The buzz on beekeeping? It's hard to figure out the workers

RENO - Chris Foster figures he has a fairly decent handle on the behavior of consumers.

But bees? Not so much.

"They're always doing things that you don't understand," says Foster, whose Hidden Valley Honey distributes through regional grocery chains and specialty retailers.

He's a relative rarity among honey producers, someone building a full-time business in a field that's dominated by hobbyists and part-timers.

Hobbyists account for

95 percent of the beekeepers in the U.S., estimates the National Honey Board, and another 4 percent of the nation's beekeepers are folks who view it as a part-time job.

The approximately 1,600 commercial beekeeping operations in the U.S. - a number that includes Hidden Valley Honey - account for about 60 percent of the nation's honey production.

Although bees handle much of the work - collecting nectar, creating honey - there's plenty left for the beekeeper as well.

"As a beekeeper, you're a co-keeper with the bees," says part-timer Al Sindlinger of Reno. "It's hard work. If you're not into physically demanding work, I wouldn't recommend it."

The high-energy Sindlinger - he takes care of 90 hives when he's not teaching math to Reno middle schoolers or working his summer job as a firefighter - says schlepping hive boxes that weigh 60 or 80 pounds from one field to another quickly loses its entertainment value.

Making that work all the more challenging, Foster says, is this: Movement of bee colonies is best done in the dark of night. Otherwise, bees that are in the fields working won't find their way back to the hive. (In fact, he says, bees will get lost if the hive is moved as little as five feet while they're out collecting nectar.)

Foster, who manages about 200 colonies from Gardnerville to Yerington to Wadsworth, works all the harder because he's taking a financially conservative approach since launching Hidden Valley Honey as a full-time venture this year.

For a dozen years, Foster and his wife, Karen, joined with their two children to produce honey and related items such as candles, soap and lip balm that they sold at farmers markets as a sideline to the family's income.

Now that he's doing it full time, Foster dreams of the day that he can afford a forklift and a truck to move colonies. But he'd rather sweat than borrow money.

Nevada's honey producers sweat a bit more than their peers in other parts of the nation to produce a profit.

The estimated 10,000 bee colonies in the state produced an average of 52 pounds of honey each last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. That's a bit less than the national average of 58.5 pounds of honey per colony.

And the average price paid for Nevada honey in 2009 - $129 a pound - lagged the national average of $144.50 a pound.

The costs for Nevada producers, however, are the same as those across the country: About $100 for a wooden hive box, $75 or so for three pounds of bees plus a mated queen delivered by U.S. mail. Protective clothing and equipment adds more to the cost. Producers usually pay in honey, rather than cash, to landowners whose property hosts hives.

But honey producers willing to take on the hassle of retail distribution rather than selling their product on wholesale markets can widen their margins.

Hidden Valley Honey, for instance, distributes through Scolari's and Whole Foods Market locations. Foster and his wife also spend plenty of time in the car to make deliveries to other retailers such as Trimmer Outpost in Genoa and Hungry Mother Organics in Minden.

Consumers, Foster says, are willing to pay a premium for local honey rather than mass-market brands.

In some instances, Sindlinger says, consumers believe that local honey can help them overcome allergies. Some who suffer from allergies to rabbitbrush pollen, for instance, swear to the powers of rabbitbrush honey.

To keep those buyers happy, Sindlinger lately has been placing more his hives in creek drainages rather than farm fields where pesticides might be used.

On the other hand, the retail honey business brings its own hard work - development of labels, bottling operations and a constant round of visits to ensure that store shelves remain stocked.

Foster and his family, meanwhile, spend many of their summer nights and weekends at farmers markets, talking about an observation hive that draws customers to their stand and selling honey and other products.

For all the details of watching costs, making sure bees are well-fed and disease free and finding markets for honey, Foster says the most-challenging part of honey production remains unchanged, even for people who have been in the business for decades.

"The hard part," he says, "is managing bees."