Queen Bee Gardens rebounds

Queen Bee Gardens rebounds



Last year, Ben Zeller lost 95% of his honey bee colonies.

The reason? A relatively new disease called deformed wing virus. Losing 50%-60% of hives in a year is not uncommon for beekeepers, but last year was the worst loss he’s ever had while handling the bee business at the family run Queen Bee Gardens based out of Lovell.

While in a larger livestock operation (yes, domestic honeybees are considered livestock) losing that high of a percentage of animals could lead to the shuttering of the operation, beekeepers are used to heavy losses.

“That’s what beekeepers do, we bounce back,” Zeller said. “It’s a lot of cost, a lot of expense, a lot of work, but it can be done.”

It just meant Zeller had a busy spring. He bought 400 packages of bees, had a business in Texas rebuild some hives, then he split some of those hives, and now roughly half of his 1,200 queens are vaccinated for the virus. It’s more expensive, Zeller said, but if it means the colony survives, it’s worth it.

“It was a really busy spring trying to just build everything back,” he said.

The work paid off. Zeller is expecting a big honey harvest this year — he said they’re estimating they could get an average of 100 pounds of honey per hive.



And with roughly 2,800 hives in operation — they do a cost share with beekeepers on top of their own hives — they could be looking at 250,000 pounds of honey.

That’s meant tall hives — often a number of honey supers (to contain surplus honey) on top of the standard two deep boxes — and two rounds of harvesting. Zeller said in an industry where losses can be so high, it’s important to take advantage of the good years and get the bees to fill as many of the smaller honey super boxes as possible.

If Zeller gets anything even approaching 250,000 pounds of honey, he’ll have more than enough for the family’s expanding number of Queen Bee retail stores, which sell everything from chocolate truffles and other candies — often with honey in them — to beeswax candles to, of course, honey.

All told, the stores use roughly 100,000 pounds of honey per year, which means Zeller will be able to sell the remainder in bulk to other large buyers who use the honey for their own purposes.

He said while beekeepers in states like Texas and California have many other facets to their business, from selling bee packages to raising queens and pollination contracts for almond groves (where Zeller sends his most robust hives after the season) in Wyoming the honey harvest is crucially important for the success of the business.

That’s especially true when fresh honey by the gallon is a feature of Queen Bee stores, from Billings to Granby, Colorado, and all around the Big Horn Basin, including downtown Powell.