The Cape Fear region’s climate, natural plantings and camaraderie make it a great place to keep bees.
“I don’t recommend harvesting fall honey,” says Jim Warren. “For me, honey’s the work, not the fun part. I keep bees so I can sit in an open field and listen to the calm, social, docile, soothing hum of the bees.”
Warren is the current president of the New Hanover County Beekeeper Association, which has been around since 2010. It currently has 110 members that meet monthly at Halyburton Park to talk about the spraying for mosquito control, mites, swarm removal, hive inspection, mentorships and outreach to the community.
The ASMR of buzzing pollinators, one excellent reason to set up a hive, easily exists because the Wilmington area is an exceptional place to be an apiarist.
(It’s not for nothing that North Carolina’s state insect is the honeybee. And the statewide beekeeping association was founded in the first decade of the 20th century.)
The region has a mild winter climate, which provides a long foraging season. “We have an abundance of native flowering trees and bushes,” says Warren.
Tulip and poplar trees attract bees as well as bushes like wild blueberry and gallberry, from the holly family. “Those are really good nectar trees,” adds Warren. “The famed blueberry crops need the bees and provide nectar. In the fall we have wild asters and goldenrod. They produce a large amount of pollen and nectar. What the honeybees need.”
The association’s outreach includes a twice-a-year honey harvest, which is open to the public and so popular registration fills up early. Check out the website to get in on it. It also teaches a yearly six-week-long Beginner Bee School that starts in January. Spaces fill up quickly for that, too.
The association also attracts newcomers like Jessy O’Keefe, who moved from Boston to start Seaside Honeybees in 2021, a hive management company for honeybee hobbyists. She now has 42 customers and takes care of 50 hives. Warren is her head beekeeper.
“I came down with an idea and the community was so amazing. Everybody’s been so excited and enthusiastic.” says O’Keefe. “I was blown away.”
They also helped her navigate the difference between keeping bees in New England and coastal North Carolina. “I had a lot of questions,” she adds.
Notable was the intensity of pollen production in early spring. “Which is good,” she says. “Pollen is the protein that is important for the brood. Nectar is like the carbohydrate of the bee world; it gives them energy.”
She had to adjust to the shift in timing of the yearly nectar flow . “We can harvest in June down here, whereas up north the season is just getting started. And then, we can harvest once more in October.”
She, like Warren, chooses not to harvest too much in the fall. “I want to keep enough honey to feed the colony through the winter, which keeps it strong.” Much like the association. She adds, “Everyone in Wilmington gets it.”
