A recent study suggested Utah is the second-worst state for beekeeping — the 3,800 members of the Wasatch Beekeepers Association Facebook group would beg to disagree.
A national ranking puts Utah near the bottom, but those numbers don’t tell the whole story, a beekeeping expert says.
Hobby beekeepers, classified as those who keep fewer than 10 hives, and sideline beekeepers, who have 250 or fewer hives, are among the 3,500 members of. Arthur took an informal poll on the group’s page, and said she heard from one member who had more than 500 hives — but more than half of those responding had between two and four hives.
Beekeeper Amber Lawvor inspects bees in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Oct. 30, 2021. The hive was moved from the top of the Salt Lake City Public Library's main building during renovations.The study also placed Utah at the bottom because of its hot, dry desert environment, which it said was supportive of native bees, but a bad place for honeybees.
The location of a hive is also important, Arthur said. “If you live in an area where alfalfa is still being planted, you’ll get a lot more honey than where I live, in Draper, where my bees are relying on plants people have planted,” she said.“They’re just such fascinating creatures,” she said.
Becoming educated about beekeeping before getting a hive, Arthur said, is “really, really important for the health of the bees — not just your bees, but all your neighbors’ bees — because once you get a disease, it’ll spread like wildfire within a square mile.” Take, for example, an unseen side effect of the drive, borne from water conservation , to rip out lawns — and with them plants, like red clover, that foraging bees feed on — and replace them with rocks, gravel and other hardscaping.
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