benjamin thiede

AGE: 9 • TOWN: Eau Claire

HIS TRUE CALLING: To save the bees!

BENJAMIN KNOWS ALL THE BUZZ. We don’t mean gossip, but honey bees! Benjamin watched his grandpa’s house and take care of bees in his backyard and knew he wanted to help. For the past two summers, Benjamin has helped his grandpa with his bees and the collecting of honey while also learning about how important bees are to the environment. “Without these pollinators, the world would have no flowers or anything,” Benjamin said. Benjamin’s favorite bee fact is that there can be 50,000 bees in a hive. Why so many? Because each bee produces 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in their lifetime. When collecting the honey, Benjamin explained a little bit of the process like using a hot knife to cut the initial wax layer that protects the honey, then putting the honeycomb into a honey extractor –which spins really fast – to separate the honey and the wax. After the honey is in jars, Benjamin said he likes to give people honey as a birthday present or sell it to people – which is his goal. Benjamin’s favorite part about the whole process is being able to taste the honey because there is nothing better than fresh honey after all that hard work. He plans to continue beekeeping as a side hobby when he is older to keep helping the bees collect the delicious honey.