s adult cougars. The cage offers a huge advantage in that it will protect the bees from wild bears looking to plunder the hives, and the remote behind-the-scenes location keeps the bees away from pedestrian traffic.

Morton and Appling began reading up on beekeeping and attending monthly meetings of the Beekeepers Association. They also invited other Grandfather staffers to join them in constructing the boxes needed to house the bee colonies. An order was placed with Brushy Mountain Bee Farm and on May 10th Johnston arrived with four queens and the workers to support them.

A front blew in the day after the bees were installed in the hives, bringing with it cold temperatures and the highest winds so far this year.

“The first week and a half was terrible. High winds, cold, and rain do not make good conditions for establishing bee colonies,” Morton said.

The keepers chose to supplement the bees' diet with sugar water for the first few weeks so that the insects would not have to wander far from their new hives in search of sustenance.

“The bees are doing great,” reported Morton. “Two of the hives are very vibrant, one is typical and one is a bit lethargic. Overall we are very pleased.”

No honey will be harvested from the hives in the first year because the young colonies will need all they can produce for themselves. Morton says there are no intentions to sell the honey commercially, but he hopes that by 2009 they can harvest enough to keep a jar on the employee lunch table.

“Our goal is to study the bees and add our experience to the collective knowledge of all beekeepers so the community can best understand why bee colonies are dying in greater numbers,” said Morton. “That, and bees make honey, which is always fun to eat.”

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