(Describer) Title: Agricultural Inspector. Mike DeVaughn, Indian Run Apiary:

(Describer) She’s bigger and darker than the others.

(male) I've been living here for 15 years. There's eight acres, and I garden.

(Describer) Bees crawl under a box.

I'd be out here mowing these eight acres, and at the end of the summer, I would say, "Man I'm out here in the country. I don't think I've seen a dozen honeybees all summer long." So I started looking into honeybees and found out we had a problem with honeybees. We don't have honeybees like we used to. We have problems with pesticides and diseases and lack of forage. So I spent all of that year and into that winter studying honeybees, and I got my first hive of bees and placed them right there years ago.

(Describer) He points behind him.

From there on, I became a beekeeper.

(Describer) Wearing protective clothing, he opens a box with hives in it.

The more I've done this, I've gotten to the point that I don't care about the honey, and I still do some pollination, but I enjoy beekeeping, so I became a county apiary inspector for the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

(Describer) He wedges open another part of the box, revealing wood-frame hives like files in a cabinet.

This is the good stuff. This is what I like to look at.

(Describer) He pulls out one of the frames with bees on it.

This is nectar.

(Describer) He pulls out another.

The inspector program here in Ohio I believe was started around 1904. And it was started for the purpose of trying to prevent the spread of diseases, the worst one being American foulbrood. American foulbrood can wipe out your own hives. It can spread to every hive in the area. So it's all about inspecting for diseases. So I go through the counties that I inspect and I'm looking for diseases and pests to keep from spreading. Without inspectors, diseases and pests are left out here unchecked. So we have to have inspectors out here just to ensure the health of these colonies out here because they are so important, not necessarily for honey, but for pollination here in the state of Ohio and everywhere else.

(Describer) He sprays a smoke that scatters the bees.

With a little luck-- This one right here has a queen in it that is marked.

(Describer) He pulls out another frame covered with bees.

There she is. Honeybees are only important as long as you like to eat. Now if you don't like to eat, then I guess honeybees aren't important at all. Honeybees are responsible for 1/3 of the food you eat. They pollinate all your fruits, a lot of your vegetables. I don't care if you're 10 years old or 80 years old, seek out your local bee club, go to a meeting. There's where your wealth of information is. They're all over the state of Ohio. There's probably-- About every 40 miles or so, there will be a beekeeping club in this area. Some day I'll be too old to be a beekeeper. I won't be able to physically do this anymore, but I'll still like to eat strawberries. And what I want is I want these kids out here-- If I could talk to 30 kids and just one of them becomes a beekeeper, that one kid goes on to have honeybees to pollinate the strawberries that I'll still like to eat when I can no longer be a beekeeper. So pollination is the most important job of a honeybee.

(Describer) On one of the frames, a small bee flies above a few others.

Funding to purchase and make this educational production

(Describer) Titles: For more information, visit OhioMeansJobs.com. Funding to purchase and make this educational program accessible was provided by the U.S. Department of Education. Contact the Department of Education by telephone at 1-800-USA-LEARN, or online at www.ed.gov.

accessible was provided by the U.S. Department of Education:

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