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By LOU SANTACROCE Correspondent More than 200 million pounds of honey are produced in the U.S. for products ranging from sham poo to bread. Some of that honey is produced by Alaskan bees. “There have been apiarists (‘bee keeper’) in Alaska’s interior since the turn of the century, ever since the Department of Agriculture’s experimental sta tion started in Sitka,” says Stephen Petersen, who is secre tary/treasurer of the Interior Beekeepers Association. “They've had them in the Matanuska Valley and Rampart Station since the’30s, and they've been here in the Interior since the ‘20s. There are over 100 bee keepers in the interior area at present, 600-700 statewide.” seven was even more fun. At 16 colonies see, maybe I can make its hay pay for it and it more or less does pay for itself. “Beekeeping has the po tential for augmenting your in come, but it’s going to be quite awhile before it becomes some thing that can be done as a pro fession up here,” says Petersen. What about bee stings? Pe tersen smiles indulgently at the suggestion. “It’s like being a carpenter, “ he says. “Sooner or later, you're going to whack your thumb with the hammer. The first time I hived a package of bees it was a bit intimidating. ~ Bees are ordered by mail, and arrive in a package containing about 11,000. A hive is a human made structure where bees will settle in and start making honey. “Within the first couple of minutes,” Petersen continues, “it became obvious that 11,000 bees were not going to descend on me because that is when the bees are most aggressive. The honey is their food, you know. Bees live on floral secretions: pollen and nectar. The pollen provides the protein and the nectar provides the carbohydrates. That’s all they need, and they’re the only insect that stores an excess of it, so we are able to remove a portion of their ‘crop,’ while leaving them enough to live on,” Petersen explains. There are three types of bees, called “castes.” Drones, the re sults of unfertilized eggs, are the males. Their main function is to mate with the queen. They are driven from the hive in the fall. Worker bees, the results of fertil ized eggs, are sexually immature females. They collect pollen and nectar and make honey. The queen bee is the only sexually mature female in a colony. Her function is to mate and produce more bees. The queen bee can decide whether to lay a fertilized or unfertilized see page 12: BEES room and a minister forced to re sign because of his activities on behalf of lesbians and gay men. Other incidents include a city directory refusing to place a gay organization listing, gay stu dents at a university campus harassed by the “Anti-fag Soci ety,” and the convicted killer of a gay man getting a one-year prison sentence. Surveys, public records and interviews in Anchorage, Fair banks, Juneau and 10 other communities were used to com pile a profile of gays and lesbians in Alaska. Results were reported by authors Jay K. Brause and Melissa S. Green in a publication entitled, “Identity Reports: Sex say”, what proportion of such incidents are reported. “No sta tistics are kept whatsoever, ex cept by us. “This is the first time anyone has tried in Alaska to develop the numbers,” Green said. “There are statistics on discrimination for anyone protected, but the agencies such as the Human Rights Commission don’t have the authority for intake on gay and lesbian discrimination.” The report says that 37 per cent of Alaska’s gay and lesbian population has experienced employment or housing discrimi nation while living in Alaska. At the same time, a survey of Anchorage businesses shows that 42 percent of employers and 39 percent of landlords have a friend or family member who is homo sexual. Attitudes of discrimina tion were about four times greater among employers and landlords who did not have a friend or family member who is homosexual. _ The Anchorage ey found ea ; ¢ perce ; 4 wiOYOr: ; ~ Sn' ir et amet ee? ae de a mote or would fire someone they had reason to believe was homo sexual. Other survey results indicate that 20 percent of land lords in Anchorage would either See page 9: HARASSMENT
Newspaper Details
Fairbanks Pioneer All Alaska Weekly
Fairbanks, Alaska, US
Fri, Sep 08, 1989
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Jakob D.
GB 10 Jun 2026
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