ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Probably the only time you have honey bees on your mind is when one of them is either trapped in your car or worse, if you’ve been stung. 

What You Need To Know

  • According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bumble Bee population has declined 89%

  • Honeybees are responsible for one out of every three bites of food you eat, said local bee expert Allison Davis

  • Experts say Hurricane Ian also destroyed thousands of hives

Shane Whited constantly has hives on his mind. When he isn’t crunching the numbers as assistant manager at GTE Financial, he’s bumbling around his backyard in Kenwood.

“By night, I am a beekeeper. I keep honeybees,” he said. “I’ve been doing it for about a year now and I’ve turned it into my own business, along with my partner.”

He says it all began when he kept buzzing in his friends’ ears about keeping bees.

“They collectively got together and bought my first hive for my birthday last year and it’s kind of expanded since then,” Whited said.

Now, he and his partner have more than 25 hives and counting. Beekeeping isn’t a fad he’s trying out. Whited is following in his grandfather’s footsteps.

“I would stand out by my grandfather’s hives as a child and I’ve just had an affection for them and then you fast forward to now a couple years ago, I started to really get back into the idea of getting bees,” he said.

But nowadays, beekeeping has an urgency to it. According to the Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bumble Bee population has declined 89%, thanks to pesticides, climate, change and disease. Local bee expert Allison Davis says that’s a bigger problem than one might think.

“You pretty much have bees to thank for the majority of food that you eat,” she said. “Basically, one out of every three bites of food you take is thanks to the honey bee.” Davis keeps dozens of hives on the rooftop of the Museum of Fine Arts in Downtown St. Petersburg, but she says Hurricane Ian turned a lot of her bee colonies into casualties.

“We actually lost an entire yard with the hurricane," she said. "We only lost 30 hives in that, but there are many beekeepers who lost thousands. That’s why new beekeepers like Shane are so important now. And maybe this fall, if his beekeeping produces enough honey, he’ll get to relive our childhood memory sharing honey with the best keeper he knows."

“It really touched my heart the other day when I was talking with my grandpa and he said, ‘Man, I wish I could be there to you help you do an extraction when you get your honey.’ And I thought about that and I would love that,” Whited said. “I haven’t had an extraction yet. I would love to have my first one to be with my grandpa doing it.”