Honey Bee Economics

The humble honey bee. This singing whir of golden hue embodies unselfishness and unconditional love. Small and unassuming, this insect offers us numerous opportunities to learn from the collective intelligence of its society. By examining the honey bee's example, we find clues to how we might approach the work of bringing forth a new and sustainable society, and thus a new world.

Let's look at the hive's economy. Like humans, honey bees utilize natural resources to help fuel the economic engine of their society. Nectar, pollen, propolis, and water are “harvested” and “mined” from the earth to provide the raw materials for food production, housing construction, health care and maintaining a hospitable atmosphere within the honey bee city-state so all its citizens can live comfortably. In acquiring these resources, the bees do little harm to the natural world. Unless they are threatened and are forced to defend themselves, they do not hurt so much as a leaf during their foraging trips. In fact, due to their role as pollinators, the honey bees actually leave the environment in better shape than they find it, as they take what they need to survive. The bees’ example proves that it is possible to take what one needs from the world in a manner that helps the environment, or at least reduces damage.

Another profound lesson of honey bee economics comes in the form of the power of their community. All activity within the hive is directed at furthering the interests of the entire colony. With no thought of the “self”, the bee's constant focus of effort is on the local scene and the good of the whole community. Workers step in and do whatever needs to be done within the hive, working constantly without complaint. They feed each other, build places to live for one another, cool each other when hot, and snuggle to provide warmth when cold. When one job is done, they move along to another, always contributing to the betterment of their collective sisterhood. They work cooperatively as a team, like a single organism, following their inner guidance, and doing what is right without the use of force or threats from a leader.



The bees’ cooperative community stands in stark contrast to western society. We are all encouraged to “go it alone” and provide our own source of income in order to procure a home, transportation, food, clothing, etc. And yet, the idea of the American nation being built on rugged individualism is a myth. Most of the truly momentous advances in the United States came about only when folks rallied together for a common cause, from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the election of an African American president. One way we can overcome our current difficulties will be to rediscover the power of working together in community, and, like the bees, learn to rely upon each other once again. We can get through these tough times if we will only help each other out. By showing our love and providing for or sharing with each other, we provide for ourselves. When our community is doing well, we tend to do well, and when our community suffers, we don't do as well.

While conventional wisdom says we should work at a single career our entire working life in order to reach a level of skill and professionalism that will allow us to maximize our earnings, each one of us has many talents. Like the bees, we could build a society that supports us in taking on different roles and jobs as our life path evolves, or the needs of our communities change. These are the kinds of alternatives that we can learn from the humble honey bee – alternatives that have true freedom, health, prosperity, and peace as their core.

There is much we can learn about the enduring power of harmonious community that is manifested in the forty-million-year-old society known as the honey bee hive. Since they survived the last era in which large scale extinctions of species were the norm on earth, and since they are still around today, honey bees can provide us with useful clues to improve our society.

The hardest of times are not necessarily the worst of times if you will keep to love, empathy, and imaginative living. The challenges ahead have little to do with Wall Street, and everything to do with changing the way we live, and the way we relate to each other, the earth, and ultimately, ourselves. For those willing to listen, the wisdom of the honey bee can help to guide our way through these dark times.

As the the Elders of the Oraibi Arizona Hopi Nation remind us, “We are the ones we've been waiting for”.

Going to the Farmer’s Market

After many sunny Saturdays (and a few very chilly ones) in Burlington City Hall Park, the 2008 summer Farmers’ Market has come to an end. The Halloween costumes came out for the last one; there were little lions and tigers and bears galore. We were even fortunate enough to meet a family of bee keepers out trick-or-treating. The dogs we had enjoyed so much every week came back to see us one last time and some owners stocked up on jars of two pound honey for their dogs for the winter.

Meriwether Hardie & Charlotte Hardie at
the Burlington Farmers Market, August 2008

I had never thought to try to feed dogs honey until one couple approached my sister and me to ask to take a honey sample for their large brown Komondor, a pup that greatly resembles a mop. They told us that one day each week they fast their dog, feeding him only our raw honey to cleanse his body. It was wonderful to share a gift, a food and a medicine, that a pup and his owner could benefit from and enjoy together.

Families who came to the market together could not pass our stand without stopping for their children to sample the honey, rarely parting without a jar of honey and bottle of elderberry or wild cherry bark syrup. The families took pleasure in sharing stories of when Honey Gardens’ products helped their family, all the way from their teething children to their sickly college students. Many concerned parents bought our cold and flu remedies to ship to their college students who had traveled out of Vermont to achieve higher education.

Tacia Eriksen, Harley Eriksen and
Vermont Governor Jim Douglas enjoy
Honey Gardens raw honey at the first
ever Burlington Winter Market, November 2008

When a longtime customer would pass our stand and hear my sister or I explaining Honey Gardens’ products to new potential customers, they would stop and explain with us, and most would tell how they swear by our products and keep a jar of Apitherapy raw honey in their home at all times, and our cold and flu products in their medicine cabinet. As these magnificent souls gathered to share their thoughts on our products, folks would see a crowd forming around our stand and swarm in to learn of the wonders of elderberry, propolis and raw honey.

There were new college students who had never heard of Honey Gardens’ at the beginning of the Summer Market, and by the end they were regulars, coming every Saturday to purchase more honey or syrup and to share our gift with their friends. The college seniors especially seemed to enjoy our Mead, and loved presenting us with their identification cards to prove that they were finally 21 and able to sample legally.

Most customers knew about raw honey already, and a good portion knew of the wonders that are our syrups and healing salve, however, our Mead was something new to share with people. Not many knew what Mead was and all were excited to hear the story of it and wondered if it was sweet like honey. Once people learned about Mead, they were eager to try it and, more often than not, buy it. Whether they were purchasing it for themselves, as a gift for a loved one, or in its traditional use as a wedding gift, one and all were happy with it.

Sharing our products with the people of Burlington has been wonderful. We have just returned from the first Winter Market in Memorial Auditorium (the next ones will be Dec. 20th, Jan. 17th, Feb. 21st, March 21st,, and April 18th). Natural cold and flu season remedies, all made using raw honey, is the best gift one could give or receive; remember that this holiday season!

harvest and the abundance of the land

Across the land, beekeepers are now bringing their honey to the honey house for extracting. One of the miracles of working on the land and with the bees took place again this year. A lot of honey came in the last few days. We saw it in our own bees: right into last week, the crop was light. The bees had months of rain this season, day after day of precipitation where they stayed in their homes and did not fly to flowers.

honey bee with pollen, on sunflower.

Ann D. Watson Aug. 29, 2008

Then came the goldenrod and aster flowers, the last major and minor nectar plants of the season in the northeast. Many beekeepers commented about how they had looked at the hives before this, and they were “light”. But after the goldenrod and aster bloomed, the next time they were with their bees, there was a good crop.

This has happened with our bees many times over the last 30 years, which has helped me have more patience and trust in the whole process of the rhythms of the land. At the "eleventh hour" you can't do much about the strength or health of your bees anyway, and we see how in letting go and accepting, we are often given great abundance.

Sunflowers heads are composite flowers. The head looks like one flower, but like the dandelion, the sunflower is actually composed of numerous small florets. A sunflower head like this is composed of 1,000 to 4,000 florets. Each floret contains both male and female parts of the flower and is open for 2 days to be pollinated. Honey bees collect both pollen and nectar from sunflowers.

Florets open from the outer edge of the flower head inwards, so one can see gradual progression as pollination occurs. It takes 5 - 10 days for this process to be completed.

source: Crop Pollination by Bees by Keith S. Delapland and Daniel F. Meyer. Published by CABI Publishing, 2000.


Lewis Hill with a tray of one month elderberry plants
Greensboro, Vermont, June 2003

Lewis Hill, a gentle giant, teacher & friend, a man of the plants, 1924 - 2008

I met Lewis when I was fresh out of agricultural school; I was the state bee inspector and checked in with him each year to see how his bees were going. I was drawn to this giant of a man, who was among the most gentle and kind of people I had ever met. He was evidence that people are put in our paths to dramatically change and improve our lives.

For years as we walked around the gardens where he and Nancy lived, as well as his father and grandfather before him, he pointed out the medicinal plants as elecampagne, the many varieties of lilies, berries, apples, and vegetables that he and Nancy grew. Lewis delighted in introducing me to the elderberries and black currants, and would share the medicinal value of each. After the walks, there was often a cocktail of elderberry and orange juice.

"Todd, why don't you consider working with elderberry", he would ask me each year, as we walked among the towering plants. I listened, but was so focused on the bees that I did not digest what he was saying. Lewis gave me plants to take home, always looking for and finding a small one that could be transplanted and moved in any month of the year. After 14 years of his mantra, I started to see elderberry products in health food stores, which came from Europe and were mixed with glucose, fillers, and artificial ingredients. It was easy to see that we could produce something of a higher quality here in Vermont, and make it with raw honey. I went back to Lewis and said that I now understood what he was saying, and asked for more information. He smiled and simply said that he had been waiting for me to hear and listen. Then he took me to his library and he shared files from articles, written over the years, on the elderberry's medicinal value and propagation.

We then started the Vermont Elderberry Project. For years Lewis would fill his greenhouse with softwood elderberry cuttings. I would pick them up in the summer after they had rooted, and shared them with thousands in our community and beyond. Lewis connected us to another era, where outside the Vermont farmhouse, people would grow elderberry and have bees and chickens.

Elderberry is older than Vermont; it has the anti-viral agent that chemical medicines do not have for getting rid of the virus in the common cold. It supports the immune system and is helpful when one has the flu.

If it were not for Lewis sharing the elderberry, we would not be keeping bees and sharing Apitherapy honey around this land. The elderberry gave our apiary an opportunity to diversify and share the value of honey as a medicine in plant medicine.

While Lewis was a man of great strength, he always showed me great kindness and tenderness. He was not shy about showing his affections, being one of the first in my work to sign each letter "love, Lewis". As soon as I "got it" about the elderberry, he started taking me to the black currant plants and putting these in my car to take home and think about. I understood it earlier this time, and we are now making black currant honey wine, and looking at a new plant medicine with black currant.

At the honey house of Honey Gardens, we are the caretakers for two elderberry cultivars of Lewis Hill, Berry Hill and Coomer; he always said that they produce larger berries and are more winter hardy. From this plantation, we make hardwood and softwood cuttings, and share these each year. 'Plant 6 - 20 feet apart, have at least one of each cultivar for greater pollination and fruit yield, and protect your plants from the deer."

Thank you, Lewis. We see the fruit of your life all around us.

Excerpt from a beekeeper’s journal, the wheel of the bee season

Beekeeping has taken my connection to the land to a much deeper level. At this, the end of my second full season as a backyard beekeeper, I pause to appreciate the gift the bees have brought me: the gift of connection to the great wheel of life.

Over the course of the spring and summer, I am in tune with the flowers. Willow, black raspberry, apple, dandelion, black locust. Catmint, chives, wild geranium, black cohosh, echinacea. Native plants abound: sumac, white clover, alfalfa, the sweet clovers. Each day, I note what plants the bees are visiting. I read, observe, and try to find out where they are getting the bulk of their nectar and pollen. I watch excitedly as the flowers gently fold and the pollinated plants begin to set fruit.

Honeybee among the last flowers of the
season, broccoli . photo by Ann D. Watson

Fruit season begins: black raspberries behind the kitchen, which a month ago the bees were pollinating, are fat and juicy on the canes. Then come blackberries. The early sun and rain combined with excellent pollination have made a bumper crop. I think of how the pollinators worked the flowers which have turned into the plump, flavorful delights I now pop into my mouth. I spend hours in the patch and return with brimming baskets, my arms scratched and clothes stained purple. Two quarts make a blackberry cobbler to die for. Ten quarts go into the freezer.

Late summer has arrived. The goldenrod is beginning to bloom. Now all is dependent on weather. I check weekly to see if another honey super is needed. If it's cloudy, I'm making my plans for taking off and extracting the honey. Goldenrod is in full bloom, a great yellow swath of color dotted with spots of mauve Joe-Pye Weed and white boneset.

The end of August comes and it's time to take the honey off. I have few enough supers that I can afford the time to use an old fashioned, unheated knife to gently slice off the cappings in an unhurried manner. As I work, I meditate on the great wheel of the seasons that turns every day imperceptibly, gradually leading us toward the end of the summer and the long winter after that.

Aster flowers open. The warm sunny days are fewer now, and farther between. Aside from the sedum and borage still adorning my garden, this is the last major food for the bees, the last chance to store up summer's bounty in the form of honey, to feed the colony through a long cold period without fresh food. I feel a sadness come over me, knowing that as each day comes and goes, there are fewer times when it will be warm enough for the bees to fly free in the fresh air and gather fresh nectar. They are driving the drones, now-useless consumers of precious food, out of the hive, cutting their losses, battening down the hatches. Now I can only trust that my vigilance all summer and the bounty of the land, have made the bees strong and numerous enough to keep each other warm on the coldest days and to move to their honey stores as they need to. I am grateful for the millions of flowers they have visited and their strength in fanning their wings to evaporate the water out of the honey; for their ability to make wax to cap their stores; and for the trust that once more, enough bees will survive the winter to keep their species going another season. Most of all, I am grateful for the deeper connection to the land which the bees have brought me.

the cross pollination of life

bumblebee approaching bleeding heart

photo Ann D. Watson 2007, author of the Honey Gardens blog
on nectar and pollen plants and
pollinators of the Champlain Valley, Vermont

In the early days of Spring, we visited the bees as the last patches of snow lingered throughout the land. Choruses of frogs sang for weeks, as waves of red maples were lighting up the hills, signaling the end of maple sugaring and also the beginning of the flight of honey bees as they gather nectar and pollen from the same trees that syrup was made from. The colonies of bees that have mite resistant queens and where organic practices are followed continue to come out of the winter stronger.

In the season of abundant dandelion flowers for the bees, we have been splitting the surviving colonies, which makes up for the winter loss. We are encouraging them to raise their own queens this year and support their health with organic mite procedures. Last week, the colonies of honey bees were moved out of the apple orchards.

Another sign of Spring is the lone queen bumble bee flying from flower to flower, gathering nectar and pollen to feed and start their new families. The bumble bees often have more muscles and are larger than honey bees, and can thus fly in the cooler temperatures of Spring. They are native pollinators and social like honey bees; the bumble bees are also a critical piece of our ecosystem and like honey bees, they are at risk. You can find out more, including how to help them, at the Bumblebee Conservation Trust

http://www.bumblebeeconservationtrust.co.uk/

Wainsworth Brown, David Buchanan, Noel Henry, and Neville Buchanan, Zolfo Spring, Florida, April 2008. The boxes of orange blossom honey have been brought to the honey house for extracting. The bees were just starting to work on the palmetto palm flowers. These men work with the bees in South Florida, and maintain strong ties to their community in Jamaica.

Nearby in Zolfo Spring, the honey bees were working the flowers in a 180 acre field of watermelon. When these watermelon are pollinated by honey bees, the yield of the fruit is between 80,000 - 90,000 pounds/acres. Without the bees, the farmer only gets 10,000 - 15,000 pounds of melons/acre.

Health & the Hive: A Beekeeper's Journey

Jan Cannon in a field of elderberries,

filming making cuttings of elderberry for the community

Environmental filmmaker Jan Cannon has spent many days of the last two years with the crew of Honey Gardens, in the field with the bees, moving through the seasons with the bees, filming as we were making plant medicine, talking with and gathering footage of our team of queen breeders, bee venom therapist, vegetable and dairy farmers. His film is all about the teamwork that makes this work possible, and it documents the changes in our work at Honey Gardens.

We are grateful to Jan for his heartfelt film on the bees and Honey Gardens.
www.jancannonfilms.com

Health & the Hive: A Beekeeper's Journey explores the importance of honeybees in our lives and the many health benefits that come from the beehive. The film considers the current state of the bees and suggests approaches to beekeeping and agriculture that would improve the outlook for bees and the humans who rely on them. Some of the topics addressed in the film are pollination, queen breeding, disease control, bee venom therapy, organic agriculture and honey based plant medicine. This film is 53 minutes and is available here

The Common Language of Agriculture

The name of the Mapuche community was first given to me by Facundo, the gaucho with whom I had just spent a month and half riding across Argentina with, over 800 miles in 40 days. I wrote to the community leader, the shaman, to ask if I could come spend a week or so with his people. He wrote back that although he was happy to hear that I had spent time with other Mapuche communities, he was not interested in having a white girl from the US come disrupt the daily on-goings of his people. And I thought that was the end of our correspondence. A couple of days went by and I received another message from the shaman. This time he wrote that he had a dream about a white outsider, a girl, coming to his people, bringing something important. He wrote to ask me if I was this white girl, and to ask what I thought I was bringing. At this point in my journey through South America, I had seen many white people traveling, thinking that they were spreading something precious, bringing foreign, educated thought to rural, poor communities. I wrote back, telling him that I was not here to be oppressive or to educate other people. I was here to learn, to observe, to make connections, and to educate myself. I told him that I was interested in agriculture, in farming, in creating wholesome connections, and fruitful relationships. I told him that I had grown up beekeeping with my dad. Instead of sending me a message in reply, he sent me three horses. One horse to carry Juan who would lead me through the mountains back to their community, one horse for me to ride, and one horse for the box of bees that I was asked to bring and share with their community.

Meriwether and Facundo on horseback in the Neoguen region of Patagonia, Argentina, November 2007

At first they were silent. I worked next to them in the fields. I sat with them at their fires. I ate with them. I slept on horse blankets in between their bodies. And each day at four, after everyone was done working in the fields, they would gather around me and I would try and teach them about bees. They didn't speak English, and I didn't speak their native tongue, but somewhere, using Spanish as a middle ground and many hand gestures, we found a compromise. And then one day a child invited me to play a ball game with a group of her friends. And somehow, as soon as this one girl overcame her skepticism and opened up her world to me, so did the rest of the community. Suddenly I realized that many more of them could speak Spanish then they had first let on. Suddenly they were extremely curious about where I had come from, and what my world was made up of. Suddenly I could ask them all the questions that had been building in my mind about their farming techniques, culture, and history.
After about a week and a half I had to continue on with my journey. It was an overwhelming goodbye. Everyone in the community wanted to give me something. A piece of ribbon, a fork, a dried flower, a rock…anything to remember them by. It was hard for me to accept anything from them- they came from a world with so little, and I came from so much, yet to refuse would have been an insult. Looking back, I wish that I had brought something more than a boxful of bees. I said this to the shaman. He looked at me slowly and replied that I had given them so much more. He told me that I was the first outsider to ever come spend time with them, and that I had opened up their eyes to other ideas and thoughts. I tried to tell him how much they had given me in knowledge. I tried to show him how much I had learned about new farming ideas, permaculture designs, sword fighting, killing and gutting a sheep and then being able to use or compost every piece of that animal, and many other things. But he merely brushed aside my words with a smile, and slapped the rump of my horse to send me on my way.
As I continue to travel the world, I have come to realize the power of the land. The land is a common language that many understand. It is the form of communication that many times I have fallen back on when words seem to not suffice. And through my journeys and experiences, bees seem to help me build powerful connections whether it is with my colleagues at Colorado College, my neighbors in Vermont, or my newfound friends in South America. Thank you, bees!

The small colony of bees that Meriwether
brought and help set up in the Mapuche
community outside of Junin,
Argentina, November 2007

Honey Gardens is sending a computer to this community of Mapuche. The Mapuche and other indigenous people around the world are being pushed off their land by the government and other groups of people. The Mapuche people have peacefully occupied their land for generations and generations, and many of them do not own deeds to that land. Even those who have deeds to land are intimated by the government, due to a very bloody past history. So when the local police officer puts up a fence on 100 hectares of their land, the Mapuche are afraid and unsure of how to act – they quietly submit to this treatment. We are helping them get a computer so that they can make contact with other communities around Argentina. There is a power behind numbers and organization. We are also helping them get a computer so that they can create a market for their goods in the US. Currently the government restricts the price that they can sell their woven goods for, and thus after a week’s worth of weaving, they receive about enough money to buy a half a week’s worth of food, not enough to sustain a person, let alone a family. We are helping them get this computer, to help them create communication, to help them make a network. We are grateful for your support which helps to make this happen.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

We are having a gathering here on Saturday January 19, and we invite you to join us. The winter meeting of the Champlain Valley Honey Bee Cooperative is at 4:30 PM at the honey house, with a pot blessing dinner at 5 PM, and at 6 PM Ross Conrad will speak on the subject of his book, "Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approaches to Modern Apiculture", Colony Collapse Disorder: the current state of beekeeping and organic solutions.

It is time to celebrate when your bees
have made more honey than your height.
Annemie Curlin with her bees and
smoker, summer 2007

Ross will talk about the alternatives to chemical practices. He has worked with Charles Mraz, the Vermont pioneer in beekeeping and bee venom therapy. This gathering is significant for honey bees and is typical of people all around the country coming together to collaborate on how to take care of the bees. As honey bees do not know political borders, the support of beekeeping spans people of all ages; we know that high school students to those in the retirement community to commercial beekeepers working with 1,500 colonies are coming on Saturday.

Around the turn of the century, people had a hive or two on their land just as they have animals or chickens now. This de-centralized hobby level of beekeeping is good for the bees. Organic policies are more apt to be followed, innovations pursued, and a strong mutual relationship develops. It is true that beekeeping is a challenge these days ~ after you get started, you will probably lose them after some winters. While a hive and equipment is an investment, the return is even greater – gallons of honey and also wax, pollen, and propolis if you gather these. Working with the bees is great exercise, and allows you to be outside and close to the land. Most learn to let go of the gloves and allow a few bee stings now and then. This is one of the strong anti-cancer programs one can be a part of; the bee sting is very good for you (if you are not allergic; seek advice first).

Lucy the brave red nose moose
guarding the entrance to the honey house

We have learned from the bees that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts; the bee hive is a model community, all working together for the common good. The worker bees go through a process of cross training and working for three or so days in every job in the hive, each directed to their survival and success of the family, such as gathering nectar, pollen or propolis, making beeswax from honey, guarding the hive from the aggressive cousins (wasps & hornets), feeding the queen, and other duties.

As we work with the bees to be their stewards, they bless us with the pollination of much of what we eat. The interest in communities working together to help the bees and neighbor teaching neighbor has never been more vibrant. We are all stronger by working together.

The light is returning. As the days get longer with more sunny minutes, the queen bees are laying more eggs and helping to prepare her families for the Spring that is coming.