Blair's bee 'hobby' continues to grow

Sheriff's department major says honey is byproduct of the hives that feed the world

When Bill Blair was a teenager growing up in East Brewton his father was a bee keeper. Blair said he wasn't interested in the hobby because he was too busy doing 'teenager things'.

But the seed his father planted many years ago has grown with the 65-year old Blair now Escambia County, Alabama's only Master Beekeeper with not only a love of the trade, but a desire to get others involved.

A 1972 graduate of W.S. Neal High School, Blair received his bachelor's and master's degree in criminal justice at Troy State University. He spent time with the Troy Police Department, the Montgomery Police Department and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department before joining the U.S. Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He retired from the ATF after 23 years in 2008 and spent a few more years in Washington, D.C., working in various jobs for different federal agencies.

He came home and in 2013 then Escambia County Sheriff Grover Smith hired him to train investigators and he moved up the ranks and now serves as a major under Sheriff Heath Jackson.

But the seed his daddy planted in him at an early age has turned into not only a passion, but a business as well.

"When I retired I wanted to get a couple of bee hives," Blair said.

Today he has about 75 hives scattered across the county. The hives also produce honey that Blair sells under the name of 'Lagniappe Apiary', which he says in French means 'something special or a little gift'.

Blairs' interest in honey bees led him to start the South West Alabama Bee Keepers Association in Flomaton and he later joined the Alabama Beekeepers Association.

"I had an interest in becoming a master bee keeper and started training," he said.

He said it was a 3-year program that involved a lot of classes and he received his certificate as the county's only master bee keeper in February.

"I've gone from two hives to about 75," he said. "I went from a little bit of honey to a year's supply."

Blair was at Flomaton's Railroad Junction Day selling his homegrown honey and it can be purchased through his Facebook page 'Billy and Marie's Bees and Honey: Lagniappe Apiary. Or give him a call at 251-236-3774.

But Blair said the honey he produces from his hives is not the most important part of beekeeping – it's keeping active bee hives alive and well throughout the area.

He said that during his journey and his classes to become a master beekeeper, he learned that this planet cannot survive without honey bees.

"At least one-third of what we eat depends on cross pollination from honey bees," he said.

He said while honey bees provide the pollination for fruit trees and other plants, they also provide pollination to trees that produce berries and nuts.

"Humans could not continue to live on this planet if all our bees are dead," he said.

He noted the pollination provided by bees produce the products eaten by livestock as well.

"At one time we had one feral hive per square mile in the United States," he said. "Now we have areas with no honey bees. Farmers can't have crops without honey bees."

Today, Blair has hives in East Brewton, at the Auburn experimental field near Brewton and the majority in the Pineview community.

He said every spring he moves a bunch of hives to a blueberry farm, that has about 2,600 bushes, on Hammac Road. They lease those hives to help produce blueberries.

"I've increased the number of hives there every year and each year their production has increased," he said.

He said since blueberry bushes start blooming in late February and finish in May he has the first honey available because of the blueberry bushes.

Blair said he started by keeping honey and giving it to his family, but by the second year he had enough to sell.

He said the classes he began to take taught him how to split colonies of bees that forced them to create their own queens and learned to not only market the honey, but to market the hives as well.

He also said his study has shown him that honey bees were not native to the current United States but were brought over by Europeans.

"They brought them with them and the Indians called them 'white man's flies'," he said.

He said farmers get unfairly blamed for the reduction of honey bees due to pesticides, but said there are more lawns in the United States than farm land and pesticides on lawns also kill honey bees.

He noted that Monsanto has a bee lab and works to produce pesticides that are safe for bees.

He said the importance of honey bees is reflected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture putting bees in the same category as cattle.

"That's because neither can survive without somebody taking care of them," he said.

It's not as simple as putting up a bee hive and hoping bees come. He said it's important to maintain hives to make sure the bees survive and said the biggest predator is called a 'varror mite' that can kill a hive. But he said there are ways to kill the mites without endangering the bees.

"The average lifespan of a honey bee is six weeks," he said. "That's why a queen lays about 2,000 eggs a day."

Blair also said the threat of being stung by honey bees is low especially during the spring when they are gathering nectar and pollen.

He said bees are collecting food for the winter but they do become defensive during July and August when there's no nectar to be found.

"They are protecting their food source," he said.

Blair said people interested in bee keeping need to reach out to bee keeping associations in their area that usually meet once a month. He can also be contacted at 251-236-3774 for more information or a bottle of homemade honey.

 
 
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