Here’s the buzz...
North Dakota beekeeper showcases the wonder and importance of bees
Most people would be put in a sticky situation by the sight of a bee, but beekeeper Darla Neustel is always buzzing to see her apian friends.
“When you crack a hive and you look into that hive and you see all of those bee eyeballs just staring at you,” Neustel said. “It’s so cute, really, it’s a strange thing to say, but it’s so interesting.”
The Valley City Barnes County Public Library hosted a program Tuesday that Neustel described as “beekeeping 101” where she shared equipment, free samples of her honey, and interesting facts about bees. Did you know that North Dakota is the number one honey-producing state?
When asked why people should care about bees, Neustel pointed to her shirt that said, “Healthy bees. Healthy planet.”
“(Bees create) so many good, natural things for us and our environment,” Neustel said. “Without bees, we would not have a lot of products, because of the fact that they pollinate and do all of that cross pollination. There are so many fruits and vegetables out there that we would not have today without them pollinating for us.”
The bees have their own production process inside the hive that Neustel sees as a “100% womenrun operation”, because the queen bee and the worker bees are all female.
Other than pollination, bees help produce honey and beeswax which have benefits of their own.
“The all-natural honey is anti-bacterial, honey is anti-fungal, honey is good for gut health, honey is good for wound care, it is better than Neosporin. It is a natural decongestant, it helps with your natural allergies,” said Neustel. “There is many uses of the beeswax. It’s used in lip balms, butters, lotions, so good for us in that aspect too.”
A bee makes approximately onetwelfth of a teaspoon of honey in their roughly 45-day lifespan. This means that it takes about 100 bees to make one 12-ounce bottle of honey.
Neustel currently lives where she grew up in Verona, ND, and her and her husband, Shawn, started keeping bees in 2014. Dash Apiary is their family-owned honey farm. Their 285 hives are not just in Verona and can also be found in Milnor and south of Valley City.
“On the hobby side, it’s large. On
the commercial side, it’s very small,” she said.
Neustel said that some commercial beekeepers have up to thousands of hives, but their 285 is only the beginning.
“It’s our start. Our goal is actually 2,000 hives,” she said. “My husband and I are pretty confident that we could do that efficiently ourselves.”
The idea to start beekeeping sparked from a conversation between Neustel and her husband.
“My husband said, ‘We should keep bees, because you like animals,’ and I looked at him and went ‘They are not the same thing,’ ... I can’t stress just how unique of a critter they are,” Neustel said. “There’s a uniqueness of how their inner workings go, how accurate their GPS is, how they fly, how they do the dance. I’ve pulled frames and watched bees do the food dance to tell everyone where the food is. It’s amazing.”
One example of that uniqueness is that these bees only get one sting -- and they’d rather not use it on you.
“The last thing they want to do is sting a person,” Neustel said.
The library staff went to Neustel’s honey booth at the ND Winter Show, and messaged her shortly after asking to do a presentation to spread the knowledge of her craft.
Dash Apiary products are sold at a number of local retailers including the Eagles Nest Bookstore in Valley City. Their honey can also be purchased on their website https://www.dashapiary.com/ and they can be found on Facebook.