Queen Rearing: A Beekeeper's Primer

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Beekeeping brought together French Canadians Marie and Noll Blanchet . . . and that shared interest has occupied most of their 25 years together. As a young man, Noel worked in Victoriaville (near Montreal) at the apiaries of Marie's brother-in-law, later serving as a bee inspector for the Canadian government for ten years. After the couple married, they kept their own bees (as hobbyists only) and protected the insects from the harsh northern winters by placing the hives in the family's basement from November through April.

Thirteen years ago, Marie and Noel moved to Florida, where they decided to make their lifelong hobby pay off. The Blanchets first became large-scale honey producers and queen breeders in the backyard of their suburban home in a busy touristcenter on the Gulf Coast. As their livelihood grew "livelier"; though, neighbors began to complain . . . so the couple moved farther inland to Riverview, where their business now flourishes on a seven-acre rural spread. A "Honey for Sale" sign outside the small, trim house and the omnipresent hum of bees in the air are about the only clues to the major business that operates from this shaded, sleepy spot.

Most of the Blanchets' 300 beehives are "trucked out" to nearby farms and citrus groves (both to help pollination and to insure pure strains of honey) . . . but the 1,200 or so small nucs used for queen breeding are scattered like a string of pearls through several forested acres behind the main house. Here, their young Italian queens—carefully raised by the Blanchets' grafting method—hatch, grow to maturity, and are fertilized. Thanks to the area's mellow climate, the husband-and-wife team can begin grafting in early February . . . and queen sales, they report, are brisk from March until November.

Like most other queen breeders, the Blanchets find it cost-effective to market packaged bees along with their high-quality queens. Toward that end, an open-air shed on the property is packed to the rafters with specially made screened cages . . . each of which will hold three pounds of bees, a syrup feeder, and the all-important queen. Unlike many bee marketers, the Blanchets ship their precious cargo by air, delivering thepackages to the airport in person so that the queen and her subjects will not suffer damage or become sick (as they often do during a slow postal journey). The queens are also sold separately, in tiny cages containing only the monarch and six to eight attendants.

And, of course, where there are bees, there is honey . . . so the Blanchets market pure Florida honey, as well. Huge 55-gallon steel drums carry native wildflower blends to bakeries and other wholesale buyers. The choice, light-gold orange blossom and palmetto varieties (both are prized table honeys) go to Canadian customers, tourists, and anyone else who happens by and is drawn in by the roadside sign.

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