Honey

What's all the BUZZ about?

Airplanes aren’t the only ones flying around here! Did you know there are bee hives at The Ohio State University Airport? In partnership with Ohio State’s Rothenbuhler Honey Bee Research Laboratory and Department of Entomology, we support research about how different habitats impact honey bees and their nectar collection. Honey is a sweet result of the research. We are pleased to offer a limited amount for sale in our Pilot Shop.

Bee hives at KOSU

Hives

Hives are interspersed across airport property to study bees’ use of different habitats, including woods, meadows and pastures.

Large swarm of honey bees on a comb

Bees

Inside the hives bees build wax combs as a place to raise babies or to store nectar and pollen as food. (Nectar becomes honey!)

Beekeeper using smoke to help check the hives

Beekeeper

The airport beekeeper is Dale Gelter, who is also the assistant director of airfield operations. Smoke helps prevent stings when opening hives.

Honey combs in a spinning extraction machine

Extraction

Honey is harvested in a multistep process that includes spinning the honey out of the combs in this machine.

A jar of honey being filled.

Bottling

The honey is strained twice, then it is bottled into jars and ready to enjoy.

Honey jar with Buckeye Honey label with box of jars in the background

Production

After bottling, the honey is labeled and sold in our Pilot Shop.

Visit the hives with us in this short video
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Honey bee flyer

Honey bees at the airport over view. Same content exists in the linked PDF.