St. Pete neighborhood works to save bee population during national decline

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) — About a quarter of the country’s bee population is managed in Florida alone, which is why their rapid population decline is detrimental to national agriculture and local allergens.

Insect experts said it’s thanks to the hard work and dedication of beekeepers that we’re not in a crisis. They’ve had to get creative to keep the bee population steady as many bees die off.

A friendly neighborhood competition is serving as a bee conservation effort in Pinellas County. St. Petersburg retiree and recently licensed local beekeeper Chris Kempton is organizing a honey rivalry to fight the rapidly declining bee population.

Kempton offers free bee removal. He handcrafts hive homes, rehabilitates the bees in his backyard, and then relocates the hive to another person’s property — all very crucial work according to insect expert at the University of Florida, Jamie Ellis.

“Beekeepers are doing everything they can to keep those colony populations static so that the bees are available to pollinate the nation’s food supply so they really are the heroes in this story,” Ellis said.

Bees face a plethora of obstacles when it comes to survival. These include mites, nutrition, queen quality, bacterial diseases, fungal diseases, and more. They are even impacted by weather events such as flooding when residing in lower places.

Kempton uses several tools to increase the chances of survival. Some of these include feeding them sugarwater, giving them supplements, and including bug traps in their hives.

Kempton has gone through this process six times in the last four months as he has now salvaged and rehomed a handful of hives.

“We’re in our baby steps right now. From humble beginnings. It started with just one hive rescue and I put a little ad on Facebook, as you know, and that just went viral.”

In order to increase morale and encourage neighborhoods to be aware of their impact on bees in their area, Kempton is organizing a friendly honey competition.

”This fall, what we’ll do is we’ll gather all of the honey from all of these different locations and we want to sit down and compare, who’s got the best honey?”

Residents out of St. Pete, Clearwater, and Largo already have busy bees brewing their batches.

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