Hello!

Victoria Reilley from Northwest Indiana, USA

One of the things we really love is connecting with our community and discover their beekeeping journeys. Storytelling is what brings people together, revealing what they have in common and what they can learn from each other. We are pleased to be able to talk with our community from all over the world, who puts their trust in us to share their story.

Today, we meet Victoria Reilley. She lives in North West Indiana, USA, and she is an enthusiast beekeeper who has faced a lot of challenges that have contributed to her experience as a beekeeper.

Together with her husband, Victoria started beekeeping in 2014, after realizing what a cool and interesting idea it would be. After researching for a bit, they followed the journey full-heartedly without second thoughts. The ride hasn’t always been easy, but all the challenges they faced brought them a lot of experience and Victoria shared with us some valuable insights about beekeeping, straight from her hives.

What do you love most about being a beekeeper?

I love watching the bees. They are so interesting and so hard working. We love sharing our experience with family and friends and letting them get into the hives with us, or sharing pictures of what we've seen/experienced, from pollen pockets and wax flakes, to queen cells and swarms.

What advice would you give to beekeepers who are beginners? Please share some beekeeping tricks that would help them.

Patience and information! You can never have enough of either. Don't be afraid to ask questions, get multiple answers and then do what works for you.

Please share some beekeeping tips that would help them.

We use a 1:1 ratio for sugar water spray during our inspections, almost all the time. The bees hardly need smoke, so don't over spray or over smoke. Take a deep breath, and move slowly; if you stay calm and move slow, they stay calm. Having your hands on is a better teacher than YouTube and the Internet. Take part in/help with any collections/removals that you can. You will get the right experience with the help of an experienced keeper. Have some extra gear on hand, or be able to obtain it fairly quickly. You never know when you might need another hive body to house a swarm or 2.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges of being a beekeeper in your country or area? (harsh climate, bee decline etc.)

My husband and I are in Northwest Indiana. We get some pretty cold winters with lots of snow fall. Winter survival is a big one. Pests are a big issue as well; ants, wax moths, small hive beetles.

What are your beekeeping plans for the future?

Right now, I think our biggest plans are more geared towards maintaining what we have in our apiary and getting everyone built up and strong. We doubled our apiary size, unintentionally, in the course of a few weeks and I think we'd like to eventually add a few more hives/splits/etc but we’re not rushing.

How did you find out about Apiary Book?

I was searching Google play store for an app that I could use to track our hives, activity, inspections, etc. It was the only app I downloaded to try and found out I didn't want to try any others, after using it for a bit.

Why did start using Apiary Book and how has it helped you?

We started using Apiary Book as a way to track what was going on with our different hives. I think we had just moved up to 3 hives/colonies. We wanted a way to differentiate between our hives for what we saw in inspections, and work that needed to be done.

Would you recommend the app to other beekeepers and why?

We now have hives/colonies at 4 locations, including our apiary at our house. It's nice being able to look up/look into my various hives and get a refresher about what I might be checking for, or what I saw that I needed to remedy or keep an eye on.

Has Apiary Book improved your beekeeping experience?

Yes. I'd be more unorganized without the assistance of the app.

Please share with us a personal beekeeping story.

My husband and I started beekeeping in 2014 because we thought it would be cool and interesting. He got the wild idea and researched into it, after which we jumped in with 2 hives. We were so excited to be able to harvest about 20 lbs our first year. We went through 2 hive losses, at 2 separate times, but kept on going. We moved our family out of state in 2016 and took our 1 surviving hive along with everything else we could pack on a 2-day journey. We found our permanent home in 2017. We once again packed up our 1 hive and moved for what would hopefully be our final move for some time. Once we'd been settled for a bit, I added our names to the Indiana swarm catchers list.

I do believe every state has, or at least should have, something like this. Last year (2020) we got a swarm call from a local pest exterminator who found my contact through the swarm list. Later that same year, we were put in touch with someone about a cutout at their property. Both of these were new experiences to us, and so incredible to take part in. Coming into this year, 3 of our now 4 hives over-wintered successfully and the one that didn't make it had a swarm move in. We got everyone moved around the apiary and then one wild weekend in May, 3 of our hives decided to swarm, with 2 of them swarming. It wasn't very good management on our part, but we had been talking about doing some splits.

Luckily, we were able to catch all the swarms through a little ingenuity and the help of tanging (banging 2 metal things together, like pans, to mimic a storm moving in and try to get the swarm to settle or move lower for easier retrieval). Not too long after that, we were contacted about another cutout and then another swarm. Funny enough, the cutout we were called about, swarmed the very next day. We were able to catch that swarm as well as perform the cutout that following weekend. Sadly, we ended up losing 1 of our over-wintered hives, the 2 swarms from that hive, and the swarm that moved into the hive that didn't make it through the winter. And that's kind of where we're at right now - 7 hives at 4 locations including our apiary.

Do you know of any funding options available for beekeepers in your state or the US? How does the government incentivize beekeepers?

I read about the state of Virginia or Vermont, I can't remember which, doing a program where residents can apply for up to 3 free hives. From what I understood from the article, residents of the state can apply to the program and if they get picked, will be able to choose from different hive types and receive a free hive. Regardless of offering only a bee hive, with no gear and no bees, it’s still something. I’m not aware of any other funding or incentives at the moment.

Beekeeping in Indiana

As the backbone of U.S. agriculture, honeybees pollinate ⅓ of the human diet and produce $150 million worth of honey and beeswax in the U.S.

Beekeepers in Indiana harvest an average of 60 to 80 pounds of honey per hive and due to the harsh temperatures during winter, the beekeeper also needs to make sure the beehive has 60 to 80 pounds of stored honey for the winter.

Indiana’s climate transitions from cold to hot weather and that can produce an active spring with thunderstorms and tornadoes. During the 2018-2019 season, the winter came with many challenges for the Indiana State. Together with South Carolina, Indiana recorded the lowest percentage of colony losses in the country.

Indiana’s climate and soils tend to favor forests over grasslands, which provide more for pollinators. Grasslands may offer a 6-foot-tall mix of diverse flowering plants for pollinators, but forests provide a 70-foot-tall mix of flowering plants.

When it comes to honey production, Indiana is rich in native wildflowers, blooming fruit trees, berry plants and clover, enabling the production of important types of honey (wildflower honey, unpasteurized raw honey bottled directly from the hive, blueberry honey, orange blossom honey).

For decades, scientific communities have become concerned regarding the United States’ falling bee population. Unfortunately, Indiana’s pollinator communities face many threatening challenges. In the early 1990s, a parasitic mite epidemic wiped out the wild bee population and took a large toll on kept bees. After this tragic event, orchards and farmers started to become alert and followed the initiative of renting hives to make sure their trees, melons and pumpkin crops were pollinated. In the past decade, the state experienced an influx of new beekeepers and bee related businesses. Thanks to the continuous efforts of raising awareness on the importance of bees, throughout Indiana, people have become more educated, whether they live in the country or in the city. Either embracing beekeeping or just cultivating enticing habitats for bee populations, are important steps towards protecting the bees.