Working in Clark County: Viktor Plyushchev, Beekeeper

Business is literally buzzing for Viktor Plyushchev, a third-generation commercial beekeeper in La Center.

He doesn’t just keep a few hives of bees in his backyard and collect some honey to sweeten the occasional cup of tea as a hobby; rather, he’s managing millions of bees in more than 1,200 hives, half of which are in Clark County. Honey collection, the sweet serum that the bees work all of their lives to make, is only a small part of the business.

Plyushchev is in the business of bee pollination. That is, the process of bees transferring pollen grains from the cells of fruit and veggie flowers so that crops flourish. He takes the bees he raises to pollinate crops near and far, from local blueberry crops, to apple and pear orchards in Wenatchee and Yakima, to almond fields in California most recently this spring.

“If there are no bees, there’s no pollination. Yes, there are wild bees, but not so many,” Plyushchev said, adding that there has been a bee shortage nationwide for the last decade or so. If crop production declined, people would be forced to pay more money for food. “I mean, there could be a colony nearby somewhere in a hollow tree, but it could be miles away because the bees only cover up to like a three-mile radius.”

His business, Smart Bee Pollination, brings in bees to help growers achieve the most bountiful crop possible. And maintaining successful beehives (each of which consists of one laying queen, hundreds of male drone bees and around 20,000 to 80,000 worker bees) to achieve this result is not an easy feat. Plyushchev’s immense love for the job doesn’t go unnoticed.

“He definitely has a deep love for the honeybee,” said Debby Cochran, the special events and honeybee swarm coordinator for the Preservation Beekeeping Council, an organization based in Camas.

Plyushchev’s beekeeping career has intertwined with his life so much that he can tell how well his bees are doing simply by the sound of their buzz. He has to make sure the queen bee is keeping things in order, though he’s been doing the job for so long he knows he only has to look for the eggs she has laid to know she’s around.

“That’s mainly all I do day in and day out, is go through the hives. And it’s not just one or two, if I could get through 30 to 40 hives a day, that’s pretty good,” he said. “Since I’ve been doing this for such a long time I know signs to look for. A lot of times I know she’s there because the way they’re acting. If they’re queenless they’re going to let me know.”

Plyushchev finds Clark County a favorable place to be a beekeeper, despite the major crops being in California.

“In California, there’s quite a lot of beekeepers but they’re always struggling with the heat, the drought, no water. You know, you have to constantly supply your bees with water. Here I don’t have to worry about that because there’s a lot of creeks, streams and ponds. It’s just really rich with water sources here,” he said. And, he enjoys the “constant bloom.”

“We go from one bloom to the next. We just had maple, now it’s hawthorn, now it’s blackberries, and we have a bunch of wildflowers in bloom. We don’t have to feed. In California, they depend on feeding,” he said. According to Plyushchev, feeding the bees with sugar water makes the honey less pure.

Tajikistan civil war

But the family business hasn’t always been in the lush Pacific Northwest.

Plyushchev, 32, was only 5 years old when the Tajikistan civil war broke out in Russia, where his father and grandfather were commercial beekeepers. Wanting to get their family to safety (the war killed thousands of people between 1992 and 1997), as well as to more opportunity, the Plyushchevs left and landed in Oregon. He went to high school in Gresham and decided to take beekeeping seriously when he was 23, after considering veering from his father’s footsteps, shortly finding interest in cars and construction. He’s just one of 13 children, and some of his younger brothers are considering beekeeping as well. He’s also hoping one of his own children — he and his wife have three — takes an interest in the business.

“I often think I’m going to have to hire workers eventually because I’m growing, and I have that fear: How can I? It would take a lot to learn, because it took pretty much my lifetime,” Plyushchev said.

On a recent windy Tuesday, the gentle hum of bees intertwined with the rustle of maple leaves on a small farm near La Center. The farm itself isn’t Plyushchev’s, but a family, Joan and John Parsons, lets him keep a few of his hives there, and even sells some of the honey made by his bees. (Plyushchev’s favorite is the honey made during the blackberry and wildflower season, which he said has a “sweet, soury taste to it.”) A faded sign that reads “Honey” points to the large house and a barn sits farther back on the land along Northeast 40th Avenue.

Plyushchev wore a bee net around his head and a pair of gloves while he handled the bees that day. But sometimes, he said, he doesn’t wear any protective equipment. He hates the bulky protection suits.

“My dad thinks I’m crazy. He said it reminds him of his dad. I remember how my grandfather was — he’d work shirtless with his bees, and I do too,” he said. He has no idea how many times he’s been stung and pays no mind when it happens anymore.

“People, they don’t realize that bees aren’t as aggressive. I’d be more afraid of wasps, yellow jackets and hornets. Those guys are really mean. Bees, normally, they’re just out there to pollinate, to do good. That’s the only way I see it,” Plyushchev said.