Muir helping honeybees to flourish

One Pulaski County citizen/entrepreneur is doing his small part to help the local honeybees to flourish, at a time in our history when it is perhaps more difficult for them to survive than ever before.

Randy Muir of Snowville, owner of Muir Enterprises, LLC has a 96 acre farm. Nowadays instead of the cattle that were raised there in years past, he tends a small orchard of heirloom apples (varieties from the 1700s and 1800s) and honeybees. Mostly honeybees. When their population peaks in early summer, he will be trying to keep over a million of them happy and more importantly, healthy.

Although the Western Honeybee (Apis Mellifera) is not native to North America, ever since European settlers brought them here in the 1600’s, our ever-growing population has become increasing more dependent on them for our food supply. For example, the California almond crop (roughly 80 percent of the world’s crop) requires roughly 2 million honeybee colonies for pollination! Three quarters of those colonies are trucked in from elsewhere in the US.

Despite our reliance on them, in the modern age most beekeepers struggle to keep their colonies alive due to parasites such as the Varroa Mite which arrived in 1987, plus a host of pathogens. To make matters worse, studies show that many of the synthetic chemicals used in modern agriculture as pesticides and fungicides weaken their immune systems and shorten the life expectancy of the individual bees, which creates a cascade of catastrophic threats to the survival of a the super organism known as a honeybee colony. The threats are so dire that beekeepers in Virginia reported in the 2023 survey by the Bee Informed Partnership that 43 percent of their colonies did not survive the year. In some states it was over half. Muir reports losing only about 7 percent of the colonies he managed in the last year, while using only natural methods (no synthetic chemicals for example).

Knowing the low survival rate of this valuable species, Muir does what he can to improve their odds by capturing swarms he learns about in our area (for free), safely rescuing honeybees from  structures for a fee, and selectively breeding queens from stock that has demonstrated the traits to survive in Pulaski County with little or no treatment. He also sells small starter colonies (called nucs) to folks wanting to start or grow an apiary. He believes the bees may be best qualified to solve their plight themselves if humans will reduce the pressures that are making them sick and capitalize on the power of natural selection.

During months when his colonies require less attention and the calls for nucs, swarms and removals have slowed, Muir sometimes volunteers to give presentations in local elementary schools to introduce the kids to the amazing honeybee.

“They are so unusual and remarkable. Facts like how they keep the brood area at 93°F, regardless of whether it is below zero or 112° outside. The fact the the queen has a mother and a father, but the drones (males) have no father.

“The fact that the queen can lay 2,000 eggs in a day in May in our climate. It all boggles my mind. And the  more I learn about them, the more they fascinate me and the more I want to know about them. You might say am am addicted to keeping and learning about honeybees. So whether its presenting to nine year olds or talking to a ninety year old, I am always excited about discussing honeybees!

“I’m pretty sure some of the people that are close to me are tired of me talking about honeybees. But usually the people who hire me to remove a colony of bees from their building and relocate them to my apiary where I can keep them healthy are very curious and amazed by the honeybee biology information I share with them. Sometimes I feel like an ambassador for honeybees,” said Muir.

If you have a swarm on your property or bees in a structure you want removed, Randy can be reached by text at 540-230-7703.