Andy Reseska has more than 33 million employees throughout Eastern Massachusetts, and not one has seen a paycheck. The 41-year-old Holliston resident is the founder of Reseska Apiaries Inc. His staff (of honeybees) is content producing wax and honey in exchange for a cozy hive, and free access to plant nectar, pollen, fresh air, and sun.
Working in the field, Reseska often gets as many as 30 bee stings a day. He wears a mask but no gloves or protective suit.
"I used to go into this panic and my hands would swell up, but it no longer bothers me," he said. "The sensation of pain only lasts for about 10 seconds now."
Reseska said he can't explain exactly what draws him to the bees. He's fascinated by the social hierarchy and genuinely enjoys the sound of their buzzing, which he said he finds soothing. "Sometimes after I've left the bees, I still hear the humming in my head," he said.
As the largest beekeeping operation in New England (with 24 bee yards across the area), Reseska Apiaries annually produces between 40,000 and 80,000 pounds of honey, sold under the names Golden Meadow Honey and Boston Honey Co. The raw honey is sent to a facility in New York for processing, and then placed in glass jars and plastic bear-shaped containers that can be found at local farm stands and chain grocery stores, such as Hannaford Supermarkets and Whole Foods.
Reseska hires a number of two-legged employees to help him harvest honey in July and August, but generally keeps the business going with help from his wife, Addie, and their 14-year-old son, Evan.
Before 1996, the closest connection Reseska had to honey was cooking with it. After graduating from high school in Danbury, Conn., Reseska enrolled in a culinary apprenticeship with the vision of becoming an executive chef. He spent two years cooking for the Westin hotel chain: six months at the Century Plaza in Los Angeles and 18 months in Boston. But Reseska grew tired of the long hours and never seeing the light of day, so in 1988 he traded his meat cleaver and apron for a paintbrush and tarp and opened a house-painting business, which he ran for over a decade.
One afternoon, Reseska and his crew were in Newton Centre, painting the house of Rabbi Richard J. Israel, when they noticed a few bee colonies kept by the rabbi on the second-floor porch. Reseska's crew refused to paint alongside the bees, so Israel brought the creatures downstairs into the backyard.
"I walked by the bee colonies and was fascinated," said Reseska. "I didn't have a clue about them, but I totally loved them and knew I was going to work with them for a living."
Israel taught Reseska some beekeeping basics, and the following spring, in 1996, Reseska purchased his first colony. He spent a year studying the science of beekeeping, and the next spring purchased nine colonies and split his time between painting houses and keeping bees. He now has perhaps 900 colonies, home to those 33 million-plus bees.
Each colony has one queen bee and her brood: eggs, larvae, and pupae. When Reseska introduces a queen into a colony, the bees begin to produce honey the following year. If the queen should die, the colony raises a replacement. A strong colony, Reseska said, can house as many as 60,000 bees.
"Beekeeping, in its simplest terms, means capitalizing on their natural hoarding instinct," said Reseska. "The honeybees hoard, and as long as we give them adequate space, and they have adequate nectar sources coming in, they remain here."
During the warmer months, Reseska spends his days checking on his colonies to be sure they have enough nectar and pollen to produce honey. When a hive needs to be emptied, Reseska gets a workout; each "honey super," as the collection boxes are called, can weigh 60 pounds.
Reseska said that each region's honey has a unique flavor, affected by the various flower sources. In this area, for example, the honeybees gather pollen from a mix that includes black locust, buckthorn, basswood, and purple loosestrife.
When he first started out, Reseska said, he used to drive around in search of sites with the best forage potential for a bee yard, meaning abundant nectar and pollen and adequate wetlands. These days, his bees are frequently invited to move onto farms to help pollinate fruit trees, flowers, and other crops.
So far, Reseska said, he hasn't been affected by colony collapse disorder, an unexplained phenomenon that has caused the death and disappearance of billions of bees across the nation.
But there are other problems facing the beekeeping industry. "The biggest for us is the varroa mite," he said. The minute parasite, about the size of a pinhead, cannot be destroyed, only suppressed. Reseska uses organic acids to deter them.
Reseska runs the business with Addie, who used to work as a computer network technician. Addie remembers the day she was sitting in her office and got the call from her husband announcing that he wanted to work with the bees full time.
"I sort of gulped, but knew he was happy doing what he was doing," said Addie. She wasn't really surprised, she said, especially when she thinks back to one afternoon that she spent with her husband working in a bee yard.
"I was totally suited up, with the protective hat and gloves and the big jumpsuit, and feeling very uncomfortable because it was so hot and humid," Addie said. "I was moving very slowly, checking the hives, and I heard some noise; when I looked, my husband was talking to the bees." He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans - no protective clothing - and they weren't stinging him. "When someone feels so comfortable in an environment like that, it's where they belong."
For more on Reseska Apiaries, visit bostonhoneycompany.com.
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