- Honeybees are living, breathing things and they think and they move and see and have purpose.

We need pollination to survive.

Within the last year, you have a lot of colonies dying off.

I felt that it was part of my purpose to help change that.

I have to really observe and see how the hive is behaving and I want to educate too so we can change the mindset of what comes to your mind when you think of a beekeeper.

(vehicle swooshing) (birds chirping) (light music) My name is Nicole Rivera Hartery and I'm a beekeeper and I specialize in education.

- [Interviewer] Do people around here like know you as like the beekeeping lady?

- (laughing) Yeah!

You can't miss me.

You know what I mean?

Like, hey, I don't look like your average beekeeper.

So.

(laughing) A lot of people don't realize that New Jersey's an agricultural state.

Like they have no idea.

Like they think like the Sopranos, they think we're a part of New York.

We're the garden state.

So we have so many farms here and a lot of farmers have partnership with beekeepers.

There's foods that we eat that need pollinators that they just don't grow on their own.

So it is very important that we take care and pay attention to all of those pollinators because those plants need them to grow.

(gentle music) So with my rooftop pipe, they were in the process of making a queen.

So I need to check to make sure the queen, she's mated and laying eggs.

So it looks like there are some eggs being laid.

So I'm gonna take this top one off.

This is really heavy.

So in this rooftop hive there has to be about 40,000 bees altogether.

So now I'm just opening up and checking frames to make sure that there's eggs in here.

As you can see, like there's honey in that top one and the girls, they're cleaning it up.

These girls are pretty calm.

So the impression that I have is that the queen left, did her mating, came back and it was successful.

And she's laying, usually when you open it up and they have like a real rough disposition is usually a sign that there's no queen.

So this is amazing.

This is beautiful.

This is exactly what I came to look for.

This is brood.

This is babies and specifically it's female babies.

So you know it's female babies because it's flat.

The boy bees are bigger so they pop out.

So the weather, like the warm winters here definitely affects the colony because they keep working, they keep moving.

The queen keeps laying.

If we have a really warm winter, let's say we have so many 50-degree days, they continue working.

The queen, she continues laying.

Their colony is going to keep growing and growing and growing.

So that makes for a really intense swarm season.

Bee swarm, because when their numbers start to grow inside the hive, it becomes cramped and they feel like, okay, it's time to move, which is half of the colony.

And the old queen, they move to a brand new location and a new queen and half the colony stay.

That's basically the purpose of swarming.

It's just migration.

A lot of times they will pick something that's very similar to a hive.

They do care about being high up.

A swarm rescue I did was in a chimney, like the side of a chimney.

So it wasn't inside, but it was like the wood that was built around the outside of the chimney and it emulated a hive perfectly.

If you see honeybee swarms, it's important to recognize what it is.

At first, it's gonna look like thousands of bees in a cloud or thousands of bees in a ball.

When you do have bees in the house or outside, when you see a swarm particularly, it's important to call a beekeeper.

Do not spray.

Do not spray.

It is a very scary thing.

It can be terrifying to people, but if you just like wait till it calms down, you can haul a beekeeper and a beekeeper will help you.

Yeah, maybe you might have to do a little bit more research and maybe you might have to look more into it, but you're saving, killing off all these insects that we need.

(light music) (birds chirping) (cheerful music) Welcome to my office, the kitchen.

So I'm extracting and drawing some honey today.

On my tours, we do a honey tasting after the presentation.

So we're gonna get that going so they can have some honey.

(cheerful music continues) I always describe honey as a gift because it's the food they prepare, so they have food for the winter, so you don't wanna take it all.

You wanna make sure they have some and then if there's enough, we get this beautiful gift that has so many health properties to it and it has so many health properties to it because of them.

(cheerful music continues) (pensive music) So this is Palmyra Nature Code.

When I get swarm rescues, this is where I place them into their new homes.

So I always have hives ready for them whenever I get the call.

If you have a swarm, if they feel like, "Oh, we don't fit in this hive," they're going to swarm into a tree, which is fine, but in a neighborhood setting or a city setting, they will move into the side of a building or inside the walls of somebody's house.

So that's where beekeepers like myself are called.

Having a place like this to bring my bees and work with bees.

It's a dream come true.

It really is.

This is also where I conduct my hive tours and you get the in-depth educational presentation.

Okay, welcome to the apiary.

The tours are actually an extended version of my classroom presentation, 'cause I started classrooms first and then I got into the tours.

It's actually like kind of like a beginner's beekeeper's class.

This right here, you see this?

This is their cocoon stage.

That accessibility for people to come and have a hive tour.

It's important for me because it builds that connection, it builds that respect.

And it's an introduction to the insect world, just in general.

That's why I love what I do, because this insect in particular, the honeybee allows me to do that.

I love doing what I do and being around people because they come with a beautiful energy of excitement and ready to learn.

People feeling comfortable in this environment is the most important thing to me.

And do you see how her butt's in the air and she's just kind of flapping her wings?

That's called fanning behavior.

- [Person] So like kind of direct that?

- Yeah, 'cause it's like, "Hey, sister!"

That was a good question.

(birds chirping) (light music) There are not a lot of beekeepers of color in the US.

When I decided to become a beekeeper, when I was in class, it was one of those things that, you know, you look around and I'm like, "Oh, there's not too many people here that look like me."

And then I googled Black beekeepers to just see who were around.

And one came up, nobody else was doing it.

So that was actually my catalyst of choosing to go into education because I was like, okay, well let's get the kids young and interested in it and normalize it.

I think it's just about normalizing it.

You know?

I want somebody who walks in who looks like their mom, their aunt, their sister.

I want somebody who looks like me to be their normal.

I think it's something that me and other Black beekeepers and beekeepers of color are trying to achieve.

So I think it's important that I continue this work with purpose.

The first thing I would say to a little Black or Brown girl, that anything and everything is for you.

And if you love it, then go for it.

You know?

And that's why I'm here.

I'm here to expose this to you and let you know, this is an option.

(birds chirping) (light music) (light music continues)