A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (2024)

A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (1)

The pick-up truck’s headlights illuminated the empty road as beekeepers Jerry Apple, 87, and Dan Schroeder, 46, drove to Jerry’s Jasper home after dropping the last of 20 hives at watermelon farms in Washington.

“There’s only three things on the road at 2:30 in the morning,” Jerry said. “Turkey trucks, drunks and beekeepers.”

The late nights don’t bother Jerry. After 66 years caring for bees, he’s learned a thing or two about what’s best for them. Transporting the hives after dark when all the bees are safe inside is one. Another is tailoring the work to the bees’ comfort. That’s why earlier in the evening, he spread a blanket over the bed of his truck — “so they ride easier,” he said — before he and Schroeder gingerly loaded the first round of bee boxes.

Jerry avoids overwhelming the bees by transporting a few hives at a time in his pick-up, dubbed Honey B1 by the license plate (his car is Honey B2). It takes time and multiple trips to transport bees Jerry’s way, but it keeps them happier.

“I’ve learned to work at a slow, deliberate pace when I’m with Jerry,” Schroeder said.

A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (2)
A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (3)

Jerry adopted his first hive in 1957 and quickly made a name for himself as the one to call in Dubois and surrounding counties if a swarm moved onto your property. He’s still the one to call. You can reach him at 812-482-3024 if you need help with bees.

You can also reach him at that number for local raw honey, another of his claims to fame. Anyone is welcome to stop by his home on Highway 56 in Jasper anytime to pick up a jar. It’s the house with yellow and red signs advertising bee pollen and local honey at the end of the gravel drive.

For decades, Jerry and his wife, Alice — “Sweetheart,” if you ask him her name — happily welcomed people to their home to purchase honey and Alice’s famous zucchini cakes. They ushered the visitors into their kitchen, decorated with bee-embroidered tea towels, a beehive cookie jar, and a custom-painted antique chair featuring bees and flowers. If you have a minute, Jerry will share how he got that chair and the bee-themed throw pillow on it.

“They’re strangers only once,” Jerry said.

Customers come from all over: Orleans, Leopold, Tell City, Vincennes, even Evansville. Many only buy honey from Jerry, lingering for a few minutes after their purchase to chat. This time of year, everyone’s asking when the watermelon honey will be available. The clear honey is a delicacy Jerry’s customers covet.

Schroeder and Apple started beekeeping together in 2017. Schroeder wanted to add honeybees to his farm, Growing Success Farm in Cuzco, but he needed someone to teach him beekeeping. He stopped by Jerry’s home to purchase honey and asked for details. Before long, Schroeder was spending hours a week sitting in the Apples’ living room talking bees.

“I’ve learned a lot really quickly,” Schroeder said.

A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (5)

Jerry holds three generations of beekeeping knowledge. His grandfather, Charles Apple, maintained four to five hives in Orange County while working as the county’s postmaster. His uncle, Dr. Eddie Ross Apple, became a beekeeper, too.

“I caught what they call bee fever,” Apple said. “I wanted to continue the tradition.”

Growing up, Jerry accompanied his grandfather collecting swarms. He picked up a hoard of tricks like drumming in the bees. To execute the technique, the beekeeper places the empty tower of bee boxes near the swarm, then taps. The sound of knuckles on wood mimics the sound of a hollow tree, enticing the bees into the boxes. For it to work, the bees have to be on the ground. If a swarm was in a tree, Jerry’s grandfather pointed a rifle at the branch and shot it down.

“The whole mess would fall down together in the grass, and he’d be waiting for them,” Jerry said.

Jerry never shot down branches to collect swarms, but he did drum in the bees, often for an audience. Anytime someone called him, neighbors gathered to watch him work. He loved the amazed looks on their faces as he tapped the wood, and the bees followed the sound as if he were the Pied Piper of bees.

The secret is capturing the queen. Once she’s inside, the others follow. The first bees land on the outside edges of the box and flap their wings to spread the queen’s pheromones. The scent guides the rest of the hive to their new home.

A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (6)

At his high point, Jerry cared for more than a hundred hives throughout Southwest Indiana. Now, he has 57.

Even when Apple had a hundred hives, beekeeping wasn’t a full-time gig. Over the years, he worked several jobs, including 11 years in a coal mine and another 11 years at Jasper Desk. But bees were his passion. He’d always come home from work and tend the hives.

During honey collection season, his family helped. He collected the beeswax frames brimming with honey from the hives and extracted it by hand in his garage. Then, the honey came inside, where his family heated it on the kitchen stove, strained it and bottled it. One of his daughters, Mary Beckman, still remembers cleaning the sticky linoleum floors after a day of processing honey.

None of Jerry’s kids — Beckman, Lisa Knebel, Kevin Apple, Scott Apple, Michelle Kress, Linda Huebner and Staci Smith — or many grandchildren caught bee fever. Helping Jerry process honey fell to Alice. She became his bee business partner. For 30 years, she strained and bottled the honey he extracted, emblazoning each bottle with a sticker that said “Honey direct from flower to you. Jerry & Alice Apple.”

A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (7)

Alice happily helped with most facets of the honey business but refused to care for the bees, at least until the one year Jerry broke his ankle rollerblading right when the time came to rob the honey. Alice volunteered to empty the hives. Jerry chuckled as he remembered her clad in the bee suit, veil and gloves, removing frames from the boxes while bees accosted her.

“She had the fortitude of a lover. She said, ‘Don’t you ever tell me I don’t love you. I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said.

It was the first and last time she volunteered.

For a while, they took the honey and her cakes to farmer’s markets. Once they got older, Alice suggested they transition to selling exclusively from their home. The physical labor required to have a booth at the markets took its toll. Jerry agreed.

Their customers followed them home. Soon, so many people knew of their house as the honey spot that Alice put a sign on the front door directing people around the back to the kitchen.

The sign still hangs on the door, but Alice is gone. She died after a stroke in 2020.

A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (8)

“I go up [to the cemetery] every day to tell her I’m still behaving myself,” Apple said.

The gravestone features a photograph of the couple dancing — Alice’s favorite activity. On either side of the photograph, their names are etched into the stone. Under Jerry’s name is the epitaph “The Bee Man”; under Alice’s “Queen Bee.”

A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (9)

“It was always Alice first, bees second,” Schroeder said. “Now, what keeps him going is the bees.”

For how much longer, Jerry isn’t sure. Three years ago, doctors diagnosed Jerry with bone cancer. Twice a week, he goes to the Lange Fuhs Cancer Center for treatment.

After his appointments, he works with his bees. Schroeder comes over a couple times a week to help with the labor-intensive parts of the job.

When the time comes, Schroeder will merge Jerry’s hives with his own.

“I will do the best I can to honor and continue his legacy,” Schroeder said. “I have big shoes to fill, and I will never be Jerry, but I will continue to pass on the knowledge and passion that he’s shared with me.”

A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (10)
A sweet life - Dubois County Free Press, Inc. (2024)

References

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Foster Heidenreich CPA

Last Updated:

Views: 6405

Rating: 4.6 / 5 (76 voted)

Reviews: 91% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Foster Heidenreich CPA

Birthday: 1995-01-14

Address: 55021 Usha Garden, North Larisa, DE 19209

Phone: +6812240846623

Job: Corporate Healthcare Strategist

Hobby: Singing, Listening to music, Rafting, LARPing, Gardening, Quilting, Rappelling

Introduction: My name is Foster Heidenreich CPA, I am a delightful, quaint, glorious, quaint, faithful, enchanting, fine person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.