Travis and Chiara Bolton are investing in a brighter future for their bees. Literally. This year, the Bolton's beekeeping company formed a unique partnership with Connexus Energy to raise their bees on a solar farm and create "solar honey."
Solar honey is created by bees pollinating in and around an array of solar panels. The Boltons, who have been in the beekeeping business for three years, claim to be the first company in the country to produce honey using this method.
This year, their company, Bolton Bees is making its second appearance at the Minnesota State Fair, but its first with solar honey, which they plan to sell as Solar Honey Ice Cream in the horticulture building.
The Boltons experimented with solar honey for the first time this year. An energy company and small beekeeping business may seem like unlikely business partners, but the Boltons have found the relationship to be mutually beneficial.
"We're always looking for a healthy habitat to put our hives in, and we go to great lengths to find new locations," Chiara said.
She explained that one of the biggest problems plaguing the beekeeping industry is land quality. People who own bee hives, called apiaries, often struggle to find areas away from places like farms, which often spray pesticides on their land. Bees will travel up to three miles to get pollen. So even though they're small, they can take up a fair amount of space.
Energy companies with solar panels have their fair share of acreage problems as well. Solar panels take up a lot of space. They have to. But because of this, the land that the panels are located on is often underutilized.
By planting native prairie grass and flowers around solar panels, these energy companies create a "pollinator-friendly" environment that attracts bees to a pesticide-free environment that's ready to be pollinated.
"They've been some of our best locations this year," Travis said. "The land could be used for different things, but they're choosing to have it be for something useful. And they're essentially enriching the soil for future use."
This year, the Boltons placed their apiaries in three solar arrays covering a total of 60 acres. Honey takes on different flavors depending on the location of the apiaries and the environment the honey is collected in. Naturally, the Boltons dubbed their new invention "solar honey."
They aren't trying to patent the process. They hope that their presence at the State Fair convinces other apiary enthusiasts to get in on the solar honey action.
The Boltons said that they're currently working with local clean energy organization, Fresh Energy, to create a certification process for other beekeepers to get solar honey certified.
"The response has been really positive so far," Chiara said. "And we hope to keep spreading and expanding the idea around the state."
