Home»Perkins Honey Farm

During the trip home from Alaska, I stopped by the Perkins Honey Farm in Aneta ND. I had met Doug, the owner, a couple years prior and he had invited me over to photograph his honey production business. He and his wife Piper originally from Iowa, came to the Aneta area several years ago to work for a honey company and eventually bought the business. Doug has 5000 hives and puts approximatley 60 hives per site. He can have as many as 100 sites, which range from the Aneta area to close to the Canadian border. Doug has two full time employees as well as four Nicaraguan workers who come to the US under the visa program. They stay in ND from May to November then return to Nicaragua. The company produces approximately 500,000 lbs of honey per season, thats if the hives produce the average 100 lbs of honey. In addition the bees produce 4-6,000 lbs of pollen which Doug sells to a company that produces bee pollen supplements. Once the honey season is completed in ND, approximately six truck loads of bees are transported to CA where they pollinate the almond orchards. The bees remain there until the season ends which is around mid-March. Doug then transports the bees to Texas where the re-queening process starts which rebuilds the hives. Texas is the start of the bee triangle process TX/ND/CA. Also while in TX, the hives are medicated to help eliminate hive diseases etc. During May, the bees are returned to ND to start the honey process. ND is the number one honey producing state in the US.

The honey is loaded into 55 gallon drums then sent to the east coast for processing. The photos of the yellow material is the bee pollen which is carried into the hive on the legs of the bees. The pollen falls off as the bees crawl from the bottom to the top of the hive where they make the honey. The pollen falls into a drawer at the bottom of the hive.