BERNE — LeeAna Doolin’s hobby is not one typical for teenagers. A beekeeper, or apiarist, she raises bees out of two hives on her family’s farm.

Doolin first applied for the Southern Adirondack Beekeepers Associations’ youth award in 2014. Her family runs a farm in Berne, and she was interested in raising bees in order to have them pollinate produce grown there. Although she did not win in 2014, she won SABA’s Wolf-Lounsbury Young Beekeepers Award in 2015, at the age of 15.

“It was actually amazing,” said Doolin, of winning the award. She added that she has had a great experience participating in the program offered with the award.

The award allows the winner to take home a bee colony and the materials to keep a hive, and the winner will be able to keep it should she or he successfully maintain it.

“I’ve been doing this for a year now,” she said. “It’s pretty amazing I’ve kept them and haven’t lost any.”

“She’s very devoted to [her] bees,” said Stephen Wilson, a beekeeper from Altamont and a member of SABA. Wilson was the Albany County information coordinator at SABA and met Doolin when she won her award, and has assisted her with her hives since.

At 17, Doolin now has two hives she keeps on her family farm. Formerly homeschooled, she also has an internship at Wellington’s Herbs and Spices where she grows and packs herbs and produce.

Now, she typically checks up on her hive every one to two weeks, but will increase that to every other day once the bees start producing honey.

Last year, Doolin harvested 52 pounds of honey from her first hive. She said she bottles it and sells the honey to friends and to members of St. Matthew’s Church in Voorheesville. She expects to collect honey from both her hives in mid-summer this year.

She said she wants to continue caring for bees as a hobby, but is not sure what she will want to do for a career. She said she is considering something involving the care of plants.