Beekeepers

This is beekeeping role. Beekeeping duties include general farm work associated with all aspects of commercial apiculture. This includes but is not limited to managing the overall health of the honey bee colonies, creating additional colonies when necessary by making splits or dividing colonies, applying mite treatments and other medications to keep colonies free of diseases, parasites, and other harmful pests. Workers will be feeding colonies sugar syrup and pollen substitute during dearth periods, and will also need to confirm queen presence in colonies and replace them as needed, maintain a high population of drone honey bees in support of queen production, collect bees from strong hives and distribute extra bees to weaker mating nuc hives. Workers will be performing large scale honey collection and extraction, including running frames through the uncapping machine and extractor. Workers will perform all stages of commercial queen production for sale to other beekeepers. This includes but is not limited to, grafting larvae, maintaining queen banks used for queen storage by feeding sugar syrup and adding additional nurse bees when needed. Workers will be inspecting queens to ensure they are mated properly, caging queens for sale, clipping and marking queens, maintaining mating nucs, managing and selecting gentle and productive hives for use as breeder colonies. Workers will also load and unload hives and nucs with live bees by forklift or by hand, using proper loading techniques so the bees do not overheat.

Employees with valid driver’s licenses who live at company-provided housing may drive themselves and other employees in company vehicles from the housing to the worksite or grocery store.

Drivers will drive a minority of the work hours in this contract. (i.e. approximately 1-2 hours per day). At the end of the contract, drivers will have driven less than 20% of the total work hours, and thus, less than 50% of the total work days. Consequently, driving is not a primary job duty in this job order.

Requirements: 3 months of experience. 3 months of experience in Commercial Beekeeping is required. Specific requirements include lifting up to 50 pounds frequently and able to use hand tools, including cutting knives. Workers may be stung.

Must be able to work under conditions where skin and clothing become heavily soiled with mud, water, grease, etc. Must be able to work outdoors in inclement weather conditions, including rain, cold, high winds, etc. Work involves frequent bending and working in bent or stooped positions. Must be able to walk and stand up extensively.