The Daily Standard
Story Archive
Retired county apiarist Tom Piper is recognized for almost 50 years of work in Mercer and Auglaize counties during a Greater Grand Lake Beekeepers Association meeting on Tuesday night.
ST. MARYS - The Greater Grand Lake Beekeepers Association, along with county and state officials, honored a longstanding pillar of the Grand Lake beekeeping community at their regular meeting on Tuesday night.
Tom Piper, 71, of Neptune, served as the county apiarist for both Auglaize and Mercer counties for almost 50 years before recently retiring, GGLBA President Allen Heindel said.
"I called the commissioners, tried to find out how long he'd been doing that job," Heindel said. "They dug back into their records (and then) I tried to get ahold of the state apiarist. Well, his first answer was, 'My records don't go back that far.' But he must have went down in the archives and when he came back, he said, 'All right, this is what I'm showing, (Piper served) 49 years in Mercer County, 45 years in Auglaize County.'"
Piper got started in beekeeping in 1966 as a Boy Scout while earning a merit badge, he said.
"I liked it," he said. "I said, 'Dad, I want to try this.' Dad was getting to the stage where, he worked for the telephone company, he was going to retire. So he thought, 'Well I'll cater to my kid here and get him some hives.' And we started doing that. Next thing you know, dad was going to do the bees too and that was going to be a sideline for him. He retired from the telephone company and (would) do the bees in the summertime. It worked out great."
Not too long after the father-son duo started working together, his dad became allergic to bees, Piper continued.
"So he did the extracting, and I did all the field work, and everything went good and we paid for college (that way) and everything else," he said. Extracting is the process of removing the honey from the honeycomb.
Tom Piper, the recently retired apiarist for Mercer and Auglaize counties, works with a bee hive.
County apiarists serve as inspectors and monitor apiarists through the county they serve, per the Ohio Department of Agriculture website. The inspectors are appointed and paid by a county, however they submit their inspection reports to the Ohio Department of Agriculture.
"County appointed inspectors are a crucial component of the current program by providing hands-on interaction with beekeepers through the inspection process," the website reads. "County apiary inspectors increase the likelihood that the bees required for pollination are disease and pest free."
Inspection certificates are required for any person rearing queen bees or packaged bees before they can be sold or gifted. Permits are required of anyone selling, gifting or bartering bees, honeycombs, or used equipment. Of Ohio's 88 counties, there are 24 without county-appointed apiarists.
For a few years, Piper was often accompanied on the job by his daughters and late wife Cindy, he said, and their work together even inspired a family honey business.
"See, that's when I knew she loved me," Piper recalled. "Because before we got married, it rained really heavy ... couldn't get back to the yard. So we had to wheelbarrow everything out. This wheelbarrow was covered with honey and it's the first time she's around bees. The bees were (swarming) bad. The honeybees covered the wheelbarrow and they're flying everywhere. She's sitting there and her eyes are like a deer in headlights, because she's looking at all these bees and she never complained. She did the work. I said, 'She must love me.' It was history. We got married."
Cindy died in August 2024 after a battle with cancer.
Along with a plaque from the GGBLA, which Piper is credited with helping to start in March 2015, he also received proclamations from Mercer and Auglaize counties commissioners and Rep. Angie King, R-Celina, and State Sen. Susan Manchester, R-Waynesfield.
Piper is thought to be the longest serving county apiary inspector in Ohio, Heindel said.
"Last year, at our meeting at state, they (all the county apiarists) were going around the room and I think the most (time served) was 11 years of service. It got to me, and I said, 'Yeah, I got 49 years in this,'" Piper said.
Taking over for Piper is Ray Moeller in Mercer County and Matt Leiendecker in Auglaize County.
"Tommy did such a good job, that it takes two guys (to fill his) place here," Heindel said.
GGLBA holds meetings at 7 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at St. Marys Public Library. It also offers a beginner beekeeping class that serves as a recruitment tool for the club.
