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New downtown building is creating quite a buzz in Randolph

RANDOLPH — There’s something all a buzz in downtown Randolph - quite literally.

Cody Backer’s new building for CBees Honey on Broadway Avenue is up and operational. Construction started late last year and he started moving equipment into the new building in June.

Prior to the new building, Backer stored and utilized bee boxes and extraction equipment at various rental spaces and even in the back of a semi-trailer.

“It was working but not very convenient having to rent buildings from other people to store boxes in,” he said.

Using the extraction equipment in the back of a semi-trailer wasn’t the safest option either, he admits.

“My plan was to never stay in the trailer. It was only temporary,” Backer said - a temporary that lasted well over four years.

Even though the building is fully functional, it’s still a work in progress.

Backer plans to add a full commercial kitchen inside the business so he can produce honey for farmer’s markets and other venues. Right now, his packaged honey is only available on his website.

Once the Floodplain project is complete, he plans to build an addition as well as he’d like to expand his current 2,000 colonies up to 5,000 within the next few years.

Backer said there’s still a handful of beekeepers in the Randolph area - the self-proclaimed “Honey Capital of the Nation”- but very few people know the ins and outs of the business anymore.

“You don’t see a lot of first generation beekeepers anymore,” he said. “You see a lot of second, third and fourth generation. To me, it seems like there’s more people getting out of it, retiring.”

To the lay person, watching Backer work may just look as if he’s walking among the bee boxes and picking up a box here or there. The majority of the work is manual and has to be done at night when the temperatures are cool.

And beekeeping is a lot more complex than just collecting honey.

Right now, the honey flow season is ending. In October, Backer packs up the bees and makes a bee-line south where the bees will ride out the winter being fed in warm California.

Then in January, the bees are contracted pollinators for commercial growers in California and Texas - pollinating almond trees, cherry trees and blueberry bushes. Backer’s bees also pollinate Nebraska-grown watermelons and pumpkins.

In the Spring, it’s time to take stock and build up the hive for honey flow season where each frame from the bee box is pulled out and run through the extraction process where wax and honey are separated.

Honey is funneled into drums and then sold to a packer.

Bee’s wax - even more valuable than honey - is sold or traded at bee supply stores, Backer said.

Backer wasn’t always a bee man. He worked as a pipe fitter and welder until 2014 until he started working full-time with a beekeeper.

The next year, he went out on his own and he’s been minding his own bee’s wax ever since.

Northeast Nebraska News Company

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