Michelle Hack and her family love bees so much they spend “Movie Night” at home building hive frames and other beekeeping equipment.

“I hate to make this analogy, but it’s like a tattoo. You can’t just have one [bee colony]. You get the bug,” said Hack, 34, of Plainfield.

Hack, along with her husband, Tim, 37, and children, Alyssa, 10, and Therin, 11, took up beekeeping more than a year ago.

The family is part of a growing trend, with beekeeping gaining popularity over the years amid reports of declining populations. The family of four last year joined the Will County Beekeepers Association, which started out with 20 members when it formed in 2011 but has since grown sixfold to 120.

While the family sells honey in the summer and fall, maintaining backyard bees is about more than making a profit, she said.

It’s also about fighting the continued threat of Colony Collapse Disorder – or the spontaneous abandonment of hives by honeybees. While the mechanisms of CCD remain unclear, the term is associated with a number of threats, including loss of habitat, parasitic varroa mites, malnutrition and genetics.

CCD is a phenomenon that’s garnered more attention from scientists, beekeepers and the general population in recent years, said Steve Chard, supervisor for the apiary inspection program at the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

The movement to save the bees from CCD is, in part, why the hobby has flourished so much, he said.

“Here at the department, we get a lot of calls about swarms of bees. Before there was even a discussion about Colony Collapse Disorder, most people were calling to find out how they should destroy the bees,” Chard said. “Now, they’re asking, ‘What can I do to save these bees?’ ”

The number of beekeepers in Illinois increased from 1,825 in 2012 to 2,519 in 2013, he said. Beekeepers with one or more colonies are required to register through the state’s department of agriculture, he said.

Total colony losses nationwide over the winter were at 23.2 percent, which is better than previous years but is considered unsustainable, according to a report released earlier this month by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Losses greater than 18.9 percent are considered unsustainable, according to the report.

The losses are problematic because bees pollinate about one-third of the world’s food source, Chard said.

Hack said she wants to get her children involved now, rather than later, so they understand the importance of pollinators years down the road.

“Kids nowadays don’t really have an appreciation for hard work. They don’t have an appreciation for agriculture,” Michelle Hack said. “People need to be aware of the importance of bees and other pollinators. [Our kids] are going to be the ones who one day have to figure out how to reverse the decline we’re seeing.”

Devastating loss

In a Harvard study released earlier this month, researchers pointed to neonicotinoids – a relatively new class of pesticides often used as seed treatments for several crops, including soybean and corn – as a big contributor to CCD. The class of pesticides can kill honeybees outright by attacking their nervous systems, while mild exposure can lead to weakened immune systems, memory and foraging abilities.

But no one factor is necessarily to blame, said Darien Kruss, president of the Will County Beekeepers Association, noting bees remain under siege from a host of factors, including loss of habitat, parasitic varroa mites, malnutrition and genetics.

The Will County group’s members lost most, or all, of their colonies this winter because colonies starved, unable to reach their food source, Kruss said.

“If it’s not a record-breaking winter, a 30-percent loss is pretty typical,” Kruss said.

The movement to save the bees is, in part, why the hobby has flourished in Will County, he said.

The cold winter loss was “devastating” for local beekeepers, he said. A factor unique to Illinois is that group members typically begin each spring, as they did this year, with packaged bees shipped from California, where bees do not face cold temperatures.

The goal, he said, is to one day produce bees that can survive the area’s harsh winters.

“We really need to breed bees with a genetic predisposition to make it through a cold winter and then keep those genetics going here locally,” he said. “That would be ideal, to create a kind of hearty strain of bee genetics for this environment.”

This year, the group received more than 400 packages of bees from California – each weighing about three pounds and containing about 10,000 bees.

Bee’s worst enemy

The loss also serves as a motivation for experts to zero in on genes that defend against the bee’s worst enemy: the varroa mite, considered one of the largest factors in population decline worldwide. The mite entered the U.S. in the 1980s.

Large infestations of mites can weaken bees’ immune systems, infect them with viruses and even wipe out entire bee colonies.

The good news is that scientists are looking into whether bees can be bred to develop defensive behaviors to kill or disrupt the reproduction of varroa mites, said Lockport’s Jim Lindau, vice president of the local beekeepers group. Lindau has more than 30 years of beekeeping expertise under his belt.

Purdue University is conducting a year-long study beginning in June, he said, in order to test out its own bee breed designed to fend off mites, he said. The idea is to breed bees specifically to hone in such traits. As part of the study, Lindau and several other group members will receive two queens – a genetically superior queen bee and a common commercial bee.

“They call them mite-biters. Some call them ankle-biters. They bite the legs off mites and can prevent them from reproducing and attacking the hive,” Lindau said. “They’re giving 2,000 of these queens away. They want to know which one survives the winter.”

Best practices

The study’s one stipulation is that beekeepers cannot use chemicals to fight against pests – something that’s easy for Lindau, who makes it a point never to use chemicals because mites eventually become immune to them, he said.

Refraining from chemical use has proven successful over the years, at least for Lindau. He often advises amateur beekeepers to hold off on using miticides, but rather put a little work and effort in natural alternatives.

“You cannot solve the problem with chemicals. They’re trying to look for a silver bullet to make the mites go away, and that’s not going to happen. You have to accept that they’re here. All the hives have mites. It’s just a matter of how much,” he said. “I don’t claim to have all the answers. I just try to see what works best for me in this area.”

There’s no single, correct way to maintain bees, but members of the Will County Beekeepers Association are doing all they can to spread awareness on best practices, said Kruss, who’s served as president of the group since 2012.

“Unless you’re purposely killing them off … anything else you do is OK, from doing nothing to doing all kinds of stuff,” Kruss said.

More about the group

The Will County Beekeepers Association formed in 2011 and is a nonprofit organization that raises awareness of the importance of the honey bees, offers support to members and neighboring communities, encourages cooperation among local beekeepers, and contributes advancement of education about beekeeping.

The group meets monthly at the Will County Farm Bureau, 100 Manhattan Road, in Joliet. The organization's next meeting is scheduled for June 18 at the Will County. For more information, visit www.willbees.org.