Every year, in order to sell honey, nucs or queens, every hive in an apiary in Maine needs to be inspected and approved.  This is done to ensure that the hives are healthy which in turn ensure that disease is not spread.  This was the first year we requested to have Jen Lund, Maine State Apiarist to the yard to inspect our 4 hives. And wouldn’t you know it, WE PASSED!! This means, for those who have been waiting to buy our honey, we will be ready to sell soon (we’ll just have to wait for the bees)!

Jen Lund was kind enough stay after the inspection for a bit to give us our very first “He Talks Hard” interview. This series will focus on local professionals and small business owners here in the New England area and beyond about pollinators and how they contribute to this delicate ecosystem we all need to live in.

As we began our interview with Jen, we started talking about what exactly a state apiarist does. Simply put  she works with hives doing hive and equipment inspections and hive autopsies (get your CSI gear for this one!). She is a very busy bee-keeper 😂. Jen was quick to point out that she does not have the winter off as some might assume. She said, however, of her position, “I probably have the coolest of the apiary positions because I work in the best state with the best beekeepers.” 😊 (Obviously). So what does a typical year look like for her?

Starting in the winter, Jen works with Maine nuc producers. The nucs need to be inspected for disease before they can be sold. She also inspects other things like old equipment, again to ensure that if there’s any disease, it’s caught early and not spread state wide. 

In the spring, she works with migratory bees. What, you ask, are migratory bees? Are they like snow birds who winter in Florida? Well, sort of. They are out of state bees that come to Maine to help pollinate our blueberries and apples. What would Maine be without blueberries and apples?? ::shudder:::

She estimates that Maine gets between twenty and eighty thousand migratory hives a year. Yes, thousand.  That’s a lot of bees!  And a lot of blueberries and apples! 🍎 Once the migratory beehives have been inspected (and inspected again!), Jen begins work with local beekeepers like us. If a residential beekeeper encounters health issues or other concerns, they call Jen to help.

So… why bees? Jen completed her undergraduate in New York and went into a masters program at the University of Maine. Her focus was etymology for both degrees.  She worked primarily with ants. During a study on European fire ants, as her funding was running out, a UMaine professor, Frank Drummond asked her if she wanted in on a grant he had just received to work with honeybees.  Jen’s response was “I don’t know anything about bees.” Professor Drummond insisted she’d  be fine. She would continue her research on bees until the State Apiarist’s position opened up just a few years ago.  She applied and got the job! And now she’s in her dream job!!

 I started my very first year with five hives in my backyard and forty research hives. And I fell in love with it…

Finally, we finished off our interview by asking Jen what YOU can do to help if you can’t keep bees yourself. Her advice was this:

There are 3 easy things you can do:

1. Plant flowers - Yep, that simple. Plant a wide diversity of things for them. They don’t have to be showy fussy flowers. You could stop mowing and just let the dandelions grow. It’s all food for the bees.

2. Provide Habitat - Got a dead tree that’s not bothering anyone? Leave it for bee nesting. Habitat for them to colonize in is very important to bee proliferation.

3. Be Careful with Pesticides - Jen says “if you have to do any sort of pesticide application, you wanna make sure you’re not spraying any flowers that are in bloom…if you have to, you know, spray something or apply something to blooming flowers, do it in the evening when the bees are already kind of done foraging for the day.” Also, try to use yard chemicals with the lowest possible toxicity to bees. Labels will help you determine what is best! (for more suggestions, visit our “How can you help?” page on the website)

We are so grateful Jen took the time to talk to us for our premier installment of He Talks Hard. Thanks so much for reading! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if there’s someone you would like to see interviewed! We love suggestions!

Until we talk again!

~Chris, the boxing beekeeper

You can find the full transcript of the interview below.

Full Transcript:

Chris: We are going to kick this off with Jen Lund who is the state apiarist.

Jen: I am, I am

Chris: Welcome!

Jen: Thank you.

Chris: Jen was here inspecting the hives. We got a…

Jen: Clean bill of health!

Chris: Clean bill of health! So, once we have our licenses in place, we can start to sell honey. Look at us in July. But while she’s here, I wanted to just.. tell us what that means, to be the state apiarist.

Jen: Yes, um so it’s a really cool position. I actually work in the, I probably have the coolest of the apiary positions because I work in the best state with the best beekeepers

Chris: Obviously

Jen: Obviously!. And um, but I um. What I do is I really spend a lot of time, most of my year working with um, local beekeepers, resident beekeepers helping them with their hives. If they have problems they give me a call or if they have any health concerns obviously they give me a call. I also work with our migratory beekeepers. So we get somewhere between twenty and, you know, eighty thousand hives a year for pollination. Services for our blueberries and apples mostly, but also some other small fruit. Um, and I make sure they are coming in disease, um without diseases that we’re concerned about. And I inspect them again, so that starts up next week [the week of May 12], I start roaming around mid-coast and looking through migratory hives.

Chris: I’m glad we got you for these hives when we did then.

Jen: Yes! [laughing] This is my super, May and June are I’m pretty much straight out for everything. I just happened to be coming down today and I was like, Oh I can scootch you in in the morning so. So yea, but I spend about five weeks with the migratory bees and then um, before that I work with a lot of our nuc producers and take a look at stuff before they sell it; used equipment, things like that that need inspections before we, um, before they’re sold so that they’re, we’re not just moving disease around the state. And then, I work with my migratory beekeepers and then the remainder of the year is usually our resident beekeepers. And then I also do a lot of hive autopsies during the winter. So I keep, I look at bees all year round. People are always like, “you have the winter off, right?”. No. Nope, I get no time off. Yea

Chris: As the state apiarist you’re obviously very deep into this nasty, expensive habit. Why bees? How did you get..

Jen: So it’s kind of, my story’s kind of a little bit odd in that I actually, my degrees are in entomology. So I studied insects. Um, I got an undergraduate degree in New York, and then I actually finished up a Master’s degree up at University of Maine. And I was working at University of Maine on ants, and so, a project with um, European fire ants. Any of you who live on the coast, you know how problematic they can be. And so I was doing, um working on that and my funding was ending. And there was a wonderful professor at the University of Maine, his name is Frank Drummond. And he’s walking down the hallway and he was like “Hey, I just got this grant for working with honeybees. Do you ah, you want in?” And I, I was like, “I don’t know anything about bees.”. He’s like “You’ll be fine.” So I started my very first year with five hives in my backyard and forty research hives. And I fell in love with it and love, and you know I ran a lot of the research for the University of Maine apiary program. And on campus we have anywhere between forty to eighty hives at any give time that they’re doing research on. And so I worked on all kinds of different projects and then a couple years ago, this position opened up and um, I applied for it and got it and now I’m in my dream job.

Chris: And here we are.

Jen: Yes.

Chris: And ah, just finally, I always try to sort of encourage people or educate people as best I can. What can they do, to sort of help honeybees?

Jen: Yea. So that’s actually a really good question. There’s lots of things that people can do who don’t necessarily want to keep bees because it is a, an expensive hobby and it can also be you know, challenging. Especially if you have a lot of other things that you need to be doing in your life, because the bees don’t wait for us. We have to work on their schedule. And so if it’s not something you want to undertake, you know, keeping bees, things that you could do to help people who do want to keep bees, and also you native bees, which are very very important in our landscapes. You can plant flowers in your yard. Um, it’s really that simple. Planting a lot of, a wide diversity of things for them. Um, they don’t have to be beautiful showy things, they can even be, you know, simple things like dandelions. Thats how I never have to mow my lawn is, I’m like “It’s bee food. I don’t need to mow my lawn. It’s bee food.” Um, so planting flowers, providing habitat for bees. So, especially for our native bees, they need things like, um, housing. So where they live, um, so old tree snags, you know if you have a lot of property, if it’s not impacting, if it’s not going to hurt somebody leaving and old tree standing, a dead tree, some bees will nest in that sort of material. Having bare spots in the yard is good. Bees also, there’s a lot that ground nest and that’s a good way to do that. Um, and also being really careful around your property with pesticide use. So most of the stuff that we, most of the stuff that happens, um, in your yard, you wanna, if you have to do any sort of pesticide application, you wanna make sure you’re not spraying any flowers that are in bloom, ah because those are the ones that the bees are visiting, so avoid those. Um, if you have to, you know, spray something or apply something to blooming flowers, do it in the evening when the bees are already kind of done foraging for the day. Um and then also, use the least toxic thing. There’s a lot of labeling now so watch, read the packages really carefully. And there’s usually a sticker on there, or a panel that talks about the bee toxicity of it. And it will tell you, hey, this is relatively safe for bees or this is really toxic for bees and so you wanna choose something that’s on the safer side or the least toxic side. And so those are three things that everybody can just do in their backyards that could be really impactful for bees, so.

Chris: Perfect.

Jen: Yea.

Chris: Well, thank you so much for stopping in.

Jen: You’re very welcome.

Chris: And thank you for taking this time, I know you’re super busy, but.

Jen: Yup, full day of appointments so, after this one I think I have four more today, so yes, awesome.

Chris: We’ll let you go, but everybody the state apiarist Jen Lund and join us again for He Talks Hard for the Honey.