Scurry County Spotlight
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Snyder's Michael Hinton tended to one of the hives at his honey farm. -
Pictured is the original hive that Hinton started a year ago in his yard. -
Pictured is one of the bait hives that Hinton built in his backyard waiting to be adopted by a swarm of bees.
Few people’s hobbies yield such sweet rewards as Snyder resident Michael Hinton’s does.
Hinton is the owner of Deep Creek Apiaries, which will hold its grand opening May 23. He has been a beekeeper for most of his life, and recently decided to start selling the honey that his bees produce.
He already has a tentative contract with a Snyder merchant.
“I’ve been keeping bees off and on since I was 14, and I just got back into it recently just because I had the chance and took it,” he said. “I’ve always loved bees. So I restarted last year with a hive here in my yard.”
Hinton said that he began beekeeping after he came across a book on the subject by accident.
“My family used to have a farm down in Comanche County, and we ran out of room for hay one year. The barn was full, so we had to clean out an old house that was sitting there to make room,” he said. “As we were cleaning out the old house, I ran across a bunch of beekeeping equipment, and up on the mantle was a book, The Hive and the Honey Bee. I took that book home, and I don’t think I got much sleep that night, because I just read through it. It was just fascinating.”
After finding the equipment and the book, Hinton needed only a few more items and a bit of preparation before ordering his first colony. When he left for seminary and then became pastor of Christ Church Lubbock, he gave up his hobby, but the interest never faded.
As he was looking for something to sustain him through his approaching retirement, he rediscovered beekeeping.
He has three hives, each of which will yield about 50 pounds of honey annually. He hopes to expand to 20 or 25 total hives, though he’ll have to grow slowly.
“You’ve got to build up over the years,” he said. “Each nucleus colony costs anywhere from $185 to $250, and then you have to get the hive and all the equipment. It’s quite a bit of an investment. You’re going to spend $500 easily just getting hives started.”
Hinton said that honey farming, just like any other form of farming, is a seasonal activity. Since we are currently in mid-spring, he has been starting new colonies and setting out bait hives of his own creation hoping for swarms of bees to adopt them as homes.
“When they first are established, you supplement them with sugar water or syrup, and by the second year, they’ll start producing,” Hinton said. “They’ll produce during what’s called a honey flow, which is when trees, wildflowers and cotton blooms. That’s when they make the bulk of their honey. They gather the nectar from the flowers and process it down.”
Hinton said the excess honey is harvested in the summer, once the bees are finished pollinating and creating honey.
“You don’t want to take too much, because they need honey to make it through the winter,” he said. “We don’t have particularly harsh winters here, but we could, so you always want to leave them enough to get through the winter, and then they start over again in the spring.”
The Deep Creek Apiaries’ grand opening will begin at 5 p.m. on May 23 at Hinton’s home, 2804 32nd Street.
Hinton said that he might also take visitors to see where the bee farm will be, where he will establish additional hives.