The Secret Life of Honey Bees with Chris Kelly

Ahead of his demonstration on beekeeping at the Honey Harvest Fest, taking place at the East Hampton Airport this Saturday, September 9th, local beekeeper Chris Kelly sat down with me to answer a few questions about the lives of Honey Bees. 

“My family wasn’t into beekeeping,” Chris laughed, recalling that he started keeping bees over 50 years ago. Growing up in Huntington, about an hour and a half from where he’ll be teaching on Saturday, early on, he started in Boy Scouts of America. “I took all the merit badges that were related to insects. Very quickly, bees went from being a hobby to a passion,” Chris said. Later, he studied entomology at Cornell University from 1978 to 1982. Chris’s ultimate goal when it comes to beekeeping is to educate people about the insects in their environment. He said, “Once people start keeping bees, they are amazed at what the bees will tell them.” When I inquired about what it is exactly that bees can tell us, he said many things, starting with the color of honey, which informs us of what pollen and plants are in our area. 

Chris primarily works with Honey Bees on his farm, Promised Land Apiaries, whose name comes from an old map of the South Fork that labeled our area as “the promised land” which struck a note with Chris and later bled into his work with bees. “I try to make beekeeping accessible to a wide audience,” he said, speaking of his love for working with youth groups and those who are mentally disabled. “You get a set of eyes on bees and all of sudden you can de-mystify them.” 

Chris informed me that in one bee’s lifetime, it will make about ⅛ of 1 teaspoon of honey. If that doesn’t help you understand the amount of work it takes for bees to make the 3,000 pounds of honey that Promised Land Apiaries produces each year, I’m not sure what will. At Honey Harvest Fest, Chris will demonstrate how he harvests honey from the East Hampton airport hives. “We are one of two airports in the nation that keep bees on sight, the airport is a wonderful place to work with the bees because you’ve got a huge area of undisturbed land,” he said. I know what you’re thinking: is an airport the perfect place to be undisturbed? But Chris told me that bees are unable to hear, making them untroubled by the sound of the jets. Chris has even done a handful of tests in an effort to research if the emissions from the planes that land at the East Hampton Airport have any effect on the quality or taste of the honey they produce, and he’s found no difference than in the honey produced in one’s backyard, for example. 

If you head out to the Honey Harvest Fest on Saturday, Chris’s hope for you is beautiful and simple: “Not to be afraid of bees and to get engaged with what this magnificent little creature brings to the plate for us.” See you there!