Also in Gardening & Agriculture

Natural Beekeeping

Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture

by Ross Conrad

Foreword by Gary Nabhan

Excerpt

Preface

Read not to contradict nor to believe, but to weigh and consider.

—Francis Bacon

I did not develop my passionate affection for the honey bee early in life. In fact, other than the occasional sting from stepping on a bee barefooted, or enjoying some honey in my tea, my interaction with the bee world was extremely limited. This changed during the summer of 1989. After moving to Vermont the winter of ‘88, I had landed a job at a radio station and was finding it difficult to make ends meet. The rate of pay at a small-town station was quite different than what I had been used to receiving while working in Manhattan, and, as a result, I would pick up extra part-time work from time –to time to help make ends meet. That was the summer I met Charlie Mraz.

Charles was in his eighties and still heated his home with a wood-burning stove, as is the fashion throughout the state of Vermont. As a result of his advanced years, Charlie hired me to assist him in stacking the four cords of firewood he had purchased for the upcoming winter. After the work was completed, I asked Charlie if he had anything else I could help him with. He said he didn’t, but that he would speak with his son Bill, who might have some work over at the honey house for me.

Charlie had moved to Vermont in the late 1920s and had started a beekeeping business called Champlain Valley Apiaries. He had gone on to build the company up into the largest beekeeping outfit in Vermont that kept all its bees within the state. Although Charles was still very involved in the business, some 60 years after its formation, his son Bill had taken over most of the day-to-day activities of running the company. I helped harvest and extract the honey that the bees produced for Champlain Valley Apiaries that summer. After this experience, I started my own disc jockey service and refocused my attention on the broadcast/music industry.

During the winter of 1990-91, I found myself working as the DJ at a nightclub near the Killington ski resort. I was working about six hours every night and had my days available to pursue any interest or activity that happened to strike my fancy. In fact, this was the first time since I had been a toddler that I had my days totally to myself. As a result I found myself doing a lot of thinking, reflecting, and soul searching. I began to seriously evaluate my life. I also began to read more, and was drawn to a book written by a Native American Indian elder named Sun Bear. Sun Bear had founded the Bear Tribe, which sought to teach native wisdom to anyone who was willing to learn about the old ways that had been handed down to him by his parents and grandparents. This book resonated with what I was feeling at the time and, as a result, I decided to spend a month with the Bear Tribe at their teaching center known as Vision Mountain near Spokane, Washington.

It was from Sun Bear that I received a new appreciation for nature. I began to see how little I had respected and cared for the natural world around me and I took a vow, to myself, to bring more healing to the Earth and, by extension, those around me. While I was with the Bear Tribe, I also had the fortunate opportunity to participate in several American Indian ceremonies. One of these ceremonies was a Vision Quest. This ancient mystical journey is undertaken as an odyssey of self-knowledge and fulfillment—a spiritual journey into the wilderness and the soul. Traditionally boys undertook the Vision Quest as they made the transition from childhood to manhood. As part of my quest, I sat alone for four days and four nights, fasting, praying and seeking vision on a mountain where the Bear Tribe’s learning center was located. It was during this time, on my second day on the mountain, that a single honey bee came to visit me. I looked down at one point, and there on my big toe sat a honey bee. How it got there, I do not know. I didn’t see it arrive. Nor did I feel its presence on my skin.

Native wisdom teaches that we can learn from everything in nature, so I spoke to the bee and let it know that I was open to learning whatever it had to teach me. The bee then spent about five minutes flying around me, landing occasionally on various parts of my body, before flying off on its merry way. I didn’t think anything more of the bee’s visit until the next day while sitting in the same spot, when a bee flew by. It came up to my ear and hovered there for a moment buzzing, then flew over my head and buzzed in my other ear before taking off straight off to my right as if it was on a beeline and my head was in its way. The bee’s flight path would have looked like one of those fake arrows that comedians put on their heads to make it appear like they have been shot. Whether it was the same bee that visited me the previous day I do not know for sure, but I suspect that it was. It almost seemed as if the bee was trying to speak to me and say, “Now don’t forget what I told you yesterday.”

I returned to Vermont following my time with the Bear Tribe and didn’t think much more about honey bees until one day, about six months after my return, Bill Mraz stopped by to see me. This was the first time I had seen him in quite some time. He told me that his primary beekeeping assistant had been badly injured in a car accident and would be unavailable for the remainder of the season. He wondered if I was interested in filling the position on a full-time basis. After some thought, I accepted the offer and spent the next six years receiving a wonderful education in a whole new area that I had never explored before.

Not only did I find the honey bees fascinating, I also became intrigued by the work that Charlie was doing with apitherapy. I was astounded by how effective the various products of the beehive were in restoring health and vitality to individuals with diseases or other health conditions. Charlie had drawers full of letters from people with debilitating diseases who had found relief from using honey, pollen, propolis, or bee venom therapeutically. The typical letter told of a person so crippled they had been confined to a wheelchair for years. Doctors were unable to do much more than relieve their pain and make them comfortable. After apitherapy treatments that lasted anywhere from several days to a year or more, they were up and walking around as if they had never been sick in the first place. Needless to say, this fascinated me and led me to research and learn more about how apitherapy worked and why. Curiosity had got a firm hold of me, and I began looking into other forms of alternative healing such as homeopathy, herbs, natural foods, and dietary supplements.

All these experiences have nurtured a connection between the honey bee and myself that is deeper and more meaningful than I can put into words. The bees have taught me so much over the years and have brought so many wonderful people into my world. It is my hope that I will always have honey bees around me, until the end of my days.

Since the honey bee exerts such a powerfully beneficial influence on the natural world around us, it seems logical to assume that our own efforts to help the honey bee thrive can indirectly benefit all of nature. As a result, we beekeepers are, for the most part, a collegial lot; we exist in a kind of friendly competition with one another. We certainly do not have a situation where there are too many beekeepers in the U.S. In fact, I believe that we need more beekeepers in this world, and those beekeepers need to be successful in apiculture. This motivates me to do whatever I can to assist to my fellow apiculturists, which includes answering questions, offering advice, and even occasionally providing on-site inspections and evaluations of hives. The most common questions I encounter revolve around how I manage to keep my bees healthy and achieve relatively low winter losses compared to the conventional beekeepers all around our area, who typically experience much larger losses. By sharing what I’ve learned with less experienced folks, I hope to aid them in keeping their bees alive and healthy, and that, through the good work they accomplish with their honey bees, we can all help to leave the world in better condition than we’ve found it. This book is my attempt to share some of the insights I have gained, along with specific “how to” information on keeping bees in an ecological way, in the hopes that others will find something of use that may be applied to their work in apiculture. This has become my primary motivation for writing this book. As with beekeeping in general, it certainly isn’t for the money.

During my own efforts over the years to obtain information on natural, nontoxic approaches to beekeeping, I have noticed that there are very few sources that collect, all in one place, a critical mass of information on the numerous organic techniques for dealing with a variety of beekeeping issues. It is my hope that the information contained in this book will concentrate a significant number of natural and sustainable solutions in a practical way, to give both the commercial and hobby beekeeper a variety of ideas and suggestions for reducing chemical usage, and provide a number of alternative options in the effort to keep bees healthy without toxic chemotherapy controls. The more options we as beekeepers have at our disposal, the greater the opportunity for flexibility, something that is sorely needed today to help us adapt successfully to changes and events that challenge our beekeeping operations.

I’ll be the first to tell you that I do not have all the answers. In fact, no small part of my enjoyment of the craft of beekeeping stems from the creativity, adventure, and sense of discovery that is inherent in the process of attempting to maintain healthy hives in a natural and sustainable way. From the very beginning, I have always refused to use toxic chemicals in my hives. My stubbornness caused me to lose many hives in the early days, but by persevering I have proven to myself that it is possible in this day and age to keep honey bees without resorting to the use of dangerous synthetic chemical compounds. I have attempted to present my experiences and what I have heard or read in a manner that will be of the most benefit to others in regard to natural and organic apiculture. As a result, I have taken pains to indicate which techniques I have directly tried and experienced and which I have only heard or read about in passing.

I see the activity of beekeeping in much the same way that I view activities like gardening and raising children. Each one of us who participates in the craft of apiculture will develop approaches and techniques that are unique to our particular needs, style, and situation. As with gardening and child-rearing, how an individual approaches beekeeping will depend on their resources, knowledge, purpose, level of confidence, and philosophies for becoming involved in the activity. A full-time migratory beekeeper, for example, will manage hives quite differently from a commercial honey producer. And both of these approaches to beekeeping will differ greatly from those of a person who maintains a hive simply as a hobby in order to provide themselves with a source of honey bees for apitherapy. No matter our reasons for keeping bees, it is beneficial to seek out beekeeping information from a variety of sources and to choose those forms of hive management that best fit our personal situation, goals, and finances.

Thanks to the development of innovative technologies and management techniques, new methods seem to surface every year that fit the natural and organic philosophy, and improvements are gradually being made to many of the older ways of going about things. Some people may choose to incorporate just a few of these ideas into their hive management routines and simply reduce the number of chemical treatments that they need to apply on a yearly basis. This would lead to an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach, which dictates that treatments are not simply applied routinely but only according to need. Others may choose to be more aggressive in implementing nontoxic beekeeping and manage their hives in an entirely natural manner, as I endeavor to do. Either way, significant cost savings can be gained from reduced chemical expenditures. More importantly, greater peace of mind will be obtained, by easing concerns about toxic chemical contamination and exposure. The final outcome—healthier bees and robust hives—is everyone’s ultimate prize.