Tucked away in the Victory Garden at Fairfield Hills, Jeff Shwartz picked out a worker bee last month from one of the three hives he owns and maintains on the property.

Mr Shwartz started beekeeping in 2006. At first he was mainly attracted by honey, but his fascination with the creatures eventually grew.

Mr Shwartz, a director of the Back Yard Beekeepers Association, now provides wasp and hornet removal services and supplies custom hives for budding, and buzzing, enthusiasts.

With hives from Fairfield to Litchfield Counties, including three at the Victory Garden, Mr Shwartz’s colonies provide pollination to surrounding vegetation, while also churning out the honey, honeycombs, and wax that are the flying insect’s best-known byproducts.

His duties to maintain dozens of hives is time-consuming, and sometimes even painful. He has to use a smoker to stun the bees before thoroughly inspecting them, and even then he is prone to receive up to 30 stings a day. Mr Shwartz does not wear a mask or suit.

“Everything in the hive is very special,” he said while ticking off the various benefits bees bring.

Propolis, a resin used as sealant in the hives, doubles as a wood varnish and an antimicrobial treatment for burns and cuts.

“I’ve done a lot of things over the years,” Mr Shwartz recalled, “but this is the best,” he said while he smoked and inspected another bee-covered wooden plank.

Mr Shwartz is not alone in his love for all things apiary. According to a 2012 industry survey in Bee Culture Magazine there are as many as 125,000 beekeepers in the United States, the vast majority of them hobbyists with fewer than 25 hives. According to the USDA, honey production in 2014 from producers with five or more colonies totaled 178 million pounds, up 19 percent from the previous year.

Newtown has a number of residents who are also involved in beekeeping.

Dave Stout of Grand Place got his first hive this summer, inspired by the bees his family kept when he was growing up. He gathers and eats the honey his hive produces, and claims to reap other benefits. Mr Stout said he has seen a change in the foliage around his home thanks to his bees pollinating.

 Mr Stout is thinking of experimenting further with the honey and wax from his hive. He said he has heard of people mixing in coconut oil with beeswax to create lotion, and using propolis as a varnish.

Another Newtown resident, Bill Toomey, has been keeping bees for a decade.

“They’re fascinating creatures,” Mr Toomey said, “and I wanted to see what their world was all about.”

Mr Toomey’s wife Barbara also makes and uses lip balm and massage oils on top of their personal consumption of the honey their bees produce.

Last year, Mr Toomey was fortunate enough to see a swarm — a rare occurrence, he said, among beekeepers. Half of his hive flew together, thousands of bees at a time, into a neighboring tree. Mr Toomey carefully clipped the branch they had perched on, he said, and dropped the colony back into the box.

Mr Toomey’s outlook on beekeeping is a philosophical one: “It’s about the colony, not the individual.”

With fall progressing, Mr Shwartz said on Wednesday, October 7, he is currently getting his bees ready for winter, checking which bees have enough honey to survive the colder months, and making sure mouse guards will protect the hives.

Mr Schwartz said he provides information for free for anyone who has questions about bees, and helps people who may be “freaked out” over a wasp or bee nest on their property. He gets roughly 150 calls a year from people concerned about wasps or bees, he said, and he lets those people know that he can relocate them. He speaks to them about the process, and shares that he does not kill the bees. Many people, he said, decide to leave the bees where they are as it is, “the best thing to be done.”

For people who are concerned about wasps in October, Mr Shwartz said they will die off from starvation and cold over the next month.

Mr Shwartz said he can be reached by phone at 203-426-8620 by people with questions or concerns about bees. His charges for his relocation services, but speaks over the phone for free.