- Full Time:
- Yes
- Number of Workers Requested:
- 13
- Job Duties:
- Crops/Commodities: honey. Perform manual and mechanical duties related to commercial beekeeping and honey production. Must work all aspects of commercial bee keeping, including accessing a colony to determine if it needs food or medicine, feeding and medicating bees, maintaining hives in a healthy state, increasing number of hives, raising and replacing queens, making divides, making, painting and cleaning boxes, supering hives.
Assemble frames and make, paint, and repair hive boxes using hand tools. Insert honeycombs into hive. Raise bees and run queen breeding yard. Raise and replace queens. Make divides. Induct wild swarming bees into prepared honeycomb frames. Place screen plug in hive entrance to confine bees.
Manipulate and service hive structures and haul bees to and from different hive locations to ensure healthy and productive honeybee colonies. Must respond correctly to bees to harmonize with their natural cycle and keep them in the healthiest state possible for survival and profitability. Access colony to determine if food or medicine is needed. Feed and medicate bees for diseases, parasites, and pests. Force bees from hive using smoke pot or carbolic acid soaked pad. Sterilize hive and burn diseased hive or bee colony.
Honey production responsibilities include harvesting and extraction, which involves removing frames covered with bees, shaking them into cages, and operating mechanized extraction equipment. Uncap honey combs, and mechanically separate wax from honey. Maintain extraction equipment. Assist with refining wax and processing honey, including filtration and moisture reduction before final packaging. Additional duties include blending and filtering wax for sale and preparing hives for spring pollination.
Load/unload hives into semis and move bees/boxes as assigned. Prepare bees, hives and bee equipment for spring pollination.
Must wear assigned personal protective equipment when required. Must report for work daily wearing work clothing and boots or other durable foot wear. Workers wearing clothing inappropriate for work will not be permitted to start work. Outdoor work required when plants are wet, or during light rain, snow, moderate winds, direct sun, high humidity and extreme temperatures. Temperatures in fields during working hours may vary. Workers may be required to work during occasional showers not severe enough to stop field operations. Allergies to ragweed, goldenrod, honey bees, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, or related chemicals may affect a worker's ability to perform the job. Work is done outdoors for long periods of time and requires prolonged periods of standing and/or walking, repetitive movements, and frequent bending and/or stooping. Workers must be able to handle, lift, and carry heavy or bulky objects (product, containers) in accordance with the specified lifting requirements.
Perform general maintenance of equipment and facility. Perform general orchard, garden and/or honey house maintenance.
- Job Classification:
- 45-2093.00 - Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch, and Aquacultural Animals