Long Island Beekeepers Club Buzzing with Interest

With the risk of painful stings and allergic reactions, beekeeping is probably not the average person's idea of a healthy hobby.

But, to the members of the Long Island Beekeepers Club, it's a uniting passion of both enjoyment and necessity in order to maintain a creature that is so crucial for the local ecosystem.

George Schramm, President of the Lake Ronkonkoma Civic Organization, as well as President of the LIBC, stressed the role of bees in the everyday lives of humans.          

"Bees are important pollinators. Without them, many of the fruits and vegetables that we grow just wouldn't happen," he said.

An architect for the United States Postal Service, Schramm has been beekeeping for five years and was elected president of the club, which has been around since 1949, a month ago.

"It's something I was always interested in doing," Schramm said.

A colleague introduced him to the seemingly unusual hobby. He now has three colonies from which he harvests honey for friends and families.

Members of the LIBC who have earned the highly respected title of master beekeeper, also helped Schramm establish his colonies.

Miguel Valentín, a master beekeeper who lives in Ronkonkoma, has been beekeeping for 55 years. He began collecting bees as a child in his native Puerto Rico. With $50 from his grandfather, he slowly built up his colonies to an impressive 45 by the time he was a junior in high school.

"I was in love with them," said Valentín.

As a retired New York City Police Detective, Valentín said he plans to spend more time tending to his bees and his businesses, Mickely Bee Apiaries and Mickely Honey Ltd., which specialize in both bee products, such as honey and Royal Jelly, as well as bee removal from residences.

Valentín joined the club in 1975 and became a master beekeeper in 1995. He hopes his enthusiasm and genuine love of beekeeping will continue with future beekeepers.

"It's good to teach the young people now, to see if we can recruit younger people to join the organization and start beekeeping," he said. "Thirty-five percent of our food production is helped by pollination services. The bees are extremely important to our environment."

Beekeepers have become more significant as the honeybee populations in many places in the world have become threatened by disease, habitat destruction and a plague called Colony Collapse Disorder, for which there is no official known cause.

Schramm feels beekeeper clubs like the LIBC are essential in educating both seasoned and novice beekeepers about these factors in their areas that could potentially threaten both local and global environments.

"Beekeeping is really a local hobby," he said. "So, having a local club, you're allowed to share information about what goes on locally. And that's one of the ways we discover where there are certain types of diseases or predatory insects that affect bees, parasites. You get an idea of what's going on locally, whether you need to protect yourself."

And the LIBC is a great place to go for anyone interested in beekeeping. At their meeting on March 21, the camaraderie could be felt between the members, an attribute most likely due to their common, yet atypical interest. 

Even though their Good Neighbor Policy, which outlines regulations for budding beekeepers, can restrict people if they don't own a home or have enough land, veteran beekeepers will let new members keep bees on their property.

"Just like the bees work together as a collective to do what they have to do, beekeepers work together as a collective to do what they have to do also," said Schramm.