ATHOL –— Peter Niemi has roughly 2,000,001 helpers at his business.
One is his son, Jeremey LeBlanc. The other 2 million are Russian honeybees.
Niemi operates Niemi’s Apiary, a relatively small-scale operation at his home at 183 Drury Ave. He has 25 hives (between his house, Phillipston Common, and his daughter’s home on Brooks Village Road in Templeton), each containing about 80,000 bees and honeycomb-like hexagonal frames lined with cells where the bees deposit beeswax.
“A lot of people are looking for people like myself,” he said about his grass-roots business while standing in his backyard, next to one of the hives that resemble repurposed dressers. “I use every bit of property I got here.”
A novelty street sign reading “Beekeeper Drive” at the front of his property seems a playful understatement as one approaches the strong hum of the bees near the hives. A seasoned veteran of bee stings, Niemi navigates through his yard without a beekeeper’s suit in a way some may call fearless, explaining the bees’ honey-making process mere feet from the hives while the insects buzz around his head.
“We’re in a bad spot,” he eventually says nonchalantly, ushering himself and the reporter away from the hives. He squats to point to a horde of bees congregating outside a hive and he gently lifts a cover to reveal a brew chamber containing 10 frames that act as honeycomb.
Niemi, a 75-year-old with a gruff voice, started beekeeping 16 years ago. A former union carpenter, he was treated to a small jar of honey by someone he worked with and his interest took flight from there. He soon discovered the Worcester County Beekeepers Association and enrolled in its beekeeping classes. He is now a member of the WCBA and the Massachusetts Beekeepers Association.
“What (the bees) do is they’ll bring in nectar and I call it ‘swapping spit,’” Niemi explains. “They have a honey stomach that they use to bring back the nectar and, with their tongues, the forager bees will give it to a worker bee that’s in the hive and she’ll go store it in one of those cells.
“And there’s enzymes that are added … and that’s what actually makes the honey,” he adds. “They’ll fan it until it’s less than 18 percent moisture, because when it comes in there’s a lot of water in the nectar.”
Niemi says once the frames are full, he and LeBlanc use a hot knife to scrape off beeswax that is placed in a centrifuge to spin out the honey. A taste from an 8-ounce jar emits a familiar sweetness, with floral notes. Niemi says his bees collect nectar from blackberry and blueberry bushes on his property, though they sometimes fly two or three miles to get it. He says the nectar source determines the honey’s taste.
He also says honey has proven effective in treating burns and wounds without scabbing. Whether his customers are interested in a tasty treat or home remedies, Niemi says his sales have expanded 20 percent this year.
“I think people are getting smarter about what they’re eating,” he explains. “Honey is good for … getting away from cane sugar. The stuff you buy in the grocery store has been pasteurized — we don’t pasteurize.”
Niemi’s Apiary sells honey at 10 locations, including Trail Head Outfitters & General Store in Orange, where owner Paul Anderson has carried it for at least 10 years. Anderson says the honey is a great seller — six 2-pound bottles are typically sold within two weeks.
Niemi says he has been unaffected by Colony Collapse Disorder, which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines as “the phenomenon that occurs when the majority of worker bees in a colony disappear and leave behind a queen, plenty of food and a few nurse bees to care for the remaining immature bees and the queen.”
Some beekeepers began reporting unusually high losses of 30 to 90 percent of their hives during the 2006-07 winter. According to the EPA, as many as 50 percent of all affected colonies displayed symptoms inconsistent with any known causes of honeybee death. But Niemi says CDD typically affects only migratory beekeepers because they “go from one place to another place to another place. They’re picking up all kinds of diseases.”
In January 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported honeybees pollinate more than $15 billion of crops each year, and are responsible pollinating one-third of the American diet.
Niemi also sells the honey out of his home. The apiary’s phone number is 978-249-4019 and the business has a Facebook page, at www.facebook.com/NiemisApiary
You can reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com
or 413-772-0261, ext. 258.