A hobby with sweet rewards

When he’s not working at his full-time job as a civil engineer at Barge Design Solutions, or serving in his place on the Chelsea City Council, or fulfilling duties in his role of chairman for the Shelby County Chamber of Commerce, Chris Grace enjoys beekeeping. 

Grace has an eight-hive apiary in the backyard of his Chelsea home from a hobby that began about six years ago. But that wasn’t his first introduction to beekeeping. As a child growing up in rural Walker County, Grace’s dad practiced beekeeping for two seasons.

“I have a memory of going to the post office to pick up a queen bee [that came in the mail] and I was fascinated by that,” Grace said. 

It was David Willingham, Chief Development officer for Shelby County, who gave Grace the idea to start his own beekeeping adventure. Willingham had taken a class with the Shelby County Beekeepers Association and encouraged Grace to do so as well. 

“Every December, they hold a 10-week class leading up to the spring time, basics of beekeeping,” Grace said. “David went through it and one day he said I'm going to start keeping bees and challenged me a little bit. The next year, I signed up for the class and went through it.” 

After the class, Grace bought his first two hives. He said as soon as he received the first package of supplies and smelled the beeswax foundation, it sent him back to being an 8-year- old kid when his dad was beekeeping.

His first hives didn't survive until the next spring, so he went back and bought two more and put them in a different location, where they have flourished ever since. He is now up to eight hives. He came out of winter with four hives, which he split to make eight total. 

“They've done fantastic, much better than I wanted them to do,” Grace said. “That's all I want for this lot. It's a lot of work to keep up with all of them, it takes a lot of time.”

Grace uses the Langstroth method of beekeeping, which he said is the one that about 90% of beekeepers in North America use. He has vertically stacked boxes that hold wooden frames where the bees build honeycomb into the frames that can be easily moved. The frames are designed to prevent bees from attaching honeycombs where they would either connect adjacent frames, or connect frames to the walls of the hive.

“It allows them to do their thing and you do your thing, leaving space for them to make honey,” he said. 

Each of the medium boxes, when full of honey, can weigh from 40 to 60 pounds. It happens over the course of a few weeks. Grace said he took about 120 pounds off of his hives last year. 

It’s impossible to count the number of bees Grace has, as there are tens of thousands per colony. When the queen bee senses spring is coming, she begins to lay eggs and can lay as many as 1,000 eggs per day. From egg to hatch time for a worker bee is 21 days, so that many more arrive every three weeks.

“Once trees blossom, they’re flying nonstop and once the weather is warm enough, they are literally working themselves to death,” he said. “One bee in its lifetime can collect about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey, so it takes 12 bees a lifetime of work to create one teaspoon of honey. “

Grace said the bees provide lessons from the hive, that they are all living for a future generation, storing honey for two or three generations down the road. 

“To me, there's a great life lesson in that,” he said. “Thinking as a society, our grandkids and great grandkids, what are we doing to store up and prepare the way for them? That's what whole colony is devoted to. I think that's just fascinating in the natural order of things.”

For Grace, this is just a hobby for him and he winds up giving most of his honey away. 

“There's a handful of people that do this for money, but I give away a lot of honey,” he said. “It’s a social thing, like my calling card. It's a fun hobby.” 

The honey should be ready to harvest around Memorial Day if the weather cooperates. Grace will take the frames out and use a fume board on the top to get the bees to vacate the boxes and go down into the hive. 

He then brings them into his garage where his extractor machine is set up and will extract honey from the bee combs without damaging them. It has a cylindrical drum that holds the frame basket, and by spinning it around is able to extract honey out of the combs. This way, the combs remain intact and can be returned to the bees for use.

“It's a messy, messy job but somebody’s got to do it,” Grace said. 

For anyone interested in becoming a beekeeper, Grace encourages them to reach out to the Shelby County Beekeepers Association and take the class.

“Find a group of people that can help advise and encourage you and give you some assurance that you know what you're doing,” he said.