In Conversation with Zach Be of Honeybird Apiary   By Monica Peabody, Staff member

I spoke with the appropriately named Zach Be of Honeybird Apiary over a cup of tea at his farm and apiary in Little Rock.

Zach: Yes. I’m exploring some new farms this year. At Helsing  Junction there is a lot of irrigated pasture around, so late in the season the bees there made a lot of clover honey, which I wasn’t  expecting at all. There are different perks from different places. Some are earlier, some are later.

Monica: We are very excited that you are a new vendor at the Co-op, providing delicious local honey. Tell me all about Honeybird Apiary.

Zach: I have about 100 hives now. I have 25 here and the rest at different local farms.

Monica: What’s the reason for having them in different places?

Zach: If you have too many in one place, they’re not as productive; the bees use up all the nectar and pollen resources. If you spread them out, you get more honey.

Monica: That makes sense, and you probably get different flavors as well.

Monica: How can you tell when it’s ready?

Zach: The bees cap it. They bring it in as nectar and evaporate the  water off it. When it’s honey, the sugar content is so high it won’t allow any microbial growth, so it can’t spoil. When it’s at that stage the bees put a thin wax capping over it to preserve it. When they start capping it you know it’s ripe and cured.

Monica: We have a couple of hives, and our bees have not yet survived a winter. Do you have good luck with survival?

Zach: Yes, I have good luck, a 90 – 100% survival rate over the last few years. I put a lot of work into it. I treat them for mites and make sure they have good queens and good food. They make more honey in subsequent years too; the first year they are just getting established. My goal is to get up to 150 hives next year.

Monica: I think yours is the most local honey we have at the Co-op.

Zach: I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that it’s the least commercial too. A lot of honeys are from big commercial beekeeping operations who mostly focus on pollination contracts as their income source and honey is a byproduct.

Monica: Pollination contracts?

Zach: Farmers pay beekeepers with a large number of hives to bring the hives to crops that need pollination. Almonds are a classic example, clover, meadow foam, alfalfa are others. There are huge conventional farms in Eastern Washington, Oregon and other parts of the country. My bees are on small organic farms around this area. I don’t use any antibiotics in my hives. A lot of commercial beekeepers treat prophylactically with antibiotics and they use really intense systemic miticides and strong synthetic chemicals. I don’t use any of those. I use organic acids; oxalic acid is the main one. It’s food grade and doesn’t absorb into the wax or honey and it’s easy on the bees. It takes a lot more work, because you have to treat multiple times at the right times. The chemical ones are a plastic strip coated in the chemical that you just put in the hive once and you’re done. I have to vaporize mine into the hive, so it’s more work.

Monica: Which farms do you have your hives on?

Zach: This past summer I had them at Piece by Piece, Wobbly Cart and Helsing Junction and they all want them back next year. I had some at Calliope Farm the summer before last and I’m going to bring them back next summer. Kingfisher Farm is just up the street from me so my bees definitely go there. I’m hoping to bring some new products to the Co-op next year. I’d love to offer fresh frozen or dehydrated pollen, honeycomb and propolis extract too. I’m hoping next year to have some more varieties. I want to take some bees out toward the coast in search of fireweed and knotweed honey. Knotweed honey is really good, it’s black like molasses and super tasty. Fireweed is on the opposite end of the spectrum, it’s lighter in flavor.

Monica: Tell me why people should eat local honey?

Zach: Supporting local businesses keeps money in our local economy.

Monica: Very important right now!

Zach: A lot of people talk about how local honey is good for allergies because there are bits of pollen and propolis and different parts of all the plants in the area in the honey, so you are giving yourself a homeopathic dose of those when you’re eating local honey. Our honey isn’t filtered; we just put it through a pretty coarse stainless steel screen. We don’t fine-filter out all the little bits, so there’s a lot of good medicine in there. Everything is from plants; the honey, the pollen, the propolis is all plant based so you’re getting exposure to all the local plants when you eat honey. Scale is important. We’re really focused on making good quality honey; that’s why we’re doing what we’re doing. Commercial beekeepers are not focused on that, it’s a really low priority for them. They are much less thoughtful about the chemicals that they use and the way they treat the bees. Often, they feed sugar syrup or corn syrup to the bees and then harvest honey not long afterwards. There are a lot of questionable practices that are not regulated at all with honey.

Monica: I guess you couldn’t certify honey as organic because you don’t know where the bees are going.

Zach: When you go to the Co-op, you see USDA certified organic honey. That’s a dead giveaway that honey is from another country because domestically we don’t have any organically certifying program for honey anywhere in the country. But the USDA does have reciprocity with other certifying agencies in other countries, so if you see USDA certified organic honey it means it’s from another country. As domestic honey producers that’s not a thing we can get
because there’s not a program for it.

Monica: That’s an important thing to tell our shoppers, because people are often looking for organic and may not know this.

Zach: Yes, and while this honey meets all the organic standards, the USDA can’t regulate all the land around where the bees go. And they can’t do that in other countries either, but because they have reciprocity with the certifying agencies from those countries, if that agency says it’s organic then the USDA agrees and stamps it organic. Brazil is a big producer of honey.

Monica: Another good reason to buy local honey is because it doesn’t have to travel great distances so it’s more ecological.

Zach: Totally, we shop at the Co-op all the time, so we just drop it off when we’re shopping.There’s not even a delivery; it carpools with us.

Monica: That’s why I love our local vendors. Our local farmers often do their shopping after bringing in their deliveries. I love to buy food from people I know!