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ecomesBeesnessFor AthensTakerBy CAROL JAMES Messenger Staff WriterEd Rannow has bees in hisyardWell, you say, most people do But Rannow’s bees areresidents there, in three hivesa hobby for his retirement fromschool teaching, three years ago. Now he has something to doand “it keeps me out of trouble,” he jokes in his soft, hoarse voice.In a good hive, there are 60,000 to 90,000 bees, and the more beeswhich are only a small part of the bee population Rannow tends.For Rannow. 81 Second St., is a beekeeper, and this year hasabout 60 colonies of beesin a colony, the more honey it will produce during the “honey flow.” which lasts from four toscattered at the county home. The Plains, a Route 33 locationand at his home However, he calls himself bee taker because he leaves4 4nowthem alone for the most part, but collects the honey crop they produce.He began the hobby turned into quite a little bit of honey some 15 years ago when a neighbor sold him three hives, which didn t survive. But hiseight weeks each spring and fall.The queen is the hub of the beekeeping operation, for without her there is no colony.Rannow explained that the hives must be “requeened” annually to keep them strong. Usuaily, after a year a queen has fulfilled her egg-laying destiny and a new one must bedefeat only caused him to get more, and he was thinking ofbrought in to replace her Queens lay 1,000 to 2.000 eggs daily. However, when introducing a new queen the old queen must be destroyed or they will fight to the deathThe more bees in a colony, theung Miller'\HisOwnssBy GEORGE LOVELL Messenger Staff WriterCOOLV1LLE — “The best thing about this is that you are your own boss.” according to Jerry Bibbee who took over operation of the Coolville Mill while still a senior at Federal HockingHigh School and has been devoting full time to the businesssince he graduated in June.He has planned to take over the mill after graduation but John Aiken, who had been connected with the mill tor 60 years,decided that he wanted to retire in February and Bibbee wasfaced with either assuming control then or having it closedBibbee was fortunate because J. Howard McCoy who had been employed at the mill since 1950 was available to run it on a part-time basis. Even so, Bibbee found the last few months ofhis high school career rather hectic because he played basketball as well as being responsible for the mill’s operation and finishing up his high school studies.Since graduation Bibbee has been trying to get the mill machinery repaired. Before that he had an extensive roofpatching job to get done. He has now started painting the exterior Meanwhile, he has learned about the operation fromMcCov and others.The mill was established in 1850, burned down in 1923 andwas rebuiltv in 1927. The mill was originally powered by waterwhich flowed down the Hocking River toward the Ohio, but nowits machinery is all electrically operated. Some of the equipment which distributed power from the water — poweredturbine in the basement of the mill is still in place and Bibbeewould like to install another device to use power from the river He isn’t sure whether this would be possible or practicalbut thinks it would serve as a tourist attraction, even if it werenot actually used to generate power used for grinding grain. One of the problems he will have to face which did notconfront the installers of the original waterpowered system is that the Hocking River is now at a permanently higher level than it was when they installed their system. The higher stage is a result of the high nse dam across the Ohio River at Reedsville.Bibbee is expanding the line of products which he offers for sale but has no plans to get back into the business of making pancake flour, although he still has calls for the product which the former owner of the mill discontinued making a number of years ago He still has a burr used in making flour from buckwheat which was imported from France.There are a number of interesting fetures at the mill. One is that some of the beams on which its floor rests are made fromwalnut and chestnut, both of which are now too expensive to beused for that purpose The office is equipped with an old roll topdesk and one of the pieces of equipment still in use there is a two holed paper punch which has been in use long enough to qualifyas an antique.Possibly the most unusual piece of equipment to come with the mill is a solid brass instrument used for determining the amount of grain necessary to make a bushel. This varies with the percentage of moisture in the grain.Bibbee plans eventually to move the mill office across the street from the mill and to install machinery which willprocess larger orders of grain more efficiently than the machinery now in use, but he plans to keep the present equipment to serve the needs of smaller operators who have a few sacks of grain ground at a time. These are the part-time farmers of the region and they will continue to provide much of his volume for the forseeable future, he believes.CTl|f Guniinn lUroocnncrTHE MESSENGER, Athens. Ohio—Sun., July 21, 1974 — Page C-lmore honey they will produce, up to the point of over crowding, when the bees will swarm, interrupting production of honey. But this can be prevented by dividing the colony and introducing a new queen or by adding more “supers” (layered sections) to the hive.Rannow explains that “it takes a lot of work ” All bees in thestate must be registered and a per location fee of $1 paid to the county bee inspector, who certifies bees annually. If he findsany disease, the bees are destroyed by burning.The bee inspector cannot wear gloves because of the danger ofthe spread of disease.Rannow’s tools, however, include gloves and a bee veil, a hive tool and a smoker, a devicewhich blows smoke to force the bees into their hives.“You always work from the side or back of the hive. Rannow explaines, to avoid blocking the entrace and causinc thecausing bees any irritation Nor should one wear hair spray or carry the odor of alcoholic beverages, as you will be stung. For the most part, though, as long as you stay out of their paths you won’t get stung.“Don’t mess with them on windy. cloudy, or stormy days,either,” Rannow advises,“because they are mean then He could have all of his bees atone location, but there would notbe enough bee pasture, as they only forage for one or two miles, he said.They also have a very efficient social organization. Rannow says, with the queen, the worker and the drones.The drones are thetheirpests inthe hive.”onlypurposebeing to breed with the queen. The workers take care of thelarvae and young, and go out from the hive to collect nectarfor honey, as well as air conditioning and guarding the hive. To cool and dry the honey, theworker bees gather at the entrance and fan their wings to keep the air flowing through the hiveBut after about three weekstheir working lives end. because they have become tattered andtorn in their labors and are subsequently de-winged and thrown out of the hive.Rannow. who counts himselfAthens Countv'samong Ainens county s ap proximately 90 registered beekeepers, sells his honey for $1 a pound, but recalls that a few years ago it sold for 15 to 20 cents a pound He attributes the rapid rise in to the “back-to-natureprice movement4 4One method of harvesting his honey crop is to place a bee escape on the hive, which allows the bees to leave but not re-enterAfter about 24 hours all the beeswill be out of the super and he can replace it with an empty one. placed on top of the two broodsupers.Rannow then takes the full combs, which were built on amanufactured beeswax foundation. into the sweet-smelling basement of his home, and uncaps the combs with an electric knife The combs are placed into a revolving barrel which removes the honey by centrifugal force and he open a faucet at the bottom which drains the honey through a double thickness ofcheesecloth into another container He then bottles the extracted honey into containers up to five gallons. The production of honey depends on the nature ofthe floweFS and the nectar flow.with spring honey coming mainly from sweet clover and being lighter in color than fall honey, which is mainly left for the beesto winter on.Rannow looks in on his bees in the fall to be sure they haveplenty of store for the winter and he checks them again the first warm day in February to be surethe queen is starting to lay eggs If she isn't “you need to orderanother” he says, explaining that he receives his queen bees for $5 each from the southern UnitedStates.Photos By ( buck laile\(Continued On Page C-9)Fd Rannow Displays Comb On Frame Taken From SuperRees are smoked into calm before Fd Caps are removed from honeycombs withRannoic collects honeyelectric knifeBui Prices. Costs Leave Profits I/i
Newspaper Details
Athens Messenger
Athens, Ohio, US
Sun, Jul 21, 1974
Page 21
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Other Publications Near Athens, Ohio
Athens Messenger
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