The Turf and the Bees
Superintendents add
beekeeping to their golf course duties
By Lawrence
Aylward/Editorial Director
But McKone, director of
golf course operations at Briar Ridge Country Club in Schererville, Indiana, is
unflappable as he goes about checking a hive to ensure the honeybees are healthy. As he works,
prying open a frame from one of the three hives located on the golf course,
more bees begin to swarm. McKone, however, is unfazed by them.
“The bees seem to like me
… some days,” McKone jokes, as he places the frame back in the hive.
He lifts another frame
from the hive and studies it, while bees
creep on honeycomb.
“It’s super interesting
to watch them and what they’re doing,” he says.
McKone has been
beekeeping on the
course
for three years. The
hives
are located in brush near a fairway on the private 18-hole course.
McKone isn’t the only
golf course superintendent who has added beekeeping to his duties. Scott Witte,
the certified golf course superintendent at the 27-hole Cantigny Golf Course in
Wheaton, Illinois, has been beekeeping on his course for five years. Brian
Stiehler, the certified golf course superintendent at the 18-hole Highlands Country
Club in Highlands, North Carolina, began beekeeping last spring, as did Jeff
Corcoran, manager of golf courses and grounds at Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, New York.
The four superintendents are
also trying to get more of their peers involved in beekeeping.
“I’d love to see
beekeeping become a movement among superintendents,” Witte says.
MCKONE SAYS A MEMBER at
Briar Ridge suggested he keep some hives on the golf course.
“It was the opportunity for
this place to become more than a golf course,” explains McKone, who loved the
idea. He learned about beekeeping through
several means, including reading “Beekeeping for Dummies,” but he says setting up the hives and tending to them for the
first few months provided the best learning experience.
McKone recalls the first
time he dumped a box containing thousands of bees into a hive. With the bees zooming
around him, McKone felt like he was in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
“They scared the
daylights out of me,” he admits. “I didn’t know what to expect.”
Now his bees are more
like pets, and it’s not uncommon for
McKone to talk to them.
Witte says a beekeeping friend
told him, “You should keep bees on the
course.” Like McKone, he was intrigued by the proposition.
Witte, who has been at
Cantigny for almost 20 years, says he considers himself “an ambassador for
golf’s environmental opportunities.” Cantigny, regarded as one of the nation’s
top public courses, is a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.
“[The environment] is
something I’ve been extremely passionate about since I arrived here in 1995,” Witte
says.
The seven hives on the
course are located within 250 feet of the maintenance
facility and can be seen from several holes
on the property. There are also three natural hives settled in tree cracks that
may have resulted from bees migrating from Witte’s colonies.
He says the bees are so
intimately connected to the ecosystem that they provide a barometer to the
health of the environment, including that of the golf course.
“I theorize that healthy
honeybees should equal a healthy environment,” says
Witte, who has even planted “honeybee happy zones” on the golf course
— patches of clover or dandelion —
for honeybees to
pollinate.
Stiehler, who has been at
Highlands for 14 years, says he “grew up as an environmentally conscious young
man.” Stiehler says the
club’s members
have always had an affinity for nature. The course is also a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary.
Stiehler spent last
winter preparing an area for the two hives he purchased in the spring.
“I’ve enjoyed this so
much that next year I’m going to expand to maybe 10 hives,” he states.
On a 1.5-acre parcel
across the street from the golf course’s 10th hole, Stiehler has his “farm,”
where he grows vegetables, fruits and flowers. It’s also where he keeps the hives. The area is
surrounded by an electric fence to keep out bears that would destroy the hives
to get to the honey inside.
Corcoran doesn’t consider
himself a tree-hugging superintendent, but it was the toppling of a hardwood tree that got him into
beekeeping. In 2013, Oak Hill hosted the PGA Championship, which attracted
thousands of golf fans. While clearing some property to construct a bus loop to
accommodate fans, workers knocked down a huge oak tree that contained a massive
honeybee hive. Corcoran, aware of the honeybee’s plight, took it to heart.
“Obviously, the hive had
been there for years, and we destroyed it in a day,” Corcoran says. “I felt bad
about it.”
He decided to do something
about it and began researching beekeeping last fall. He took beekeeping classes and reached out to
an experienced beekeeper for
assistance.
In the spring he purchased two hives and set them up near the club’s maintenance facility.
“I think with our
background — many superintendents have taken entomology courses —
superintendents are able to grasp something like this quickly,” Corcoran says.
While hives can be left
alone for up to two or three
weeks
at a time, the superintendents check on them regularly, even if they’re just
driving by in their utility vehicles.
“It’s not a huge time
commitment,” Corcoran says.
Managing
a hive is also a lot like managing turf, he adds. “You
know that if you get a 90-degree day, you probably need to spray X to prevent
Z. It kind of dovetails into what we do every day.”
Witte recruited a few
community volunteers to help care for the hives.
The superintendents are
also partaking in the fruits of the bees’
labor — eating the honey they make.
“It’s amazing
how good that stuff is,” Stiehler says.
Corcoran bottles the
honey and had a label created for his
“Championship Honey.” The
extracting process is a bit messy, but not rocket science, he says.
Witte and McKone have
taken the process a step further. Witte sells honey extracted
from the hives, as well as lip balm and candles made from beeswax in the course’s pro
shop. Money from the sales is used in the course’s ongoing environmental
initiatives.
At Briar Ridge, the
clubhouse chef uses honey in some of his recipes. McKone plans to organize a
festival day on
the course next year to celebrate the
honey extraction.
"It would be a great
family activity,” he says.
McKone, Witte, Stiehler
and Corcoran want to do their part
to
help restore the honeybee population.
“Beehives require a lot of
assistance from humans because of environmental pressures,” Witte says. “Because
of CCO, honeybees are in a worldwide decline and need all the help they can
get. That’s why superintendents need to be part of the solution, not the
problem.”
Insecticides,
specifically from the neonicotinoid class, have been blamed for honeybees’
demise in some environmental circles. Golf courses use such insecticides to
treat for grubs and other insects.
“That’s typical of
narrow-minded environmentalists who want so badly to blame one thing to find
the guilty culprit,” Witte says. “When in reality the guilty culprit can’t be
counted on one hand.”
He realizes that
insecticides could hurt honeybee populations if not used properly, but says,
“If you blame just neonicotinoids, you’re missing
the boat because there are more antagonistic pathogens that work against
honeybees nowadays than there have ever been.”
One example is varroa mites, which Stiehler
believes is the main cause of CCD. The virus-transmitting parasite of honeybees
has frequently been found in hives hit by CCD, according to USDA.
While it’s easy to blame pesticides,
McKone wonders if the millions of frequencies caused by cellphones, radios and other new technologies are contributing to CCD.
“Imagine if we could see
all the frequencies around us,” McKone says. “It would probably freak us out.”
Corcoran points out that
even the best bee researchers in the world can’t figure out what’s causing CCD.
Despite claims in the
general and scientific media, researchers haven’t identified a cause, or causes, of CCD, according to the
USDA. However, harsh winters are known to destroy hives.
“My biggest fear is
keeping the bees alive through the winter,” Stiehler says.
McKone and Witte have both lost colonies because of
cold winters. Last winter, Witte insulated the hives and made sure the bees had
ample food for the winter, but it wasn’t enough.
“It was just too
stressful, especially with the prolonged cold periods,” notes Witte, who lost
six hives. “Even if you’re a beekeeper with 20 years of experience, you’re
going to lose hives if you encounter a winter like last winter.”
McKone wants to help find
out what’s causing CCD in addition to discovering the conditions in which bees
survive and thrive.
“The more data we can
collect, the better off we are and the more knowledgeable we are,” he says.
On the subject of
insecticides being under fire, McKone has noticed that industry pesticide
companies have taken a
stance on
the subject, specifically Syngenta and Bayer. Earlier this year, Syngenta
rolled out Operation Pollinator, a program that aims to assist the populations
of honeybees and pollinating insects by creating valuable habitats in
out-of-play areas on golf courses. Last spring, Bayer opened its North American
Bee Center, located at
the company’s
Research Triangle Park
campus in North Carolina, to serve as a focal point for existing and future bee
health initiatives, including active promotion of “bee-responsible use” of its
products.
“It shows what they
value,” McKone says. “They have gone on the positive, not the defensive. They
want to help find solutions to the problem.”
“There
has been more fascination than fear,”
Witte says.
Because of the hives, he’s talking more with
golfers about the topic of golf and the environment.
“This has been a great
public relations tool that has helped me connect with people on a whole
different level that I never anticipated,” he adds.
One time, Witte donned
his beekeeping suit and veil and tended to his hives with a group of about 12
golfers watching him.
“They were eating it up,”
he says. “The look on their faces was priceless.
At Briar Ridge, though,
some members were concerned when they heard about McKone’s plan to put hives on
the course. One woman told McKone that her husband was allergic and could die if stung by a
bee.
“I could sympathize with
that concern,” McKone says. “If I had a loved one, I’d be worried, too.”
McKone told the members
that he understood their feelings, but explained that there was nothing to
worry about, especially since honeybees are less aggressive than other stinging
insects.
“I told them they had a greater
chance of being stung by a yellow jacket flying around a trash can,” he adds.
Thanks to educational
efforts, the hives are now a non-issue at Briar Ridge.
“The bees don’t bother
anybody, and nobody bothers them,” McKone says.
Perhaps Corcoran sums up
the four superintendents’ collective feeling
toward beekeeping when he says, “This is one of the most rewarding things I’ve
ever done.”
Superintendent magazine’s
Lawrence Aylward can be reached at 330-723-2136
or laylward@mooserivermedia.com.