Oct. 11—ROCHESTER — When Audrey McCollough entered the world of bees she brought her dad, Tim, into the buzzing fascination, too.
He would learn how to provide bees with an environment they’ll enjoy, to spin honey with the garage door closed, and the 100 pounds or more of honey the bees need to survive the winter.
The beekeeper status also brought him into a group of hobby beekeepers at Rochester Public Utilities, where Tim McCollough became general manager in 2023. While sitting with that group of six hobbyists, which has no formal meetings, rather general support through problem-solving and questions, there’s an awe for the small creatures.
“I love watching the bees,” Audrey McCollough said after about a year of raising bees. After caring for other insects and researching bees, she received the 2024 youth beekeeper scholarship from the Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association to start their hive, which has grown into two hives in their backyard. “When the sun’s shining just right, you can see them zooming over the housetop and then coming down. I love how they just go in all different directions and they can find their way home even when they have a 6-mile round trip.”
The RPU beekeepers include Tim McCollough, Nick Winkles, Tom Keller, Josh Mason, Shaun Hall and Steve Cook. Each joined or now shares his beekeeping hobby with family, like Winkles who finds caring for bees to be an interesting “science project” — one that fuels his family’s love for honey. His 4-year-old son laughs through the experience of sticking his suited head in to check on the bees and taste the season’s honey.
The honey carries its own taste based on what’s in bloom around their homes, such as the basswood that adds a mint flavor to Keller’s honey or the light hue with floral notes in the McColloughs’ spring honey.
“There’s hundreds of different nectar varieties that can make honey and you’ve got experts that can taste all the different notes in honey, almost like wine-tasting. I can’t distinguish them that well, but I enjoy the variety,” Audrey McCollough said.
As wild flowers disappear from many habitats, wasps and bees have less of a food source. The bees will continue to protect their hive, though in far less number than at the peak of the summer. Audrey McCollough said the hive size “varies dramatically” with a peak of around 80,000 to 90,000 bees.
While the bees have a small group through the winter, there’s varying success of them surviving the winter. Some operations move their bees to California. Hobbyists find the best ways to insulate their hive boxes and provide enough food. Mason said he’s replenished his bee populations each spring, with the main challenge being having honey last through the winter. Also in winter, Tim McCollough said, Varroa mite infestations can easily kill the population.
“I learned that it takes a whole community to really … do this,” Audrey McCollough said.
As hobbyists in the larger beekeeper community, the RPU group says to just keep learning, whether it’s beekeeping terminology, the equipment needed or the bees’ jobs. People can also join the Southeast Minnesota Beekeepers Association and Minnesota Hobby Beekeepers Association.
“If you ask eight beekeepers how to do something, they’ll give you 10 different answers,” Tim McCollough said.
At the core of beekeeping is a respect for the bees, and that beekeepers provide minimal help to the work the bees are doing, Audrey McCollough said. On their trips to and from the hive, bees gather nectar, pollen, water and resin. The nectar becomes honey, pollen serves as protein, water regulates the hive’s temperature and resin becomes an antibacterial protection.
In the flowers near RPU’s building or the plants at Sargeant’s North, Mason is curious if he’s seeing his bees. The bees can travel several miles in search of nectar. They also share a wobble dance to communicate to fellow bees the flowers’ location.
“I love how bees cooperate. It was really splendid this year to learn about the superorganism, how bees are a whole society and the beehive is not just a collection of individuals. There’s a mysterious kind of hive mind about it,” Audrey McCollough said. “It’s really mysterious and beautiful how they work together.”
Mason loves to see the bees traversing the yard in different directions. The bees also support the production of neighboring plants, such as Keller’s pear and apple trees.
“My neighbors have come over and said they have flowers where they’ve never seen flowers before,” Mason said. “They pollinate everything when you have bees around like that. So super neat to see.”
And then there are the stings, and how beekeepers choose to protect themselves. After becoming allergic to bees, Winkles began donning a body suit and gloves while working near them. Audrey McCollough wears protective equipment now, but started out wearing no gloves while working among her 3,000 to 7,000 bees. Keller, meanwhile, heads to the hive in shorts, flip flops and no gloves.
“It’s more like a science project because there’s just so much to what bees can do. They’re just a very interesting species of animal that blows your mind on what they actually can accomplish,” Winkles said.
From spring to summer the bees need space to grow their population and create honey. While there’s a curiosity to check on the bees, beekeepers aim to not dig in the hive by July. Keller said he leaves the bees alone when he sees fresh eggs or larva. The bees can also become more aggressive in warmer temperatures.
“The thing that I learned is that bees are still a wild organism, so all you can do as a beekeeper is give them a place to live that’s better than anything else,” Tim McCollough said. “They choose to stay … like there’s nothing you can do to keep them there. If they don’t like the place you provide for them, they’ll go find something better.”
Both Audrey and Tim McCollough love their time together raising bees and learning the ins and outs of the hobby. They’re thankful for mentors and fellow hobbyists like Cook who taught them the honey harvesting process.
In her first year of beekeeping, in the summer of 2024, Audrey McCollough dug deep into the hive and worked on a mite test. The bees showed their resistance, and protection for their home, with stings on her legs and ankles. With a “crazy hero moment,” Tim McCollough ran to absorb their stings, soon surrounded by a “cloud of bees” as he stacked the boxes again, as Audrey described.
“Not many teenage girls can say that their dad ran, hobbled on a broken ankle into a cloud of stinging bees to protect them. He has taken so many stings to come and help me when the bees attacked last year,” she said. “… It was just a beautiful picture of how much he loved me to come and rescue me when I was in a rough position.”
Ask many of the beekeepers why they care for bees and they will say it’s their love for honey. While the honey produced this year will remain with the bees for winter, Keller said he has 10 gallons from last year. The McColloughs had 19 gallons, or 211 pounds of honey in 2024.
The main honey harvest production is in late August or early September. The “messy process,” as Tim McCollough described it, can create dark, light or clear honey.
“If you see a bee from outside coming in and you don’t shut your garage door within like 15 minutes, all the bees will show up. So you could be overrun by bees trying to go steal back what you stole from them,” he said.
Whether figuring out why they have less honey or lending each other equipment, Mason said members of the group are thankful for their “little network” of beekeepers. Winkles said “the family of beekeepers definitely helps a ton to keep it more fun and interesting.”
“I think the honey harvest is kind of just part of the story. It’s nice consuming the honey,” Mason said, “but observing the bees and you know having them be available for pollination is probably equally or more important.”