Plymouth County: Beekeepers pick up last batch of bees for the year

South Shore honey farmers picked up their last batch of bees this year, with more than 400,000 bees distributed Saturday by the Plymouth County Beekeepers Association at a Plympton farm.

According to Bee-Man John Phillips of Hanson, about 400 packages containing three pounds of bees and one queen in each were sold over a two week period to beekeepers to start summer hiving, “If you’re going to start a hive you want to start in the spring because it takes them all summer to collect enough honey to get through the winter and we might, perhaps, have enough to extract.”

During an extraction held by the Beekeepers Association in September, they collected more than 100 pounds of pure honey.

Plymouth County members pay a discounted price of $75 for the package of 12,000 bees to not only collect the sweet syrup but transform wax from honey supers to candles.

Phillips stated the Beekeepers Association plans on holding at least two extractions this fall at their Hanson clubhouse.