Patty Lazzari got interested in beekeeping for a practical reason: pollination.
As a certified canner, she was accustomed to putting up fruit from the very productive apple tree in her Wheat Ridge yard. She and her husband, Dan, didn’t worry much about pollination. They depended on what they called the “bee tree,” a haven on the greenbelt that abuts their yard, which bees buzzed around constantly.
Then, the bee tree died and the bees disappeared.
“My apple tree produced no fruit,” Lazzari says.
While she and her husband weren’t certain that the loss of the bee tree was to blame for the problem, it seemed likely. They decided it was time to become beekeepers to boost pollination, not only for the apple tree, but to help improve yields in the vegetable garden.
This year, Lazzari took a class at Dakota Bees in Wheat Ridge and purchased supplies to begin beekeeping.
As Lazzari gets ready to care for her bees — she’s also purchased a colony, known as a package, from Dakota — she is looking forward to the benefits that the insects will provide.
“Having bees will bring back pollination for my yard,” she says.
But the bees are also meaningful in another way. Her husband died a little more than a year ago, and she sees beekeeping as a continuation of something they did and planned to do together.
“I want to carry out (his) legacy,” she says.
Bee populations in Colorado, the rest of the country and the world have seen a steep decline. As many as one-third of the mouthfuls of food humans eat are are directly or indirectly affected by honeybee pollination, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. No one factor appears to be at fault for the declining bee populations.
Don Studinski, CEO of Broomfield-based , says bees face five major challenges:
“There’s an unbelievable amount of poison in the habitat that they can’t see or smell. It doesn’t kill them, but it attacks their immune systems, making them less capable of dealing with other stressors.
“Then there’s the parasite Varroa mites feeding off the bees,” he said. “They become a vectors for the next two problems: bacteria and viruses. The bees get sick.
Finally, it’s getting tougher for bees to forage for pollen and nectar, he said. “Whenever humans see an empty space of land, we feel like we have to build on it.”
Of the plants dug up for new subdivisions, he says: “We might call them weeds, when to honeybees, they look like the Garden of Eden.”
Studinski’s business is all about bees. He sells honey, honeybees, beeswax and an instructional book on beekeeping. He collects swarms this time of year, and removes colonies from structures such as the walls of people’s homes. He offers pollination services to farmers and homeowners mostly on the Front Range, spending much of his day traveling from hive to hive.
Studinski also teaches beekeeping classes at Regis University in Denver and in Loveland. He has taken a different approach to the classes, teaching each step once a month or more, so that newbie beekeepers can have support for every step of beekeeping as they need it — and they often do.
“The class is specific to the time of year,” he says. “We’ll do a classroom lecture and slides and then go outside and get our hands on bees.”
He says would-be beekeepers can buy their own hives and follow along, or they can go through the class and actually get experience with bees to decide if they think beekeeping is for them.
“They can dip their toe in the water and see if they like it or not and not have to make nearly as much of an investment,” he says.
Studinski is experimenting with teaching classes this way, because itap not uncommon for new beekeepers to fail, although, to his knowledge, no one tracks the number.
He believes part of the reason for failures is that beekeepers forget the large amount of information they learn in a single class or aren’t prepared to give the bees the attention they need.
“I think many new beekeepers don’t make it through the first year. They don’t inspect the bees often enough,” he says. “Then, when they look in the hive, they’re dead, and they get discouraged.”
Studinski also offers an unusual service. He asks class members if they have been ever stung by a bee. For people who have not, he offers to take them to the parking lot of an emergency room and brings bees in a jar that he plucks out to sting them. Generally, it takes two stings for an allergic reaction to occur. Thus far, none of his students has had a reaction.
In Denver, Studinski’s first class starts Sunday and will continue into December. In Loveland, the first class began in February and also continues into December. Each class is $40.
At Dakota Bees, in Wheat Ridge, where Lazzari is getting her bees, the introductory class is $35, and classes are Saturdays 9 a.m.-1 p.m. through April 21. The session begins with a meet and greet with bagels, juice and coffee and ends with an hour of questions.
Greg Rye, owner of Dakota Bees, says beekeeping isn’t difficult, but requires knowledge and care. That includes proper feeding, checking frequently for Varroa mites and treating, if necessary, as well as making sure there is a laying queen and larva.
“We definitely recommend you take a class and follow a rough schedule for keeping bees,” Rye says.
He says new beekeepers are most likely to get in trouble when they deviate from the schedule or the practices taught in the class after reading something on the Internet or getting questionable advice from others.
Rye adds that people can email him, phone him or come to the store to talk to him if they run into trouble or are unsure what to do.
“We tell everybody at the end of class that we’re here as a resource,” he says.
Lazzari is glad to know that advice is available as she learns to work with bees. She sees beekeeping as a way to remember her husband and to move forward in her life. She is back in school, and she believes the bees will help her be more successful in her vegetable garden, which will make her more self-sufficient.
“Bees are key to the process of growing here,” she says.
Swarm season is on:
This is the time of year when bee colonies naturally divide, sending a queen and thousands of worker bees and drones to hunt for a new home. Finding a new place takes some time, so the colony may stop to rest in a massive cluster that can be unnerving to humans, but the colony is docile in the state, focused on protecting the queen.
Colorado beekeepers are often on the hunt for these swarms, so if you see one don’t panic. And do not use poison or water to attack bees. Instead, call the Colorado Beekeepers Association’s swarm hotline at 844-SPY-BEES (844-779-2337) to report the precise location or check out the list of swarm hunters and colony removers under the “resources” tab at .
