Shooks Apiaries

by Nicole Zappone @TheChronicleCT

MANSFIELD — Along Wormwood Hill Road is a farmer whose passion for beekeeping started as a teenager in high school. Dominick “DJ” Shooks was living in Windham and decided to attend E.O. Smith Regional High School. “I don’t come from an agricultural background, and I didn’t want to pursue agriculture, but I have a lot of friends in Mansfield, and I wanted to go to high school up here,” Shooks said. “There’s a law in Connecticut that if your town that you reside in does not offer an agricultural education program at their high school, the town has a duty to pay tuition to send you to a nearby town that has one.”

Dominick “DJ” Shooks, owner of Shooks Apiaries in Mansfield, holds up a jar of honey in his barn.

With that law in place, Shooks decided to attend E.O. Smith. “I’ve always been sort of an outdoors nature kind of kid, and one of the subjects we learned was beekeeping,” Shooks said about how he was introduced to them. “I said bees were amazing, and I didn’t know how awesome they were and how vital they were.”

To pass the agricultural program, the school required its students to engage in a farming endeavor, such as a garden, maple syrup production, or beekeeping. That was when Shooks decided to get some hives.

“My teacher, I give him all the credit in the world – Ed Thorne – he hooked me up with some people to mentor with, some other established beekeepers in the area,” Shooks said. “I got a couple of hives and started my own bees. He would come out periodically to check up on it.” Shooks said he was a horrible beekeeper when he was a teenager, but he always loved having them. “I started getting really good at it,” Shooks said after he graduated from high school. “I had much better winter survival rates.”

Shooks said he ended up with a lot of honey and thought he would try his hand at selling at a farmers’ market. That was when he approached the Willimantic Farmer’s Market. It turned out they were looking for a honey guy, but to get hooked up, he needed insurance, you needed to have an LLC, and Shooks said it all started cascading. “It turned into a profitable, in-the-black, side business,” Shooks said. “It just organically just came about.”

Over 25 years later, Shooks is still in the beekeeping business and is still passionate about it. “I think I know a little bit now,” Shooks joked about it. Shooks said he currently has nearly 100 hives on several properties across Eastern Connecticut.

“I would consider myself still a small-time beekeeper,” Shooks said. “I’m approaching 100 hives and I’m hoping to get to 100 hives total sometime this next summer, depending on my winter losses.” Each beekeeper faces the same fate, especially those in New England: recovering from a winter loss.

“I’m hoping that this year is better so I can do an expansion,” Shooks said. “I have numerous land owners that want to host hives and I’m hoping to fulfill those orders.”

Shooks said people love having bees on their property and hosting them. “I call them beehavers,” Shooks said. “People love to have beehives on their property. They don’t necessarily want to manage the bees; they want the hives. They also just enjoy having them on their property and seeing them in their flowers, watching the bees coming in and out of the boxes.”

These people are like “host families” for the bees. “I give them loads of free honey every year for letting me do what I do,” Shooks said. “I have a network of family and friends and people who just host some of hives.” Some properties will have anywhere from 10 to 15 hives, while others may have much fewer. For now, Shooks is not seeking any additional hosts. Some of those property owners are scattered around in Lebanon, Mansfield and several other towns.

The big question Shooks gets asked is if he gets stung a lot. “I always tell people that’s one of the most common questions I get at the farmer’s markets,” Shooks said. “If you play with fire, if you’re a blacksmith, you’re going to get burnt. It comes with the territory.” On some days, he can work with several hives without being stung.

At Shooks Apiaries, Shooks sells products like jars of honey and wax that are turned into lip balms, candles and more. “I also just sell like one-pound blocks of wax who want to do their own crafting,” Shooks said. “It’s not nearly as profitable and marketable as honey.”

Shooks said he has a following for those who like the lip balm. Flavors include coconut-vanilla, lavender-mint, and lemon-meringue. At his location, Shooks has tanks that hold 500 pounds of honey. For honey, he makes the classic flavor and hot honey, which he said is the current trend. The hot peppers he uses are called Carolina Reapers.

During the offseason, Shooks spends that time making goals, building new boxes and preparing. “The season comes on you fast,” Shooks said. “In the middle of March, I am assessing my losses. By the end of April, the hives are rapidly expanding, and Queens are laying like crazy.”