Karen Pruiett’s interest in keeping bees began as a hobby more than 30 years ago and now consumes many of her waking hours.
“I’m a full-time beekeeper at work,” Pruiett said. “I go home and beekeep. I read periodicals about beekeeping. I dream about bees.”
She works full-time in the UI Bee Research Lab helping to raise and take care of bees used in experiments. Between the lab and her hives at home she takes care of more than a million bees.
Pruiett took up beekeeping in 1974 to help her gardens flourish.
“(My husband and I) would grow fruits and vegetables, so we really needed honey bees.”
It was not the career and life path Pruiett conceived of as a student at the UI.
A 1976 graduate in social work, Pruiett served a brief internship for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
“I would have to go out and investigate child abuse and remove children from homes,” she said. “I was just too overwhelmed, and I doubt that I will ever get into social work again.”
Five years after she earned her degree, Pruiett began working with the UI grounds department and remained working there for 19 years.
“I would walk around while I was trimming bushes or cutting grass or whatever and always stop and see what the honey bees were on and would see colors painted on their backs.” The colors had been painted on by researchers.
A beekeeper who worked in the research lab told her about the experiments going on there.
“When he retired, he told me, ‘Karen, you should really apply for my job,’ and I did.”
In January 2001, she got the job as a bee research specialist.
Entomology professor Gene Robinson, the director of the neuroscience program at the university and one of the world’s leading experts on honey bees, said Pruiett is a critical member of the lab team.
“(Pruiett’s position) involves a highly specialized form of expertise,” Robinson said. “And she is among the best at it in the nation.”
Pruiett’s main responsibility is raising day-old bees for research and keeping the colonies clean and healthy. Every day, she collects 1,000-10,000 day-old bees from the hives.
Graduate student Claudia Lutz works with Pruiett.
“It’s very physical, lots of jumping in and out of the lab pickup truck, lifting hive boxes, wearing a hot bee suit for hours in July, getting stung by bees,” Lutz said. “Especially when I was new to beekeeping, Karen was very encouraging and calming because working with bees was intimidating.”
After taking care of the bees in the lab all day, Pruiett returns home to her 20 colonies with 50,000-80,000 bees per colony. She works on her bees at home for a few hours every other weekend.
“They really don’t require too much upkeep,” she said.
Her bees produced 3/4 of a ton of honey last year, which her mother, Anna Bergman, helps her sell.
“I’ve had a pretty regular customer base for 15 years, so I don’t really advertise my honey,” Pruiett said.
Pruiett is extending a family interest in beekeeping that began with her mother’s father.
“My grandfather kept bees out in Nebraska,” she said. “My mother would always bring pans of hive honey home after she would visit and tell us stories about him.”
Pruiett’s brother is a migratory beekeeper, which means he takes his bees south in the winter to get a second harvest of honey. In the Midwest, Pruiett’s bees produce one harvest, throughout June and July.
“He got a master’s degree in psychology and then told my parents he was going to become a beekeeper. Just imagine their reaction.”
Her youngest son, Tyler, 21, who is training to be an electrician, helps her with the bees at work after Pruiett became ill a couple years ago.
“I got really sick and couldn’t lift anything for a while, and the honey and the hives can weigh up to 150 pounds,” she said. “My boss (Robinson) hired Tyler to help me at work.”
Pruiett hopes eventually to be able to help others get into beekeeping and start making stained glass – with a bee theme, of course.
“I really got into stained glass after taking a class on it,” she said. “I think I could make a really nice piece that has the pattern of a honey comb in all different colored glass.”
Pruiett said she also would like to help run an observatory bee hive – a hive enclosed in glass or plastic for observation – in a nursing home somewhere and help with therapeutic gardening for the residents.
Pruiett shook her head and smiled while motioning around to the jars of golden honey and pictures of bees posted around the brightly lit lab.
“I never expected bees to take over my life. But now, I can’t imagine ever not having bees.”
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