Copy beekeeping
An aviation officer, Philip Costello had been out of the Air Force for 10 years when the Gulf War erupted in the early 1990s. “I wanted to serve, I wanted to get into the fight,” he said.
So he did, signing up at age 51 while also hoping to get 20 years in. Costello left Washington County and was deployed in Qatar, where he earned medals for flying into a combat area “when it was a hostile environment.”
After returning home, to a non-hostile environment, “I wanted to have something else to do. I had a woodworking business, which did OK, but I’m a full-throttle type of guy,” the aviator said, pun not intended.
One of his Christmas gifts that year, from his children, may have been lighthearted in nature but created a buzz within their father. It was a book titled “Beekeeping For Dummies,” which focused on a vocation/avocation with which he had no experience. He considered it a honey of a suggestion.
“I can do this,” he surmised, before getting the hives – ones for bees, not the skin reaction. Costello started with two beehives, graduated to four, then 16 … “We now have over 100 of them,” housed in five apiaries,” Costello said. “Because of my military background, failure isn’t an option.”
He ended up with a master beekeeper certificate from the University of Montana and a satisfying post-Air Force career on his Mount Pleasant Township property.
Looking for a sweet place to live and/or oversee bees? Costello Apiaries, off Route 18 north of Washington, is one of three beekeeping operations within just a few miles of each other in the Hickory area. The others are Bedillion Honey Farm and and Swope’s Berries and Bees.
Bees, of course, produce honey, which is praised for the health benefits it provides. It fights seasonal allergies, insomnia and infections, soothes sore throats, and is reputed to enhance digestive health issues, weight loss and bone health. It is generally purchased in stores as pasteurized or raw.
Raw, unprocessed honey – with no additives or preservatives – is the healthiest type of honey, according to healthline.com.
Like Costello, Mark Bedillion and his wife, Sara, had precious little knowledge of bees when they launched their business in 2004. “No one in the family had bees before,” Mark said with a laugh.
After starting with what he described as “a handful of bees,” the Bedillions and their four children – two sons, two daughters – oversee more than 1,000 bees in 30 locations in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio.
Until 2004, the couple raised beef cattle, chickens and pigs and sold eggs on their farm. “It’s hard to make money with bees starting out,” Mark said. But we liked bees and focused more on beekeeping and phased everything else out.”
The Bedillions sell honey to stores in the region, but they also have a farm store, which is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. from Tuesday through Saturday. “We sell beekeeping supplies to selling bees. Anything that has to do with bees, we have,” Mark said.
The family used to participate in a number of farm markets, but has cut back, Mark said. “We found it’s hard to get away. If you are beekeeping, you have to be beekeeping.
“I truly enjoy it and it’s definitely a passion,” Mark said. “I couldn’t picture myself doing anything else.”
Philip Costello
Costello’s Apiaries
Mt. Pleasant
412-997-1960
Family – son, daughter, wife and I – at least 3 people for everything. We all overlap. Daughter Paulina, son Eric, wife Peggy.
one apiary where I live. See sign Costello
North of Wash Rt 18 – swopes bedill and us are w/in 2 miles of each other.
Bedill like GF. Swope’s new. We dont overlap but we do. Bedil sells produ. We all have our niches.
About Us
Costello Apiaries is a family owned and run enterprise. Following a deployment to the Middle East, the establisher of Costello Apiaries, an Air Force Aviation Officer, determined retirement was imminent and sought out a plan for the future. For Christmas that year he received from his children the book, “Beekeeping For Dummies”. After reading it he determined, “I can do this”. So it began, starting with 2 hives, followed by 7 hives, then 18, then suddenly 70 hives with 5 apiaries and growing.
I was a little older – 51 – with AF. In Qatar. Wanted to serve, had been out 10 years, back in to finish 20. Wantred to get into fight. Medals for flying into combat area. When hostile envi/. When out, wanted to have somnething selese to do. Woodworking bus OK, but a feull-throittle type of guy,
Started 2 then 4 then 16 hives. Now over 100. Bec. mil. background, failure isn’t . . .
Got master beekepper certif w/Univ of Montana. Our honey is superiod. Our prices a little more than goin g rate because I’m consciuous where put hives, near good nectar. In Calif, every March 1.5 million hives?? What do w/honey. Told “nothing.”
Astrers goldenrod not good honey, but we reconditon it and blend it to good.
Our fall flow of honey like wine. EVery flowery and perfumy.
Thwen spri9ng flow. Tree blosswoms etc – psot on great.
We offer specialty honeys – this year honeysuckle. 130-some pounds of honeysuckle and sells 15 minutes at markets. We guarantee what we say it is, it is.
MIgratory bbeekeeping.Son I hives on truck, can go out where good floral blossoms. Get permis and within 15 mins. have hive set up and drive away.
Some peo put label on and it’s not way it is.
Our nos 40-100 pct higher than other beekepers in area. Bus custs know what they’re getting. A quality product. If I want to do it, I want to do it right.
From website: designed the “Smart Hive” which altered the paradigm of beekeeping, decreasing the workload of the bee yard manager and increasing the colony’s winter survivability.
It certainly didn’t hurt to be located in southwestern Pennsylvania- an area noted for the finest wildflower and tree floral nectars.
From hive locations to production, the honeys are carefully developed cutting no corners. Costello Apiaries does not contrive development to enhance production. When the supply of a specific honey is out, it is marked as unavailable till next year. Enjoy!
Bedillion Honey Farm
Mark and Sara
724-356-7713
(see reporter’s notebook)
Route 18 – across Tom’s Equipment
From website:
In 2004, we got our first hive of bees. What started as just another experiment in farming became Bedillion Honey Farm and a family livelihood.
Now, the bees keep us busy year round offering pure local honeys and beeswax from hives located here in Southwestern PA, WV and OH, and the very best specialty honeys sourced from beekeepers we trust.
We are first and second generation beekeepers, with our 4 children laboring along with us during hive inspections, honey harvests, and pollination moves. We like to say, “We keep the bees, and the bees keep us.”
Fine Family Apiary LLC
Monongahela
(724) 258-3834
Kathy, Ron Swope
717-729-2909
Swope’s Berries & Bees
Don’t think much has changed. In few more rteail stotres now. Other than that, have blueberries, black raspberries – pick your own.
Beekeeping – expanded some. Add few miore colonies.
Have added – devloped line of soaps, also bees wax wraps – reusable; still honeys – green honeys, such.
Wash farmers market, also abt. 7 others a week. Festivals, such once fall season gets here.
Started keeping bees in ’75. Before college work, 150 farms fruits and vegs. Bought bees. Back then didnt hasve all iussues have today. Fairly smooth transit. Compared w/what do today it’s lot different.
Today – things happen cert times of years, more maointence with bees today than in ’70s.
It is – love doing. Enjoy working with bees.
We’re pretty much where we are. No desire to get larger than we are. Failed at retiring first time. It keeps you active and keeps me in shape. Anything keeps me on this side of dirt is good.
I’m 68.
Berries – if we have any time to pick them, sell at farm mkts. Bec small family oper dont always have time to do so, with all we have going on.
Story
Grandchildren led to a grand plan by Ron and Kathy Swope.
The couple had retired from Penn State University, following lengthy administrative careers at the Mont Alto commonwealth campus. They have two sons – Craig and Matthew – and Craig resides in Canonsburg with his wife, Erin, their daughter Haley, and sons Byron and Blake. After living and working in south-central Pennsylvania most of their lives, the senior Swopes decided to relocate to Washington County – to be near the kids two generations removed.
A year and a half ago, Ron and Kathy purchased a rolling, 16-acre tract spread across two rural townships, mostly Hopewell and partly Mt. Pleasant. It had once been a farm and they decided to be farmers – as they had been decades earlier. For 15 years, they tended to berries, fruit trees and bees in Waynesboro, near the Maryland line, where both grew up.
Now they are agriculturists again. Kathy and Ron are the owners and operators of Swope’s Berries & Bees, a honey of a business in which they grow black raspberries and blueberries, and harvest, extract and bottle honey. They sell these products – along with lip balm, body lotion, honey caramels and honey sticks – at stores, farmers markets and festivals in the region.
Their endeavor, at first blush, appears to be seasonal, but it is year-round. And that pleases them. Ron and Kathy are opposed to sitting around.
“We retired and wanted to downsize, buy a property and raise berries,” said Ron, who was director of finance and business at PSU Mont Alto. “After working in development, I couldn’t see myself having nothing to do.”
They now have a post-career job that engages them all 12 months. Summer – when berries and outdoor events reign – is their busiest time, Ron said. But they tend to fruit much of the year, and honey is a year-round occupation.
Unlike many avian contemporaries, honeybees do not fly south for the winter. And, incredibly, they do stay warm during the winter.
Honeybees have one wintertime job, according to the website wonderopolis.org. It is to care for the queen. Worker bees “gather in a central area of the hive” and cluster around the queen, fluttering their wings and shivering. This motion and energy use enable the bees to “keep the inside temperature of the hive warm.”
Ron said that temperature in 92 degrees.
Outdoor temps don’t approach that in January, but 50 colonies of bees currently reside in four apiaries atop a hill on the Swope property, which offers a fabulous view of the multiple farms. But honey is only one reason there is a beehive of activity on this one acre.
Berries, which are currently dormant, grow near the apiaries. Family members pick them for sale during the season, although the public is allowed to visit and pick for a price. Standing next to the driveway that leads to this area stands the “honey house,” where, according to Ron, “it all happens.”
That would be the harvesting, extracting and bottling of honey. The Swopes sell three varieties, including creamed honey -with or without cinnamon. “It’s all raw – unfiltered and unpasteurized,” said Kathy, who was veterans affairs coordinator and administrative assistant for student affairs at Penn State Mont Alto.
The pollen in honey is touted for its ability to fend off allergies.
Ron said the couple started farming in 1975, before they were married, near Waynesboro, a modest drive from Gettysburg. At that time, he said there was a wholesale market of farmers who “needed bees to pollinate crops. Honey was a byproduct.”
The Swopes, whose other son lives in Florida, have had to work diligently at cultivating a customer base. They are still fairly new to this part of the state. Ron said they initially “beat on doors,” seeking local residents who might buy their wares. They began looking into farmers markets and signing on with many.
“Our customers have been very supportive,” Kathy said. “They let us know about local farmers markets and other places where we could sell honey.”
She and her spouse say they have adapted well, though. Retail-wise, they may not be the bees’ knees yet, but they are creating a buzz.