BLACKSHEAR — The classic image of spring is often of a bee flitting from flower to flower, pollinating as it goes before returning to its hive.
Some bees, though, travel by truck to do their springtime duties. Howard Baldwin and his bees have been making the scenic drive down I-95 from Ohio to Pierce County for almost 20 years.
Baldwin is the man behind Baldwin’s Bee Bizz.
The Ohio beekeeper says he sometimes finds more generosity and friendship in Pierce County than he has back home.
When it comes to the similarities and differences between Pierce County and his home in Ohio, Baldwin says one of the earliest differences he noticed was on the road, specifically I-95, in how people drive.
“Certain types of drivers are going 80 miles per hour down this way,” he said. “Drive 80 in Ohio and you go to jail.”
Ironically, it was driving which first got Baldwin into the bee business and in coming to Georgia.
A friend, already in the bee business, remarked upon Baldwin’s curiosity surrounding the profession and asked if he would like to ride along with him to Georgia. When Baldwin said “yes”, his friend promptly asked if they could use Baldwin’s truck to make the trip as his was broken.
Baldwin laughs as he retells the story and his response, “Oh, now I get it! You just want to use my truck.”
With friends like those, why not try your luck in Georgia?
As for the people, Baldwin said, “Most people here are very friendly, but I will say certain people are still living the war, which I had nothing to do with.”
Baldwin is referring to the Civil War, of course, but the rivalry between beekeepers can also be just as bitter even if it is usually less bloody.
“When I first came down I stayed to myself,” he said. “The bee world is so competitive. It got better once people found out I wasn’t after honey production.”
Baldwin is primarily in business to sell his bee’s services as pollinators, not to produce honey.
“Honey is just a byproduct,” he says. “I get it whether I want it or not.”
When Baldwin first started in the business, he had some very bad luck — and it was a South Georgia beekeeper who came to his aid. He doesn’t want to name the man, but will never forget his generosity.
“There was a freeze on the way down from Ohio and it killed a bunch of bees.. I opened up the boxes and they were all dead,” Baldwin recalls.
The entire trip could have ended in ruin, but when one of the local beekeepers found out, they made Baldwin an incredible offer.
“He said, ‘I got a bunch of boxes in a blackberry field. You can take the split,’” said Baldwin.
A split is when one bee colony is divided into two, often because there is an extra queen or an excess of bees. Baldwin said this was no small gesture on his benefactor’s part.
“He gave me $100,000 worth of bees,” Baldwin tated.
Baldwin makes a point to note no beekeeper in Ohio had ever helped him out like that.
“I have better friends in Georgia than I do in Ohio,” said Baldwin.
Asked if he gets stung a lot or not at all in the line of duty, Baldwin responded, “I get stung more in the truck than I do in the field. There’s always one smart alec that gets stuck to my pants leg.”
It seemed natural to ask if bears, being Pierce County’s mascot, had ever gone after Baldwin’s honey.
“Bears aren’t there because they want the honey,” said Baldwin. “They’ll eat it, but they are really after the grubs and bee larva ... they are high in protein.”
As for personally running into bears, Baldwin said he has never run into one directly. However, he said he has seen the expensive aftermath of destruction.
Baldwin walked up to discover $13,000 in damages to equipment after a bear paid a visit to one of his sites. He now carries a gun on his person for precisely that reason and thankfully, he has never needed it.
Baldwin is more forgiving of the bear following its own nature than he is of hooligans destroying things just for fun.
“I have cameras on all my hives,” he said. “Each hive is worth $350 to me, so a trail cam is a justifiable expense.”
If there is one thing Baldwin wants others to know about beekeeping is a dire warning.
“We are losing bees at alarming rates,” he said. “If we lose bees we don’t eat. Scientists have stated if we lose bees, we have about two years left to live.”
It isn’t lack of honey that could be the problem, but a lack of pollinators, which is precisely why Baldwin and his bees are hired by agriculturalists.
“We need to be a lot more protective and a lot more forward thinking about it,” Baldwin cautions.
Unfortunately, Baldwin says it is hard to bring those with the most skin in the game, the beekeepers themselves, to a consensus about how to handle the problem. “It’s like hunters and trappers not getting along, or still hunting versus dog hunting,” Baldwin stated. “You can’t get two beekeeping organizations to stick together and work together for anything,” Baldwin said there is not much talk about working together to make companies change what they are doing, primarily which insecticides are used, because individual beekeepers don’t want to lose the opportunity to lease their land. Keeping bees on company land is already an expensive proposition, requiring up to $2 million in liability insurance and workers’ comp insurance for any assistants and helpers, without running the risk of getting blacklisted.
Even so, Baldwin hopes talking about the issue will raise awareness of the perils facing bees and just how important they are. Bees, and people alike, might benefit if we took his observation to heart: “If you’re a beekeeper you get along a lot better with the support of other beekeepers.”
