The brown paste at the top of the hive is called propolis, also known as "bee glue," and is produced by the bees to help seal and protect the hive from outside threats. All of the worker bees are female and are responsible for most tasks in a hive. Photo by Karley Haggerty
There’s a buzz around the Tampa area as a local business harvests honey and works to spread a sweet word about the bees.
Tampa Bees has over 100 hives all around the Tampa area, ranging from Odessa to St. Petersburg. Photo by Karley Haggerty
Tampa Bees was founded by Stephanie Ramthun and her husband Christian Ramthun in 2014 after originally wanting to pollinate almond trees in California. After running into some difficulties, Stephanie and Christian moved to Florida and started the business as new beekeepers. The two spent their first five years without any honey as they focused on learning all they could about bees—how the bees worked, moved and behaved.
This particular hive site sits on some old campgrounds. Thompson Rankin, a friend of Tampa Bees, owns the property and benefits from the bees pollinating his crops too. Photo by Karley Haggerty
Honey is ready to harvest when most of the cells in a frame are capped with beeswax. Honey is collected using a honey extractor tool, which then pours the honey through a strainer and into a container that allows the employees to separate it into different bottles and jars. Photo by Karley Haggerty
Besides the benefit of pollination, another way the bees positively impact the world is through Apitherapy, which is the use of honey bee products as healing remedies. For example, bee venom can be used to cure severe cases of Lyme disease. Honey also has the ability to reduce breast cancer cells.
Briana Charton works for Tampa Bees and takes part in the harvesting and selling of the honey. She also works to take care of the bees and helps tell people about how important bees really are. Photo by Karley Haggerty
Tampa Bees has a small but popular storefront in Keystone known as the Bee Shack, where they sell raw honey and honeycomb, beeswax candles, local handmade pottery and more. Tampa Bees can also be found serving as a vendor at many local Tampa area farmers markets. Photo by Karley Haggerty
“One bad bee can make it seem like there’s a lot of bad bees out there,” said Charton. “But they are very sweet. Bees, I feel like, are some of the most powerful creatures in this entire world.”
