“I’m a bit of an adrenaline junky,” he admitted.
“Sometimes it gets crazy. There might be times I can’t see across the street ‘cause there are so many bees I’m looking through. Everything in your body is screaming, hey, you should get out of here. But as long as you suppress that, and be as calm, cool and collected as possible, those bees will feed off that.
“I need that adrenaline to make the volume lower for the rest of the day. The more intense it gets, the calmer I get. The problems that I worried about earlier in the morning are not as loud anymore because of what I just dealt with.
I love every minute of it.”
Alvarado, 35, has roots in Centerville going back generations. He resides in town with his wife, Emily, and their dogs Pippin and Blues.
Hive Noon
Alvarado started his honeybee service business, Hive Noon, in 2021. It’s a profession he stumbled upon when he took a landscaping job at a small farm in Medway, and learned that the owners kept fifty hives in their backyard.
“They said if I wasn’t scared I could suit up and go right out. They ended up being Master Beekeepers and teachers for Ohio State’s beekeeping program. I worked as their property caretaker for 5 years and they taught me bees.”
The honeybees managed by Hive Noon affect an area of 1.28 million acres across the Dayton and Cincinnati region, and include both quarter acre residential properties and sprawling farmland. Alvarado ensures each location is zoned for beekeeping, as laws vary city to city.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
“I’m extremely passionate about the effect that we’re having on the area. By putting just one hive on your property, if you’re growing food, you can see about a 12% increase on your product.”
The name of the business is a nod to his father, who loved Cowboy Westerns as a child.
Helping out
“Since the bee colonies are collapsing we want to make sure that everyone gets the chance to help out. We help people get set up and run year-long programs for new beekeepers. Every time we go out to service their hive, they suit up and come with us.
“Some clients want honey, some want pollination. Some people want bee bread to add to their yogurt. In the store, it’s called pollen. Some people produce propolis.
For full-blown beekeepers who are struggling, we consult with them to help their operation run smoothly.”
Making sure bees have the right resources to flourish is central to Hive Noon’s work.
Ironically, Alvarado has no hives at home. He keeps his out in Miamisburg and uses them as testers for new products before they are implemented elsewhere.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
Should we clear up some misconceptions about ‘bees’?
“Bees and hornets and wasps are like comparing cats and dogs. Hornets and wasps typically are predators. They fly very differently. The wasp will dart around and fly like a helicopter and that’s because it’s eating actual protein, other bugs, unlike the honeybee which is feeding off of nectar and pollen. It has to fly like a plane because it doesn’t have the energy that the hornets and wasps are getting.”
Suiting up
“I don’t do anything fancy in the morning. I get up, throw on not even clean clothes. If I see somebody in a clean suit, I question how long they’ve been beekeeping, ‘cause it is a dirty job. I find that the dirtier you are, the more people trust you.”
He wears a full body suit and doubles up protection on his hands. The layers raise the temperature by 20 degrees.
“I load up everything I need for the day into the truck. My assistant, Bob, shows up. Great guy, he has a degree in Environmental Management. Bob and I roll around town.
“If we get there too early, it’s not warm enough and the bees aren’t as active. You don’t want to go into a hive when they’re all home. You’ll kind of tear their house apart.”
During the summer, Alvarado works a 12 hour day, 6-7 days a week.
“When we’re going from client to client, it will get brutally hot. If it’s 90 outside, it’s 110 for me in that suit. If any signs of heat exhaustion show up, we need to address it now. We come loaded with fans and ice packs. We’re throwing them inside our suits as we’re working.
“It takes a lot of conditioning. I wear 7-9 layers of clothing during the winter so that when we get to spring and I throw that suit on, I am already activated. I get really cold now because I’m so used to it being so hot. Even 60 degrees, I’m shaking. I’m freezing.”
Pulling honey
“This time of year we are pulling honey. We will see 3-7 different clients a day. We go frame by frame. We’ll brush off the wax, shake the bees back into their hive.”
Hive Noon utilizes man-made Langstroth hives, which look nothing like the Winnie the Pooh hives of our childhood imaginations. They consist of colorful vertical stacked boxes containing frames that hold the honeycomb. The removable inserts make for easier inspection to prevent diseases in the bee colony.
Lorenzo Langstroth, apiarist and namesake of this modern take on the hive, is actually buried in Dayton’s Woodland Cemetery.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
“To move a box, you manhandle it. Full of honey, they weigh 80-100 pounds. A single hive can weigh 300 pounds.
“We’ll take the frame, stick it in a tote, then load that up into the truck. We always leave a good amount of honey behind in case there’s a drought. We want to make sure they have enough food source.
“We drive back to the headquarters, which is really just a garage in Kettering with beekeeping equipment. We pull into the driveway, unload all the equipment, and lay by the truck. We try to sit there until we stop sweating.
“We start extracting honey. It’s a blast. We cut the wax off and stick it into an extractor. The extractor spins super fast, pulls that honey out, and slaps it against the wall. It drips down the side and pours out the bottom into a filter and into a bucket. We bring back food grade 5-gallon buckets of honey to that client.
In the grocery store the honey that you get only needs to contain 10% honey. The rest is sugar water, corn syrup. The best honey is always going to be local and raw.”
Then it’s a cold shower, a big meal, lots of water. And some cartoons.
Keeping it local
“We keep everything as local as possible. We get the beehive equipment from the Amish by Mad River Mountain. They make it for us. The bees are local. We service local. The honey is all local. Everything is right here in the neighborhood.”
Bits of wax are filtered out in the honey extraction. If the client doesn’t want the wax, Hive Noon will sell it off to local candlemakers and glassblowers; the latter dip their tools in it so it doesn’t shock when they touch glass.
A wild adventure
He says a beekeeper’s schedule the reverse of a teacher’s. In the winter months, the bees go semi-dormant in the hives. Alvarado will go out once a month to check activity with a stethoscope.
“We’ll give a little tap on the side and listen to them hum.”
The down season is also when he works towards his Master Beekeeper credential through online courses with Florida University.
“I would like to give a shout out to my mentors, to my wife for always being supportive with all my wild ambitions and a shout out to Bob for baring the heat and bees with me on this adventure.”
MORE DETAILS
Hive Noon will be present at Kettering’s ECOfest on Sept. 20. More info at ketteringoh.org/event/ecofest-2025.
Online: www.hivenoon.com
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