Ramona Beekeepers — From the Pioneers to Today’s 4H Group

With everything blooming around Ramona, it’s no surprise to hear a lot of bees around.

A group of local students has become intimately acquainted with them.

The Ramona Valley 4H Bee Group was organized in September 2009 with eight students. It’s now up to 15 and growing, according to group leader Laurie Stevens. It had been 10 years since Ramona 4H had such a group, said Stevens. Her group has since inspired bee clubs to start up in Alpine and Fallbrook, she said.

“People need to know about the importance of bees to our society,” said Stevens. “If we don’t pollinate, we don’t grow.”

The group has three hives. They recently rescued one which had developed in an owl box at the Pony Baseball fields. The students built their first boxes and ordered their first bees by mail. Local beekeepers have donated equipment, said Kim Newcomer, an adult leader with the group. Last year, the students harvested honey in late summer and sold it at the Ramona Country Fair. After they harvest and spin their honey, they distribute it to people on their “honey wait list,” Newcomer said.

Beekeeping has been around in Ramona for decades, though the “buzz” on local beekeeping is, so to speak, a soft one. Executive Director of the Craig Jung said he wasn't aware of  any commercial beekeepers in Ramona.

Rex Harvey, owner and operator of Beemergency Bee Removal, said he keeps 28 bee hives himself. He said he used to raise bees commercially but bee removal provided a better living. The honey he gets from his bees is for family use or given to friends.

A search of San Diego County newspaper archives turned up references to Jim Oakley, whose business was said to be based in Ramona.

“We’re a big industry in San Diego County, but pretty silent,” said Oakley, owner with his family of Oakley Honey Farms.

“Our hives are scattered all over the county,” he said. Beekeepers rent land from landowners to place their hives.

Oakley said he lives in El Cajon. He maintains what he calls a “shop” in Ramona where he keeps “supers” and “combs.” Oakley explained that today’s bee hives are “boxes we leave for the bees.”

“Supers” are additional boxes and honeycombs that keepers store away when not in use. Then, in season, the boxes are put out near the hives and the bees deposit honey there, part of the excess bees create to get them through the winter.

Beekeepers take part of the excess to sell, replacing what they take with sugar syrup for the bees, Oakley said. He emphasized that he doesn’t sell honey in Ramona; he extracts it here. 

Oakley does not sell honey directly to the public. All his sales are to the Sue Bee Honey Association, a cooperative based in Iowa, which then markets the honey, he said.

David Allibone, president and CEO of Sue Bee, described the association as “a pool cooperative,” typical of the industry. About 300 beekeepers are members, divided among 11 districts across the continental United States.

The beekeepers own their own hives. “They send their honey to our processing plants,” said Allibone. The association has plants in Iowa, North Carolina and California. The processing plant in Anaheim handles the honey from San Diego County beekeepers.

Sue Bee markets the honey under a number of labels in addition to Sue Bee, including Clover Maid, Aunt Sue, Natural Pure and North American. At the end of the fiscal year in June, an independent audit determines how much has been earned from sales, Allibone said. After expenses are deducted, the net amount is distributed to co-op members based on the number of pounds contributed. Sue Bee’s website states that, “Collectively, about 40 million pounds of honey are produced each year.”

Allibone noted that commercial beekeeping has become migratory. For example, he said he knew of California beekeepers who “run their bees” as far away as North Carolina to pollinate farmers’ crops.

Oakley readily agreed, saying,  “We wouldn’t be here but for almond pollination in San Joaquin County.” Every year, he and other beekeepers transport their hives, renting them out to pollinate the almond groves. Oakley said this brought in the most revenue, a “guaranteed income.”

Figures from the county agriculture department’s annual crop report bear Oakley out. In 2009, the latest year for which figures are available, the largest source of revenue for apiaries, or bee yards, was pollination, earning $1.3 million. Honey sales accounted for $589,000.

Oakley called making honey in San Diego County a hit or miss proposition,  depending on the rainfall. The heavy rains in late December were a help, he said,  but if a period of excessive drought followed, that would be bad.

Exacerbating the situation is the phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder. This condition, which began to be noticed by beekeepers across the country in 2006, is marked by the failure of bees to return to the hive, often leaving just a queen and a few worker bees. Losses per hive can range from 30 percent to 100 percent, according to a report issued in March by Dr. Eric Mussen, Extension Apiculturist at the Department of Entomolgy at UC Davis.

Oakley said he currently has about 1,600 hives. Ideally he should have around 2,400.

“You make your increases in the spring then you lose them in the fall. That’s when they start collapsing on people,” he said.

Oakley said there are no definitive answers yet for the cause of hive collapse, saying there are a number of factors being studied. One big change for the worse was the coming of parasitic mites about 20 years ago, he said.

He also talked about bees reacting to stress in negative ways, noting, “We push them pretty hard to produce honey and pollinate in order to make a living.”

Echoing Oakley was James Gibbs, co-owner of Chaparral Honey. His business is based in Valley Center, but Gibbs, 86, said he’s had extensive operations in Ramona between 40 and 50 years.

Gibbs, a member of the San Diego County Farm Bureau’s executive board representing apiaries, called “multiple pathogens” the most credible guess as to the cause of hive collapse. He also cited stress, saying, “We’re driving the colonies harder than we used to.”

With the need for revenue from pollination, beekeeping has gone from being seasonal to “a 12-month business,” he said.

Gibbs added that further research along with paying attention to nutrition and trying to control mites are helping to combat collapses.

Both Oakley and Gibbs cited the long history of beekeeping in Ramona, going back to the early 1800s. They cited families like the Kerrs, Hannigans and Sawdays as pioneer apiarists here. The list of pioneer apiarists also includes Augustus Barnett, who commissioned the Ramona Town Hall to be built 117 years ago. In addition to raising cattle, Barnett was one of the county's largest producers of honey from his Barnett Ranch, which is now Barnett Preserve, off San Vicente Road.

The ranch was home to beekeepers until the 1980s, according to Barnett's great-great-grandson Dan Parker, owner of . He recalled hives maintained on his family's property by another family, which supplied the ranch with honey in exchange for use of some of the land.

“It was all done on a handshake,” Parker said.

“Yeah, that was us,” Gibbs said. He said such informal arrangements were common in the earlier days of beekeeping in San Diego county.

Gibbs said there remained “a little bit of idealism in our business.” Working out in the fresh air and seeing nature make the occupation “bigger than making a living,” he said.

Perhaps that idealism is at the root of the resurgence of beekeeping by the Ramona Valley 4H Club.