THE GOLDEN, sticky sweetness drizzles onto warm toast, slightly pooling before you take a bite. The rich, floral taste lingers on your tongue. It’s a gift from thousands of tiny workers buzzing industriously in fields of wildflowers.
Bees pollinate nearly 85% of the world’s flowering plants, ensuring the growth of fruits, vegetables, and nuts essential to human and animal life. Without them, grocery store shelves would be shockingly bare, and the agricultural impact would be devastating. Besides honey, bees provide royal jelly and pollen, packed with antioxidants and health benefits.
However, these essential pollinators face immense threats. Industrial farming, habitat loss, and climate change push them to the brink. But what can we do to help?
Local beekeeper and business owner Scot Smotherman has a simple answer: support your local beekeepers.
“Buying locally supports beekeepers and helps maintain a healthy population of bee hives in your community,” Smotherman explained.
Smotherman, co-owner of the Wellness Emporium in Woodbury, has built his life around natural wellness. He harvests clover, sourwood, and wildflower honey from hives at a 4,000-foot elevation near the North Carolina-Tennessee border, where bees work their magic among diverse mountain flora.
Harvesting honey is both an art and a science. Smotherman begins in late spring when nectar flow peaks. He carefully monitors his hives, ensuring the bees have space in their supers — the frames where honey is stored.
Once the comb is full and capped with wax, he removes and uncaps the frames before spinning the honey in an extractor. The honey is then filtered, gently warmed for smooth bottling, and stored, ensuring each jar contains nothing but raw, golden goodness straight from the hive.
We have bees to thank for our thriving local farms and food businesses, but we can also admire their brilliance and methodical nature.
“It’s impossible to overstate the importance of insect pollinators,” Smotherman said.
Different plants produce different pollen and nectars, and honeybees instinctively seek out what they need throughout the seasons. The result is a beautifully varied selection of honey, each batch revealing the flowers in bloom.
For Smotherman, beekeeping is a tradition. His second cousin, Dr. Ed Perryman of Bedford County, has been a successful beekeeper for decades. A conversation in 2015 piqued Smotherman’s interest, and by the following spring, he and his brother started their own hives with Perryman’s queen bees.
“Like most new beekeepers, we over- thought the process at first,” Smotherman admitted. “But you soon learn to let the bees show you what they need.”
According to Smotherman, the biggest threat to honeybee populations today is the varroa mite, a parasitic pest that weakens hives and spreads disease. Treatments exist, but they’re expensive, and beekeepers must rotate methods to prevent mites from developing resistance.
Habitat loss is another hurdle.
“Corn and soybeans do not provide nectar for honeybees, and red clover blossoms are often too deep for them to reach,” Smotherman explained. “But planting bee-friendly cover crops — like white clover — can make a huge difference.”
He believes that beekeeping can thrive with improved bee strains and greater public awareness. More people are opting for local honey over mass-produced alternatives, and if hive health improves, more aspiring beekeepers will stick with it rather than get discouraged.
Supporting pollinators is easier than you might think. Smotherman encourages people to buy local honey, plant bee-friendly flowers, and avoid using pesticides that harm bees.
So, the next time you drizzle honey into your tea or onto a warm slice of toast, take a moment to appreciate the tiny creatures that made it possible. In their work, they create something sweet but, more importantly, sustain an entire ecosystem with every flower. GN
