The Buzz Newsletter

June 2005

 

 

Page 8

Honey of a Business Yields Sweet Value-Added Products

This text is reprinted from the May-June 2005 issue of Successful Farming magazine.
Article by Cheryl Tevis, Farm Issues Editor.

The Bronnenbergs are transitioning from conventional beekeeping.

Curt and Connie Bronnenberg have worked hard over the past 20 years to build a honey of a business. By marketing more of their product directly, the Perry, Iowa, beekeepers plan an even sweeter future.

Curt grew up watching his father work honey bees. He was14 when his dad died, and an older brother, Randy, took over the business.

“I’ve always been interested in bees and honey production,” Curt says. “So I got back into it in 1984 with 100 hives. I worked off-farm until I had 1,000 hives. Like any other kind of agriculture, the profit margin has narrowed. I have 2,000 hives now. That’s a midsized commercial operation.”

Honey, collected from hives and extracted from combs, is stored in 55-gallon drums. It’s shipped to one of a half dozen Midwestern processors.

About eight years ago, Curt decided to do more than sell bulk honey. “We needed to be in the value-added end, to control price and final product – from hive to bottle,” he says.

They remodeled the farm’s milk house to process and bottle honey in an array of containers, from a 4-ounce honey bear bottle to a gallon jug. their product, Spring Valley Honey, is sold to supermarket chains in Des Moines, 35 miles away. “We have honey in 12 Dahl’s stores, and some Hy-Vees,” Curt says. “A niche market is Campbell’s Nutrition, a health store.”

Connie has created skin care products to take advantage of the trend toward natural beeswax and products made with honey. “My hands get very dry and cracked at work,” she says. “I finally found a recipe I liked. With the help of our daughters, it turned into something bigger than I ever thought.”

She developed a brochure and last Christmas sold scented lotion bars, hand and body lotion, soap, and lip balm. She also offered honey gift bags with skin care products, Honey Stix, candy, and 6 ounces of honey.

They’ve begun work on a 150x60 foot building for processing, bottling, and value-added items. The building also will have a showroom. “I’d like to show the process of spinning the honey out of the combs,” Curt says.

In search of nectar
For honey production, Curt places his hives in 70 locations in a 60-mile radius. “In the early to mid-1900s, Iowa was one of the top honey-producing states because of crop rotations,” he says. “Clovers and alfalfa, combined with rich soil, made it perfect for bees. As the rotation left out clovers and alfalfa, it left less forage for bees to collect nectar. Beekeeping and honey production declined.”

Immediately prior to pollination, 40 hive are moved to a nearby commercial apple orchard. “As soon as the blossoms drop, I take them out so they can spray,” Curt says. Another 165 hive are delivered to an eastern Iowa location where muskmelon, cucumbers, and other produce is grown. Curt is paid a pollination fee.

“Our bees are well-traveled,” he says. “In late fall, two semitrailer loads of hives on pallets are shipped to California, where bee hives are placed in almond orchards at a rate of two hives per acre. The growers pay a fee.”

A third semitrailer load goes to Texas. “They have clover pastures there and like to have bees,” Curt says.

Queen bees are restocked
Each hive is stocked with female worker bees and a queen. Queens are productive for about two years. Curt buys 1,000 to 1,200 annually from California, south Texas, or Florida. He pays $10 - $12 per queen.

“If the hives stayed in one location, the queens might last longer,” he says. “But my bees are packed up and moved, and the queens lay almost year-round because they’re in warmer climates. About half of the hives receive a new queen each year.”

Queens have already been mated before they are shipped. The queen is the only bee able to lay fertile eggs. She is constantly groomed, fed and nurtured by a court of attendant bees.

The pollen flow come on in California in February. The last week in March, the blossoms are gone, and the bees are shipped back to Iowa. The bees return from Texas in mid-May.

Challenges for beekeepers
Although the Bronnenbergs are optimistic, they know that beekeepers face challenges. “There are only a half dozen commercial beekeepers left in Iowa,” Curt says. “We work together.”

He belongs to the 250-member Iowa Honey Producers Association and to the American Honey Producers.

Beginning in the 1980s, mites entered the U.S. via Florida and the California. “It hit Iowa in the early 1990s,” Curt says. “Because of it, honey bees no longer exist in the wild. All colonies have to be treated, and over time, the mite has become resistant. We need a different treatment.

Unfair international trade is a continuing problem. “Through the mid 1990s, China was dumping honey on our market,” Curt says. “Prices have fluctuated from $.50 to $1.50 per pound. Beekeepers file an anti-dumping lawsuit against China and Argentina – and won.”

In the meantime, the Bronnenbergs are focused on retooling their business and selling new items to rekindle an appreciation for honey bees.

“Honey has been a symbol of wholesomeness and purity since ancient times,” Curt says. “Today there’s new interest in natural products. Nutritional supplements are made from pollen and a substance with resin, used by the bees to seal the hives. Honey itself is finding its way into more products, such as breads, cereals, condiments, beers and nutritional snacks. It’s amazing how many new products are made from honey.”

Curt and Connie Bronnenberg
Spring Valley Honey
Phone: 515/465-5939
Web: www.springvalleyhoneyfarms.com