Photos courtesy of the Chicago Department of Aviation

Sweet! Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport is ready to begin its fourth season of producing honey from beehives on its expansive property.

About half of the airport’s beehives survived one of the coldest and snowiest Chicago winters on record. Bees try to endure frigid temperatures by huddling together around the queen in the hive, shivering and flapping wings to keep warm.

This winter was a grueling test, but the Chicago Department of Aviation expects about 4.5 million bees soon will begin pollinating and producing honey from 75 hives if they haven’t already.

So what happens to the honey? It’s processed and used to make honey-based products — candles, soaps and lotions — that are sold under the beelove product label in stores at O’Hare and Midway Airport. The apiary is tended to by ex-prisoners who are in an award-winning job training program operated by the North Lawndale Employment Network and the Chicago Department of Family Support Services.

O’Hare was the first major airport to host an apiary on its grounds and now has the largest bee yard of any airport in the world. Last year, the apiary produced about 1,200 pounds of honey. The beehives are located on the east side of the airport between Mannheim Road and I-294 in a previously vacant, undeveloped grassy area with no future land uses planned. At about 2,400 square feet and 3 feet high, the apiary is nestled amid brush vegetation and scrub trees.

The apiary helps replenish bee populations, which have plummeted over the past decade because of parasites and dramatic temperature fluctuations. About one-third of all the food we eat is pollinated by bees, according to the aviation department.

The bee yard is just one of the sustainability efforts at the airport. O’Hare also uses goats, sheep, llamas and burros to munch on vegetation and scrub on 120 acres of hilly, hard-to-maintain land on vacant property far from or separated by security fences from the airfield. The animals cleared the property from August until mid-November, and are expected to return later this spring.

The beekeeping program has received numerous accolades. It received the Environmental Achievement Award from Airports Council International-North America in the outreach, education and community involvement award category. The aviation department also received the Urban Land Institute’s Chicago Vision Award and a “Creating a Community That Works” award for work with ex-offenders.