STRONG – Keeping an apiary dates back to Aristotle, said Matthew Frost, a beekeeper with five years experience built on talks with other beekeepers, books and trial and error.

Frost recently purchased 30 hives of the late beekeeper Emery Hall along with equipment that was fairly new, he said. Some of the hives have been moved to Strong and Route 4 in Farmington but some have been left for the winter and will be moved in the spring.

“A healthy hive includes approximately 60,000 bees,” Frost said, “so I figure I now have around 1.8 million bees, a small bee operation as some beekeepers have up to 700 hives.”

Over the past week and a half Frost has been feeding and medicating the hives and will continue to do so for the next month, he said. Before Thanksgiving, the hives will be wrapped in tarpaper to protect the colonies from the weather.

Ideally, the bees should have honey, but the corn syrup that he is feeding them will give them a better chance of making it through the winter, he said. The last blooms of fall produce stores for winter but now there is a lack of honey flow (the nectar the bees gather from the flowers).

Frost, who has a glass-blowing business, felt the need for a backup plan with the fuel cost increases, he said. Owning a small farm with lots of berries and the start of an orchard, keeping bees seemed like a good one.

“I like the hours, early in the morning and late at night,” he said, “and they were needed for the rest of the farm. They are fun. A little intimidating at first but you get used to it. It’s not that bad to get stung but you just need to be careful and considerate of the bees.”

Along with the benefits for his crops, Frost hopes to be able to harvest 100 pounds of honey each year.