Author: Jeremy

I have long been proud of my sense of direction. It is probably a guy thing but I am confident that I can find my way most anywhere, especially if I have had a chance to glance at a map beforehand.  Having to stop and ask someone for directions feels like a personal failure; Mary is the one who has to get out of the car and ask the appropriate questions.  The only exception,  or so I thought until recently, was riding the underground, or subway, or tube.  Here I lose all sense of direction and, emerging at the surface after a couple of stops, I struggle mightily to get reoriented, which had led me to believe that, like a honey bee,  my sense of direction is tied to the sun.  Once above ground I will look for clues to figure out the next step forward. 

In August, 2014,  Mary and I were in England for a family wedding and took the opportunity to visit Buckfast Abbey, home of Brother Adam and the Buckfast bee.  I hadn’t realized until recently that my father’s village of origin (now almost a city) is less than half an hour’s drive from the abbey.  After a wonderful visit we made our way cross-county via Glastonbury, planning to stay overnight in Oxford.

England has a major traffic and parking problem and as we approached Oxford the traffic slowed up significantly.  I was driving, concentrating on staying on the right (ie. left) side of the road.  Mary was navigating, using a large AAA atlas and finding a route to take us away from the worst of the back-ups.   Eventually we crawled into the outskirts, found a hotel, parked our bags and set off to walk into the town center to find somewhere suitable to eat. 

I began walking the wrong way.  Totally the wrong way.  Going west when I needed to go east.  I could not get myself oriented.  Something was wrong.  I contested Mary’s gentle coercion but sure enough, she was right – the town center appeared exactly where I least expected it.  

Looking at a map in a store window the reason became apparent.  We had planned to enter Oxford from the south, which was the route I had looked at on the map beforehand, but in our attempts to avoid the traffic we had entered from the west. Mary knew this because she had the atlas on her lap as we twisted and turned. 

That one factor, that one unknown, had thrown me completely. 

The question therefore is, when we start beekeeping, what is the route map we have in our heads?  What gets us disoriented, and what leads to that sudden realization when we can distinguish ‘west’ from ‘east,’ when the center appears suddenly but delightfully in front of us?  

The emphasis of the Buckfast Abbey apiary has moved from queen breeding to education, and the head beekeeper, Clare Densely, who offers a number of classes, suggests that a nu-bee maintains his or her hives for five years before taking a more advanced level class.    In part this is so that the beekeeper understands the many inter-relationships and nuances of the amazing lives and behaviors of honey bees.  But it also provides the time and space in which one can find a definite direction, a route map with a clear goal in mind, amid what initially appears as a chaotic bevy of bees. 

No doubt everyone has a different story but for me it was three years into my beekeeping career when someone, and I can no longer recall who or where, said that honey bees, unlike wasps, are passive not aggressive. That they will defend their home and their kids if they feel threatened, but in most instances they are too busy, too focused, to worry about the likes of me.  It was the proverbial light bulb, a paradigm shift, a turning around in the right direction.  The way I managed bees shifted, any residues of fear dropped away, and I like to think that the girls know that, even as they feel the need to  remind me when I get over-confident. 

What was that moment for you?  What was your Oxford moment?  Or to ask it another way, what did you have to find out for yourself which, if someone had told you early in your career, might have made the art and skill of beekeeping a whole lot more rational a whole lot earlier?  In 2014,  having set out in the wrong direction, gotten reoriented, knowing again where I was going, I was relaxed, ready to explore, ready for another adventure, and this city in particular, like beekeeping,  was well worth the journey. 

Twenty years ago, when a college class was given an essay to research and write, the presumption was that the students would go to the library and, by searching among the index cards and shelves of books,  get to see the topic in a larger context.  Who knows, they might even be positively side tracked by something unexpected.   In more recent years the presumption is that the student will go back to his or her dorm room, open a lap top or smart phone, google the topic and be taken straight to the material without any awareness of (and often not any curiosity for) the larger surrounds.  

Students are getting better at writing good papers on specific topics without an awareness of the larger context. Or in terms of the old adage, they know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing. 

Something similar happens with maps v GPS.   Maps present the larger view, the bigger surrounds, with the potential to discover a lake that lies just over the hill, or a spectacular view at the end of an unmarked lane.  Because maps have to be read in conjunction with the surrounding physical environment, whether it is as simple as reading a sign or as challenging as looking at the contours to determine the degree of a slope, we are engaged with the environment, with the habitat, which creates both memories and knowledge. 

This became clear when talking with a recent visitor about his journey from Philadelphia.  He asked where York County began and I mentioned the Susquehanna River, once a frontier with ‘Indian country’  in the days of the thirteen colonies, crossed today by a bridge that is almost a mile long. “Yes,” he said, “I do seem to remember crossing a bridge somewhere.”  Because it was not mentioned by the GPS voice, it made little impression on him. 

Some years ago Mary and I were driving up Rte 1 in Oregon State and Mary noticed on the map a potentially interesting monument only a short distance off of the highway.  It led us to a redwood tree and a beautiful story.  In 1944 a Japanese submarine surfaced at night off of the Pacific coast, a sea plane was assembled in the water and a young Japanese pilot strapped his family’s samurai sword around his waist, tied a Japanese flag around his head, and flew over the Oregon forests, dropping two fire bombs.  The intent was obvious.  One of the bombs was ineffective and the fire caused by the second was quickly extinguished.  

Fifty years later an elderly Japanese man walked into the museum at Portland, Oregon, to donate  his family’s samurai sword, where it is presently on display, and then drove into the forest to the site where his second bomb had fallen and planted a redwood tree. 

He died shortly thereafter.

The point is that this little side adventure would have been unlikely were we following directions on GPS.  Maps open the world,  they engage us,  whereas GPS narrows our view, removes our choices and often misdirects us without our knowledge.  A GPS system is a dictator; a map is a guide.  The former is a partner to our intellect, not a replacement for it. 

For all of the above reasons I like maps and have declined to get a GPS for my vehicle. I will concede that for some it is very useful, those undertaking frequent deliveries, for example, but I want to keep thinking, rather than have technology do the thinking for me.  And as a curmudgeony admission,  I’ll acknowledge not having a smart phone.  Perhaps I’m intimidated by the rapid advances of technology but people who would never dream of coming to one’s house unannounced think nothing of calling or sending a text and expecting it to be  picked up or read immediately.  

The May, 2015, edition of Orion listed some of the words that were removed from the Oxford Junior Dictionary.  They include acorn, bluebell, cowslip, fern, hazel, heather, dandelion, heron, ivy, mistletoe, nectar, newt, otter and pasture – all words concerned with nature.   The words introduced included attachment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, chatroom, cut-and-paste and voice-mail.  Are these latter words important in a technological society?  Absolutely yes.  The tragedy is that they replace, rather than interact with, words from nature.  

I received a phone call earlier this year from a person who had purchased a queen bee on Craig’s List and wanted to know what she had to do to start beekeeping.  Numerous e-mails from ‘wannabees’ state they have decided to keep honey bees and ask where they can buy the necessary equipment.  How is it that we have come to believe that  working with nature is so easy, requires so little knowledge or preparation?   Yes, sites on YouTube have good (and bad) visual examples of techniques like installing a package but beekeeping is an art as much as a science, it requires perseverance, commitment and patience, and false expectations created by technology in isolation explain in part why more than half of new beekeepers give up within the first year. 

Consider the new Flow Hive, hyped as the biggest technological breakthrough in hive design in the last 150 years.  The impression created is that one sets it up in the backyard, installs bees, waits a few weeks, and then turns the tap to get honey straight from the colony.  Many don’t realize that one still has to do brood inspections, deal with mites and diseases and hive moths and small hive beetle and swarming,  remove it for successful over-wintering, and know how to ‘read‘ a colony, not least the health of the queen.   No doubt the Flow Hive has value in the right hands; my fear is that many potential new beekeepers will spend a lot of money to purchase one and the heightened expectations will quickly lead to the trough of disillusionment.

As we become more detached from our surroundings, the honey bee remains intimately connected to the environment; indeed, her survival and those of the colony depend on it.  Ours does too, but we are still at the stage of paying lip service to that interdependence rather than demonstrating the actions and behaviors that are the root cause of meaningful change. 

On October 12, 2016,  I underwent robotic laproscopic sigmoidectomy surgery as the result of increasing bouts of diverticulitis, which means, in effect, removing part of the lower colon. 

After 48 hours of  pain and discomfort I became more aware of the regimen of pills I was being given.   One to prevent infection; another to promote bowel movement; another to stabilize heart rate; potassium because of a .2 deficiency in one of the blood samples; another to stabilize pain, and so on.  By the third evening my blood pressure had risen to a systolic reading in excess of 180.

Mary is a retired family physician.  She was at my side for the full 78 hours of the hospitalization, not least as my advocate.  Each time one of these medicines was introduced orally or by IV she enquired as to the thinking behind it and their purpose, sometimes to the irritation of the nurses.  One quipped “You cannot be both a visitor and a doctor,” and instead of replying “Yes I can!”   Mary spent time building a relationship of trust by asking him questions about his life; we were stuck with him whether we liked it or not, and needed him on our side.  I can empathize with the position many nurses find themselves in, caught between the orders of a resident (who may not have much training in internal medicine) and the emotional demands of family members.

Mary and I had a conversation early on the morning of day 4 and agreed that, although each medicine had worth in its own right,   a probable cause of the increased blood pressure was the synergy between them, in which case the solution was to go back to the medicine that I take daily and which we know works for me.

The overall result?  By 9:00 am, three hours without the new meds, the blood pressure level had dropped significantly and my discharge was signed.

Soon after getting home I realized that I was recovering from a multilevel traumatic experience.   I felt I had a fever but the thermometer denied it; my writing was filled with typographical errors which suggested a fine motor dysfunction; there was a sensitivity  to bright lights; my dreams were disturbing and vivid between which my mind was over-active; and my mouth was filled with a chemical after-taste which not even Manuka honey could over-ride.  It felt more than only a physical invasion of my body; I felt like I was swimming in a toxic soup.  

So, what are the lessons of this and how do they relate to honey bees?

First is the importance of a support system.  The bees have it and so did I, whether it was the e-mails, the visits and calls, the empathy of the nurses and their assistants or the skills of the doctors.  We know that one honey bee cannot exist for more than 24 hours in isolation; I could not have survived this successfully alone. 

Secondly, Mary was an informed advocate. If she had not been there my guess is that I would have been in the hospital for several more days,  who knows with what results.  Yet few patients are privileged to have such a champion and it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the language and status of the various medical specialists.  Presumably the family doctor should be the patient’s strong proponent but it is easy to see the practical reasons why that is seldom going to happen. New beekeepers easily feel overwhelmed by the mass of information at their disposal and the practicalities of working a hive; they too need an advocate, or in this case mentor, who can help them navigate the morass.

Thirdly, we know that honey bees are exposed to a multi-chemical environment, some of it created by the beekeeper but much of it omnipresent in our environment.  If there is any merit to the thesis proposed above, then perhaps I got to experience for a short while what the bees encounter every day.  If so, it’s a miserable existence. 

Fourthly, once the option of leaving the hospital was offered I could not wait to get out of there.  Mentally, if not physically, I was gone.  Is this what honey bees experience when they abscond from a hive, with every one of them leaving en masse, even though their chances of survival are minimal?

Finally, my step-son, Andrew,  suggested that when a patient is the subject of conflicting conversations by medical personnel, often as a side-bar conversation in the presence of the patient, he or she is entitled to say, “I am the center of my world right now, and I need you to focus on me and include me in the conversation.”

The length of time that honey bees have been in the United States represents about .00001% of their evolutionary history.   Not only is that a drop in the transformative ocean, but evolution occurs when random genetic mutation or gene transfer gives rise to heritable differences that become more common or rare in a population, thus enhancing their chances of survival in a changing environment.  When Darwin first described this he imagined it in a relatively pristine environment, like the Galapagos Islands, unaffected by the detritus of mankind.  We have not only soiled the environment but through modern globalization in particular we have exposed species to threats that were inconceivable in 1859 when On the Origin of the Species was published.  We cannot expect the slow, random process of evolution to compensate for, or keep pace with, the dramatic effects of modernization. 

The exposure of honey bees to varroa mites introduced directly from Asia in the 1970’s is one of many such examples.  Some argue that bees are best left alone to conquer this through natural processes.  I would argue that, as the creators of this conflict with potentially fatal consequences for the bees, we are responsible for the solution and have a  moral and ethical obligation to speak and act on their behalf.   

We are the only champions the bees have and we need to be loud and clear  in our advocacy. As beekeepers, there are times to see honey bees as the center of our world, in desperate need of our focus and support, rather than abandoning them to an environment that is not of their making. 

Arguably there have been four major upheavals in the western world in the preceding five hundred years with another one underway.   The first four did not specifically involve beekeepers but the fifth most definitely does. 

The first was a challenge to the religious order which began in October, 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the church at Wittenburg.  He was not the first to protest against the Catholic Church, nor did he want to start a revolution so much as a reformation, but his remonstration coincided with the invention of movable type, the development of better quality paper and ink and the growth of a body of experienced craftsmen, which meant that pamphlets, and thus ideas, could be produced quickly, in quantity and cheaply.  Luther translated the Bible into German in the belief that if people read it for themselves (which they could not do as long as it was in Latin) they would understand the significance of his ideas. The Bible thus moved from the pulpit into the home where, for hundreds of years, it served as the source for family records, family prayers, grace before meals and readings before sleep, and thus a center for ideas that were common to most western people.  Today it has been replaced by the Smart Phone!

There were other consequences as well. The diversity of faith and opinions increased as Luther was followed by Calvin and Zwingli in central Europe and Henry VIII in England, even if the latter was for personal rather than doctrinal reasons. New feelings of nationhood were aroused as countries identified either with the Catholic faith or those of the new Protestants (ie. those who protested) and the west lost it’s ancestral feelings of unity and common descent.

The second insurgence, which challenged the right of divine kings and thus the right of government by an elite,  witnessed the Civil War in England, notably the execution of Charles I in 1649, the American revolution in 1776 which was followed six years later by the French Revolution, notably the execution of Louis XVIII in 1793,  and  in the early twentieth century, the Russian Revolution and the execution of Tsar Nicholas and his family.   

The Catholic Church responded to Lutheranism with the Counter Reformation, which battened down the hatches, while the Protestant off-shoot continued to divide to the point where there are an estimated 39 000 Christian sects today.   In France the democratic uprising was followed by the austere Napoleonic regime, which in turn was followed by an interlude of three monarchies until the brief four year Second Republic in 1848.   In Russia the revolution was followed by a communist regime more stark than anything the Tsarist regimes could invent.  By contrast to these republics the British system lurched towards a constitutional monarchy, perhaps the biggest single step being the succession of the Hanoverian King, George I, in 1714 who spoke only German which provided considerable latitude to his ministers.    

The pendulum, it seems,  needed to swing to the other extreme before it could settle somewhere in the middle. 

The third metamorphosis, beginning in France in the 1840’s, was a social uprising focused on the relationship between the needs of the individual and the role of government and in particular the movement towards economic and social equality.   Known originally as social democracy, it argued that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole, with the proceeds being returned to the community in the form of subsidized housing, education, elderly care and health benefits.  A country where this innovation never took hold is the United States and one result is that the discrepancy between the so-called haves and the have-nots in the USA is greater than in any other country in the western world. Americans chose to equate free enterprise with freedom and it was unusual to have an avowed socialist as one of the candidates in the 2016 Presidential election. 

A cousin of socialism is communalism, defined as communal ownership in localized independent communities, and which was evident in many traditional societies, not least native American and unpretentious African tribal groups. 

The fourth upheaval was one of social engineering, whether it was Nazism, which argued that one race had the right to set the rules based on genetic purity; Communism, not least in Russia and China, in which a supposedly temporary elite ruthlessly set the rules for the eventual benefit of all; or Fascism in Italy and Spain which lacked the theoretical component of the first two and were more exercises in personal power and ego.  All argued that society needed to be forced into a new order for which it would later be grateful.   The guards at the various Nazi prison camps, for example, kept meticulous records of the atrocities they committed, in the belief that later generations would see them in heroic terms for having  pruned and created a more perfect society. 

The fifth sea change (both literally and figuratively)   is global in impact and may be labeled environmental.  As Diane Ackerman writes in The Human Age,   “… our world dramatically changed around the year 1800.  That’s when the Industrial Revolution, powered by an over-arching use of fossil fuels, led to rising carbon dioxide levels.”  Other effects include massive urbanization, the conversion of ecosystems from mostly wild to mostly human centered, and the mechanization of agriculture and mining giants with extensive use of chemical fertilizers and the production of air born pollution.  “That is when,” according to Ackerman, “we first began adapting the planet to us on a large scale – changing the climate, changing the oceans, changing the evolution of plants and animals.”

Every six years the United Nations Panel  on Climate Change issues a report.  In September, 2013, the panel of 209 lead scientists and 600 contributing scientists from 39 nations citing 9200 scientific publications concluded that global warming is unequivocal but we can slow the process of change if we begin at once. 

Honey bees and beekeepers have been an integral if unwitting part in giving environmental change the public face that is necessary if the process of change is to be effective.   CCD caught the collective imagination  – how many times are we asked at public demonstrations, “Is it true that the bees are disappearing, and what is the cause”?  How many of our hobbyists began keeping  bees as a response to this publicity and the perceived need for their involvement?  How many honey bee related news programs, videos and DVD’s have been produced in the last eight years compared to the preceding decades?  

Honey bees represent the traditional canary in the coal mine, and now the canary is dying before it so much as gets to the mine.  For the last few years, here in Pennsylvania, there has been a significant increase in the number of colonies absconding in the fall.  The current explanation is that they are finding conditions in the hive so toxic, including high varroa numbers, that they  risk everything and leave rather than stay and face certain death. Meanwhile we think we can give the canary a gas mask, find a better canary, or move the canary further from the mine … anything but deal with the actual cause.  Europeans in general tend to to work with nature rather than fight it,  as  evidenced by the actions taken against potentially synergistic pesticides, fungicides and herbicides. Our belief,  that we can continue to manage nature to serve human prosperity, is proving unsustainable. 

The religious, governmental, social and economic revolutions that shaped western civilization may well come to naught  if we do not deal promptly and appropriately with environmental degradation, and in future years we may look back at the lowly honey bee as providing a vital stimulus.  Unlike them we cannot simply abscond. 

The word uBuntu provoked an aha moment when I first came across  it in No Future Without Forgiveness, written by the late Desmond Tutu, winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace prize and the Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town.  It expresses in one word something I have been striving for most of my life without realizing it, as well as describing a notion that is integral to a successful colony of honey bees.

Underlying traditional African society, with its emphasis on rites of passage,  different generations living together and respect for one’s ancestors, is the principle that one cannot be human alone.  We need other people to be fully alive.  Thus the African proverb,“It takes a village to raise a child,” counsels that we are at our best if the whole community contributes to our upbringing.  We are individuals (uMuntu) but we exist in a social context (uBuntu.) Compared to Rene Descartes’ dictum, “I think therefore I am,” which is the foundation of much modern Western culture, uBuntu is variously translated as “I am because you are,” or “I exist to the extent that others acknowledge and respect me.” We exist by the grace of the community to which we belong and the degree to which we take responsibility for other members of the populace.  The essence of humanity is the talent to live in constructive peace with our fellow human beings. 

It took me almost my entire life to understand the greater meaning of the traditional morning greeting in Zimbabwe.  It begins :

“Mangwanani.  Marara sei?”  (“Good morning. Did you sleep well?”)

“Ndarara, kana mararawo.”  (“I slept well if you slept well.”) 

What happened to these traditional values in which compassion is key?  Clearly they are not obvious in modern day Africa.  We discuss in detail the impact of slavery on America yet seldom ask what the effect was on Africa. What happens when a continent is emasculated, when the strongest, healthiest, most fertile of the young generation are forcefully  removed and human life is measured in terms of beads, cloth, liquor and guns?  (Incidentally, polygamy was quite possibly the compassionate response of a population in which women vastly outnumbered men and in which it was regarded as a disgrace for a woman to be unmarried and without children.) What was it like to exist for centuries in chaos, fear and hiding, to live in suspicion of those who were pressured or bribed into capturing their neighbors for slavehood, to be preoccupied with the lowest level of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – survival? Lets put aside for a minute the facts that there was a slave trade on the east coast of Africa fueled by Arabs that started earlier than and ended later than  the trans-Atlantic passage, that none of the profits of the slave trade were returned to Africa, and that the English language itself (white symbolizing purity, saintliness and chastity; black symbolizing darkness, evil and villainy) undergirds racial prejudice. Rather, more importantly the ideas of the Enlightenment passed Africa by and when the continent eventually emerged into the light it was not only severely handicapped but vulnerable to colonial occupation. 

As Archbishop Tutu observed, “When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”

What has this to do with honey bees?  To paraphrase the first two paragraphs above, a honey bee needs other bees to be fully alive; they exist by the grace of the colony to which they belong and by the degree to which they take responsibility for other members of their colony. 

Ubuntu equates with the concept of a superorganism, a term first used to describe a colony as a single living organism by William Wheeler in 1911. Jurgen Tautz, in the opening chapter of The Buzz About Bees, describes honey bees as ‘honorary mammals’ : both bees and mammals have a low rate of reproduction if one considers swarming as the way a colony reproduces itself,  both produce nutrition for the young (milk and royal jelly,) the uterus of the mammal compares with brood comb, they both have similar body temperatures as well as a high capacity for learning, and each new organism has its own genetic makeup.

In a comparative table published in the American Bee Journal in November, 2015, Keith Delaplane compares the mammal organism with the honey bee superorganism. Besides a common facility for group decision-making, mammary glands can be compared with nurse bee hypopharyngeal glands, mammalian ovaries with the queen, mammalian testes with the drones, and mammalian wound-healing with the killing and propolizing of colony invaders.   Clearly the tissues and organs do not look the same but their functions have a corresponding purpose. 

In this time of social and national acrimony, rancor, division and hostility, we might look for inspiration to traditional societies that interact synergistically in a way similar to honey bees and ants, the latter two species having survived much longer and, arguably, more successfully than has humankind. The trappings of modern civilization may not look the same as those of traditional societies but the essential purpose of our existence, individually and collectively, remains the same.  

“The great powers have done wonders in  giving the world an industrial and military look,” wrote Steve Biko, founder of the Black Consciousness movement in South Africa who was killed by  the Apartheid regime in 1977, “but the great gift still has to come from Africa – giving the world a more human face.”

• The bees have become  the most important members of our family. In the late spring our daughter acquires  60 000 step-sisters (my assurance that they are in reality foster children doesn’t help)  and the beekeeper wants to give them each names. 
• The dog’s bowl outside is now a water source for the bees.
• Hallowed be the weeds and cursed is she who threatens to mow in the middle of the day. 
• Everything in our home is sticky, gluey and treacly.  I check out everything first with a wooden ladle, including the TV remote, the front door handle and the cat,  
• When the beekeeper uses the word ‘honey’ it is no longer is a term of endearment for me.
• When I am in the beekeeper’s truck, other drivers flash their lights to tell me there is smoke coming from the bed, and there is always plenty of room to  park at the grocery store as bees  peek from under the tarp in the back as soon as I stop.
• Everything stops for a swarm call.  No matter what we are doing – and I mean anything – the beekeeper will pause for a milli-second, pick up his bag of pre-packed necessities, and jump into his truck. 
• The cashier at the  grocery store no longer looks as if she is about to call the Department of Homeland Security  at our trolley full of 10 lb bags of sugar, brewer’s yeast and isopropyl alcohol, and I no longer feel compelled to explain our purchases to those who are staring. Thank goodness for  on-line suppliers, UPS and brown boxes. 
• The beekeeper communicates with fellow beeks in a different language, and when he is in the bee-yard there is one four letter word that dominates all others – OOPS – as in “Oops, there goes the queen.”
• I have listened so often to his many telephone conversations that I can predict where the conversation will go next, what he will say, and am often tempted to  answer the phone in his absence, throwing in the occasional ‘oops‘ for good measure.   
• I am no longer particular about my husband’s appearance.  When strangers stare, I shrug my shoulders and mouth the word “Beekeeper.”  They seem to understand.  Zits have been replaced by stings, dirt under his nails has been replaced by propolis.  Nothing else goes in the washer when it’s time to wash his bee-suit, which for me is not often enough. 
• I used to check the pockets of his trousers for change; now I find queen cages, dead bees, balls of wax and propolis, even a small hive tool he complained of having lost.
• I do not have the words to describe the state of our kitchen after honey extraction.
• Our refrigerator is filled with fondant, pollen patties, dead queens in alcohol, jars of sugar syrup and  swarm lures. Trying to get our daughter to prepare her own meals is impossible -apparently, when a teen is looking to make dinner, a profusion of frozen, mite-infested drone larvae doesn’t spark her appetite.  
• There is no room for a car in the garage amid the piles of white buckets, stacks of unassembled hive parts, boxes of one and two pound jars with lids in plastic bags, and boxes of foundation.
• I avoid our neighbors as best I can.  I no longer want to hear about bees in their swimming pool, children allergic to bee stings and bee poop on their whites hung out to dry. I shop in another part of town and walk our dog at night. It’s not that I’m antisocial; I’m just married to a beekeeper.

A number of lessons have become apparent from those fourteen days in Kenya,  one of which involved a birthday cake.  

It’s a long drive from Nairobi to Mombassa and Maryann had arranged for us to stay overnight at Lion’ Hill Camp which overlooks the famous Tsavo National Park.   The camp, under thatch, is built on a hilltop overlooking the park entrance, and on arrival we watched two herds of elephant at watering holes below us. 

It was also the birthday of Sarah Ashcroft, our esteemed data technician who kept us, and the data, in impeccable order.  Several days previously Maryann had asked Dr. Elliud Muli , our philosopher, guide and friend, if he could call ahead and see if the camp kitchen could provide a surprise birthday cake. 

That night, sitting on the open verandah which served as a dining room, brushed by a cool breeze, the lights dimmed and out of the kitchen came a towering Masai warrior in full garb including his spear (his normal duties included camp security guard,) the cook, proudly holding the cake, and the kitchen helpers.  They circled the  table, singing “Happy Birthday,” after which Sarah was invited to cut a slice of cake for each of us.  The cook then cut a slice for every other person in the dining area, and the rest went back to the kitchen to share with the staff. 

Because in many parts of Africa one never eats alone.  Everything is shared, no matter how meager.   Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes about uBuntu, meaning, “I am because you are. “  The ancient Mayans had  a phrase, “En lac ech,” which translates as “You are the other me.”

The sharing of the cake was a potent reminder that we are interconnected,  interdependent. We cannot meaningfully exist without each other. 

As the late Stephen Covey argued, we get hung up all too easily on our independence, which can be self-centered and self-gratifying, forgetting that there is another way of being in this world. 

Honey bees of course are prime examples of this interconnection; a single bee cannot survive but for a short period without her community. And there is a larger lesson here as well.  As beekeepers we are focused on, passionate about, the glorious honey bee, yet hopefully we don’t think of bees in isolation.  We empathize with our colleagues who are equally passionate about bats, bird life, frogs and toads, soil, water, air … the list is long. 

Without empathy, without connection, each of us remains tied to a peripheral niche issue, our victories are small and temporary and the power of the whole is unrealized.   It is all too easy to do this in a society that regards divisiveness almost as normal but if we are willing to open our hearts to the passions of others  we might start a real dialogue and take steps towards the inclusiveness and solidarity necessary to tackle the enormous challenges that we face.  

Yes, we  can have our cake and eat it  – enough to fill our needs and enough to share.   That is the law of abundance, rather than the  fear of scarcity.   

Namaste.  I honor the light, the live and the love within you. 

An Exercise in Empathy

Popular wisdom has it that the real work of a conference happens around the water cooler and the coffee urn.  Add to that list the breakfast table.

Early one morning in November, 2010, I joined  Maryann and Jim Frazier for breakfast at the annual Pennsylvania State Beekeepers’ meeting in Lewisberg as the conversation turned to their recent trip to Kenya. During her presentation at the Eastern Apicultural Society  meeting in Boone, NC, Maryann had expressed the possibility of US beekeeper associations forming a partnership with their Kenyan counterparts and my ears pricked up.  I had been fortunate to live in southern Africa until 1991 although I had not been back since 1997 nor had I any experience with Africanized bees aside from throwing myself flat on the ground in the middle of a cricket match as a swarm flew 4’ overhead.

The end result was an invitation to join Maryann’s team in Kenya in June, 2011, and evaluate  the possibility of meaningful interaction with local beekeepers.  As a show of support a number of local beekeepers contributed hive tools, veils, smokers, gloves and dollars which were  mailed to Nairobi ahead of the visit, although they were not to arrive until sometime after we had returned home.

There were three broad components to the project.  In terms of research, varroa is relatively new to Kenya (it is similar in appearance to the bee louse, which is prevalent in East Africa and initially local beekeepers did not distinguish between the two.)  Could  East African beekeepers be persuaded to forego the use of chemical?  In South Africa the decision to go chemical-free had, within the space of six years, resulted in bees that were tolerant of the mites.  Heaven only knows the extent to which chemicals are mis-used by beekeepers in the USA; what are the risks of traditional beekeepers using such potent treatments, no matter how carefully it is done?

From the US point of view, the number of mites infesting African colonies tends to be smaller then the those in European colonies, possibly because of the smaller average size of African colonies, their tendency to abscond and thus frequently start new colonies, or a hygienic trait which allows workers to detect mites behind capped  cells and remove them. If there is a genetic basis for these behaviors,  is there relevance for the development of mite resistant European bees?

In terms of the second component, education, whereas the biology of African and European bees is the same, management is different.  The majority of Kenyan beekeepers are subsistence farmers who rely on sales of honey to supplement their meager income. Could an increase in both honey production and pollination quantifiably improve the quality of life in impoverished rural areas, not least for women?

To this end Maryann and Dr. Elliud Muli of the South Eastern University College (SEUCO) and the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya, facilitated a three day workshop in Nairobi with 16 attendees drawn from East Africa, each of whom has influence with beekeepers in their respective areas.

The third component is one of on-going support.  In an article on professional cycling in Rwanda printed in the New Yorker, Philip Gourevitch wrote that    “Muzungus tended to come, create excitement, make promises, and disappear.”  Correctly the plural of muzungu, or white person, is wazungu and originally it meant someone who wanders without purpose or is constantly on the move.  It has come to be applied to all white people in East Africa as most were encountered as traders, visiting colonial officials or tourists.

What can we wazungu do to stay engaged?   How can we assist and encourage Kenyan beekeepers in a way that is mutually beneficial?

We arrived in Nairobi in the second week of June, ie. the Kenyan ‘winter’ with day time temperatures in the 80’s dropping into the 40’s at night.  Kenya, which  is similar to Alaska in size, is bisected by the equator (which means that in Nairobi the sun rises and sets at the same times throughout the year) and has distinct geographical areas rising from the wet coastal lowlands in the east to the highlands in the west (Nairobi is at the same altitude as Boulder, CO) which are dissected by the Rift Valley, as is the arid northern area.  Evidence of the severe drought which had afflicted East Africa that year was painfully apparent.

The population is estimated at 38 million (the most populous state in the US is California with about 37 million residents) of whom 75% are subsistence farmers.   Recent data suggest that life expectancy is 48, the unemployment rate is 40% with consequent high crime rates, and that more than 50% of the population live below the poverty level. ^.

We spent our first week working at ICIPE in Nairobi, a large, sprawling city, and the second week at  Mtwapa based at a beautiful beach front hotel north of Mombasa.   ICIPE, a large, gated, very comfortable community has a research apiary attached, whereas on the coast we visited a number of local apiaries, some of which contained hives specifically moved there from the highlands for research purposes.

One of the challenges was to approach Kenyan beekeeping with empathy cognizant of conditions of the ground rather than to impose our ideas, our methods, our preconceptions onto them.  Four examples will suffice.  

Many traditional farmers make charcoal (called  makaa in kiSwahili ) as a cash crop to supplement their meager income, but this involves burning wood in a country that is blighted by deforestation.   A common sight along the roadside is bags of makaa waiting be picked up and taken to the nearest urban center.; there seems to be absolute trust that those bags will not be stolen or misused. Could honey and bees wax become an alternative source of cash, with the advantage of perceiving trees as a resource at the same time as pollination improved agricultural production and thus cash flow?  You might recall the late Wangari Maathai, founder of the Green Belt Movement, who was awarded the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her work to restore trees to deforested landscapes in Kenya.

Bees wax is an unappreciated resource in East Africa.  We had  assumed it was chemical-free (analysis two years later showed regrettably this was not the case) and the extraction process of a log hive means that all of the comb is removed and, once the honey has been squeezed out of it, buried.  When it was suggested that bees wax is a marketable commodity, one of the beekeepers at the workshop immediately said that he could arrange for it’s collection in his area, which was western Kenya.  Beekeepers only had to know that it has value.

Secondly, the boost in elephant numbers over the past 20 years is heralded as a conservation success story but elephants frequently raid farms searching for food such as  tomatoes, potatoes and corn prompting farmers to use poison, guns or even bows and arrows to protect their crops. In July of 2011 a report in the African Journal of Ecology reports that beehives suspended on wires between posts turned away elephants from crops in 97% of their attempted raids. (Bees cannot sting through elephant hide, but they can and do sting around their eyes and inside trunks.)  And the income from honey production has incentivised farmers to maintain the fences^.  

Thirdly, it is easy for wazungu to suggest not treating varroa with chemicals and letting a more resistant bee emerge from the heavy losses that would result.  But can one realistically expect a traditional beekeeper, struggling to survive as it is, to stand back and let his colonies die, and with it his source of income, for indeterminate long term benefits?

Finally, a  traditional hive is literally a log about 5’ in length with the center hollowed out and suspended in a tree.  Data gathered by ICIPE in 2007 suggests that 95% of Kenyan beekeepers work traditional log hives, 3% top bar hives, and 2% Langstroth.  The average honey production of log hives is low (18 lbs per annum compared to 44 – 55 lbs for Langstroth) and it involves removing the bees and destroying the comb to extract that honey.  Empty equipment is reoccupied quickly because of the high absconding and swarming behaviors and thus the destructive nature of the honey extraction is not seen as an obstacle.  Moreover, according to Mama Kasika, a beekeeper can make three traditional hives per day at a cost of US$3 each, whereas a top bar hive and a Langstroth deep cost her US$55 and US$70 respectively.

What quickly became apparent is that no serious study has been done of the advantages of log hives in east equatorial Africa.  Are there reasons that the overwhelming majority of beekeepers stick with log hives, besides the obvious one of cost? (These hives need to be suspended by wires from tree branches so as to deny access to the honey badger, described as, pound for pound, the most fearsome animal in the world.)   Is there something about the African bee, about wax moths or varroa in log hives, of which we are unaware?  As Muli said very clearly, “You are not going to change Kenyan beekeeping.”^.  We can only build on what is already there.

As the team developed and practiced a protocol for collecting the necessary data I was introduced to two impressive beekeepers – James Kimani, aka Ngash, the head apiarist,  and Joseph Kilonzo, aka Wamba, his assistant.  It was quickly evident that these two men were adept at working African bees, were knowledgeable, observant and very competent.  And clearly both were proteges of Muli, whom they addressed affectionately as “Doc.”

We measured frames of brood, honey, pollen and adult bees, as well as hive weight, varroa levels, growth rates of brood and average cell sizes.  We tested for hygienic behavior using liquid nitrogen as well as varroa infestation of drone v worker brood at the purple-eyed stage of pupae development, the reproductive success of varroa by visually determining whether a foundress mite had offspring, grooming behavior using sticky boards, developmental rates for worker bees from egg to larva to pupa to hatching, and for levels of aggression by putting alarm pheromone on a leather ball suspended in front of the hive for 30 seconds and then counting the number of stings.

The data was meticulously collected by Sara Ashcraft, a lab technician from PSU, to be later processed both at Penn State and ICIPE.  The story of Sara’s birthday cake is described elsewhere in this publication, stressing the traditional African custom of sharing what one has with the community.  

What can US beekeepers offer?  Whatever it is it needs to be a mutually beneficial arrangement, one that is neither paternalistic nor prescriptive.  For example, the primitive smokers used to calm bees before extracting leave a sooty residue in the hive which often finds it’s way into the honey.  So good quality smokers are valued, as is foundation – those few beekeepers with Langstroth or Top Bar hives put a thin strip of foundation along the top of a frame (which are locally made and irregular) and the bees build on to and below it.  We could send foundation (which carries with it the risk of exporting contaminants and diseases) and smokers in return for wax, or we could help Kenyans devise and build smokers and foundation rollers that are effective, inexpensive, and comprised of local materials.

At EAS 2011 in Rhode Island in August,  Wally Bloom offered to sponsor the purchase of a solar wax melter that would be shipped to Kenya as a prototype and which Muli would use as a template to have some built locally. Several beekeepers in the US would later sponsor more wax melters, expecting to receive the first rendition of  wax in lieu of reimbursement, a reward that did not materialize after chemicals were found in Kenyan wax. 

Although the biology of the European and African bee is the same, management needs are different based on disparate behavioral traits.  For example, African bees are active year round, make a lot of honey and disperse readily. I for one  now have a better idea of what kind of journal articles may be of value to Kenyan beekeepers and perhaps they could be copied and sent via ICIPE on a regular basis.  Cell phones are omnipresent in Kenya – indeed the phone companies have pioneered methods of transferring money by cell phone, which makes sense when there is a significant urbanization movement and townsfolk need to send money home despite the lack of bank branches.  So everyone texts and it’s relatively inexpensive.  Could we provide a resource by which we  respond to text messages from Kenyan beekeepers who needed an outside opinion or a fresh pair of eyes on issues that are common both sides of the Atlantic ocean?

A beekeeping primer entitled Bees Are Wealth written by Dr. I. Mann and  first published in 1953 with a second edition in 1976, is unusual in that it is printed in alternating pages of English and KiSwahili.   Could we up-date the content of the English pages, translate it into KiSwahili and distribute it to East African beekeepers?

It is common to find Kenyan beekeepers selling their honey alongside the road, packed in almost any available glass container with no label.   And yet in the arrival hall of the hotel in Mtwapa there was an impressive display of wines,  mostly South African in origin.  Why not local honey as well?  Could traditional farmers be encouraged to package and market their honey to the British, German and Italian tourists who flock to the beautiful east coast beaches?  They do not have the means to print labels, but we do.  A grocery stall in a mall outside of Mombasa had eight shelves of honey, neatly packaged from central distributors in Nairobi selling at about $US3 per pound.  How much better could the traditional beekeeper do with some direct marketing?

There is apparently a Kenyan Beekeepers’ Association but it exists primarily on paper.  I was peppered with questions as to how we in York County organize and the services we provide to members.   One of our drivers, after such a conversation, checked the York County Beekeepers’ Association website overnight and returned the next morning with more questions.  One of the beekeepers in Maryann’s workshop, a dignified man recently retired from some 38 years service in the Kenyan Army, including time as a peace keeper in Eritrea, had been chairman of his local water authority and immediately saw a way of transferring that knowledge and skill to local beekeepers, not least in collecting wax.   How can we assist those who would like to organize?

And Maryann, ever brimful with ideas, came up with the concept of a “Beekeeper Safari,” involving US beekeepers traveling to Kenya, the first of which took place in February, 2018.  A developed and proven model is Apitourism in Slovenia, more about which later. 

Yes, we worked hard, and none worked harder than Maryann Frazier.   Normally ready to leave for the beeyard by 8 o‘clock in the morning, we would break for lunch and finish up in the late afternoon.   But it was not all work.  For example, on the drive to Mombasa, after a charming lunch hosted by Muli’s mother at her family farm, we spent the night at Lion Hill Camp in Tsavo National Park and next morning had two game drives through the nature reserve which is renowned for it’s elephants, although our sitings included lions, a hyena nursing cubs, giraffe, numerous antelope, warthog, buffalo, a jackal and some magnificent birds.  We got to see the Gede Ruins (the remains of a fifteenth century Muslim trading center which co-existed with Great Zimbabwe of the Mwenemutapa empire further south) and walked a trail over the mangrove swamps, returning in dug-out canoes singing Kenyan patriotic songs.

Nor were we confined to honey bees.  First at the Kwetu Training Center for Sustainable Development and later at Mama Kasika’s cooperative, we saw stingless bees kept in Langstroth deeps.  Stingless bees store their honey in pots and although the amount of honey is limited (about 1 1/2 quarts per year, according to Alice Kasika) the value is twice that of regular honey (about US$6 per pound) because of its presumed medical qualities.  When opening the hive the aroma of the smaller species was a little acrid, but the larger stingless bee hive emitted a sweet smell with a distinct mango influence.

The impressions of this vibrant country are many.   School uniforms, the colorful dresses of the women, long unemployment lines, unruly traffic and overly busy roads, road side stalls packed with fresh mangoes and paw paws, a lack of ATMs and limited use of credit cards, gated communities and security guards, fresh juices for breakfast, Jambo and asante sana and karibu, (Hello, thank you and you’re welcome,) Muli’s laughter,  being hassled by ‘beach boys’ on the sands of Mombasa, the startling trees and beautiful colors of the tropical flowers, lone elephant bulls, vervet monkeys bathed in the morning sun and lion spoor in the road outside of our camp, seemingly endless herds of goats, and of course Mkokotenis – large hand carts that are pushed on or alongside the road, often filled with yellow jugs containing fresh water, bags of cement,  building lumber,- and matatus – ten to twelve seater vans which act as colorfully painted private taxis that can be hailed at any time, are invariably over-crowed and are notoriously reckless on the road.  The name derives from tatu, or three in KiSwahili, which was the original fare in shillings.

As an educator I was particularly interested in, and impressed by, the schooling system in Kenya.  Muli explained that education is seen by Kenyans as the way out of poverty, that it is the largest segment of the national budget, that the first eight years of schooling are free and that teachers are viewed as the leaders of community opinion in the rural areas.   Small schools are omnipresent so that no child has too far to walk but it also means  that there are a large number of teachers required to fill the classrooms and the starting salary for a high school teacher is in the region of  US$150 per month.

One evening I crossed the road from a rural apiary to look more closely at a four room school consisting of mud walls under thatch.  The physical surrounds were spartan but the daily schedule ran from 8:15 to 4:30 five days a week and included subjects like English, History, Current Affairs and Religion.  And this was for 5 year olds!  Also the level of conceptualization as expressed by words on the chalkboard was impressive particularly when contrasted with the bleak surroundings.  The level of instruction from Std 1 is English.  Muli explained that his two children speak three languages besides English – the native languages of each of their parents and KiSwahili which is taught in school.

On the one hand the level of poverty, not least in the urban slums, was heart-breaking;  on the other hand Kenya was energizing.   I couldn’t wait to get going in the morning, to open another hive, to talk with local Kenyans, to ask questions of our patient hosts. I learned far more than I might have offered and I returned to the US a much better beekeeper because of the experience.

Ten miles south of the town in which I grew up in the Eastern Highlands of what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe,  was an excavated earthen dam called Fern Valley.  Occasionally, when I wasn’t involved with some kind of sports (we were a sports-fanatic community, some would say because of the absence of cultural distractions!) my mother would pack a lunch and a fishing pole and drop me off at the dam where I would spend the day trying to catch bream and bass, seldom with much success.  I’m still not much of an angler – my ego cannot stand being outwitted by a fish. 

One afternoon, when I was probably ten years old, a large and typical tropical storm appeared on the horizon.  Abandoning the fishing tackle and not thinking for a minute that someone might take it, I walked into the surrounding bush, following paths in the grasslands which led to a native village – round mud huts under thatch (called rondavels) enclosed by a wattle and daub fence.  I was taken in, kept dry in front of an open fire, given something warm to drink and, when the storm had passed, shown the path that led back to the lake.  At the appointed time in the afternoon my mother was there to take me home.

But what was ‘home’?  In retrospect it is amazing that I was so confident that I would be warmly received and looked after.  I had accepted without question the African belief that no one is a stranger, that “I am because you are,” that no one is refused hospitality.  

All of this in a ‘third world country,” so-called.

I recognize too, with both humility and shame, that if a black African child had walked into our house in the white suburbs he would not have been received the same way.

It is equally amazing that my mother was not concerned about  my well-being.  She was a London girl, a secretary at the BBC,  who, in her mid 20’s and at the urgings of her husband,  had left England and the comforts of the city for rural Africa with two young children.   She seemed to feel confident in the safety of her eldest son, that he would be looked after, that there were other mothers out there who would do what needed to be done.

Fast forward almost 60 years when Mary and I were in St Petersburg, Florida,  for a family wedding. Because of a predicted snow storm we flew out of BWI  a day earlier than planned and managed at the last minute to get a room at America’s Best Inn on the outskirts of the city.  On arrival  a young lady who co-owns the Inn came out to greet us, was most warm in her welcome and offered to help us with our bags.  The facilities were meager but the welcome was warm and we felt respected and appreciated. 

The following day we moved to a large hotel in the city center which is part of a national well-known chain, a booking we had made several months in advance.  I backed into the parking area by the front entrance, opened the trunk and was immediately approached by a young man.

“Are you off-loading or checking in?”

“Checking in” I responded.

“It’s valet parking and $14 a night” was his reply.   

Having noticed that parking was available for $3 per night round the corner, I declined his offer and he walked back to his station at the valet desk without another word. 

What might he have said instead?  

“Welcome to our hotel.  Did you have a good trip?  Do you need help with your bags?   Would you like to take advantage of our valet parking?”  

First impressions are vitally important and this was not a good one.  The perception was that this hotel is first and foremost about money; it was neither welcoming nor inviting and certainly there was little evidence of  the “irresistible personality, humor, friendly optimism, enthusiasm, commitment and warm smile”  promoted on the web-site. Compare this to the Spanish-speaking women who serviced our room  who were  unfailingly cheerful and helpful. 

I wrote to the manager with the story of our experience; to his credit he called me personally, described what was being done to address the problem, invited me to stop by, check it out for myself and let him know if there was a difference, and credited us with the cost of one night’s stay at the hotel.  

So,  what is the first impression created at  any of our local beekeeper meetings?  Does a relative stranger feel welcomed,  despite the paucity or otherwise of the surroundings?    Does someone say, “Welcome to our meeting.  Did you find us easily? Is there something in particular I can help you with?” Or are the regular members so preoccupied with each other, so busy catching up, so involved with the business of the meeting as not to notice and reach out to someone new?   

Do we open ourselves to feedback and, if it is not positive, do we acknowledge it and respond appropriately or do we find a reason to ignore it?  

A bee hive has guards at the entrance to challenge intruders.  Our impediments, our sentries, come in other forms, primarily distraction and a lack of awareness. There is a noticeable ‘buzz’ that comes from a healthy hive and a good meeting, and both the beekeeper and a visitor can sense it the moment they walk through the door for the first time. 

“History can be written in Paris,” said President Francois Hollande in November, 2015.  Sadly he did not have in mind the terrible coordinated attacks by ISIS, which were unforeseen when he spoke; rather he was referring to the French Revolutions of 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 and 1968, and the COP21 meeting of world leaders on climate change. 

The irony is that in all of those revolutions the critical actions came not from the monarchy, or the presidency, or the Estates General, or the French parliament, but from the streets.   Indeed, and in terms of COP21 in particular, one might well  ask if the climate crisis can be saved by bureaucrats in long meetings using jargonistic language surrounded by piles of documents and arguing from hidden agendas, without pressure from and the support of the general public, not just in France but globally. 

Many revolutions have been motivated by a populace frustrated by the refusal of officialdom to take the lead.  In the twentieth century in the United States, for example, there were the Suffragette activists, the civil rights movement and the anti-tobacco campaign, to name a few.  In the latter (if one can have a latter of three) just twenty years ago, the predominant wisdom was that the cigarette manufacturers had too much money and too much influence in Washington DC for there to be any real prospect of change.  And yet change we did, because men and women in the street voted with their wallets and with their feet. 

The move from what the Greeks called chaos (meaningless and formless) to cosmos  (ordered and beautiful) is seldom straight forward.  The bloodshed and violence that erupted after the calling of the Estates General at Versailles in 1789 was followed by the military ego of Napoleon Bonaparte,  an autocracy far worse than the Bourbon monarchy (as were Lenin and Stalin compared to the the Romanovs) who was in turn followed by a restoration of the monarchy, three more republics and a second empire before Charles de Gaulle declared the Fifth Republic in 1958.  And yet each of these steps preserved something of value from the previous regime, culminating in the moral code that President Hollande called on as the French responded to the attacks of November 13, 2015. 

Progress, therefore,  is hard to predict.  Think back 26 years, to January, 1989, at which time anyone who had the temerity to suggest that the Berlin Wall would come down before the year end without opposition from the East German security forces, or that within five years Nelson Mandela would be released from his cell on Robben Island and would be elected peacefully as President of South Africa, ending officially the police state known as apartheid, would be dismissed as being an unrealistic daydreamer. 

It is easy to feel overwhelmed and despondent, yet who can foresee what may might happen in the next five years in the face of persistent remonstration from below? 

In terms of climate change, popular activism in this country began in earnest in 1999 when concerned people from across the world blockaded the WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle, and  it culminated in the 400 000 person People’s Climate March in New York city in September of 2014 and the formation of the People’s Climate Movement. The bureaucratic response has been for summits to meet in seclusion behind closely guarded doors,  which suggests an attempt by the elite to insulate themselves from the masses, and which ironically demonstrates the power that protests have. 

Just as oil companies have exerted enormous global power in the climate arena so have agrichemical companies in the field of bionics.  It is extraordinary to realize that they know that what they are doing is devastating the environment yet they do it anyway so long as the figures in the balance sheet can be written in black.   And we allow it. 

Certainly many people are working to change this paradigm through science, education and beekeeping; it’s a heroic age equivalent to those climate activists in the 90’s whose achievements are yet to be fully recognized. 

Consider the state of beekeeping just ten years ago.  In my experience most local meetings were small, (there were 13 people at the first county association I attended, almost all male and elderly)  there was little communications between groups, and there was knowledge of varroa but not an awareness of the devastation it would cause.  Certainly the publicity surrounding CCD helped to rouse the general populace to the point that today there are large national and international networked associations, the public is both informed and concerned, association meetings attract some of the best researchers in the world willing to share generously of their expertise, and the greatly expanded bee journals are filled with glossy advertisements for honey bee products.  

Looking back at the climate movement there have been some important recent developments. In September, 2016, for example, the California legislature ordered the state’s pension fund, worth almost half a trillion dollars, to divest from coal companies.  And the decisive victory of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party in Canada represents in part a repudiation of Stephen Harper’s wretched record on climate issues. Hopefully the agreement arrived at in Paris in December, 2015, is one of the biggest landmarks of all, despite the withdrawal of the US in 2017.

But these environmental changes, whether against the escalating use of fossil fuels or the threatened health of honey bees, are unlikely to be maintained by the traditional leadership in isolation.  As the harmonious, predictable systems in the biosphere disintegrate, we the beekeepers must be an integral part of the forces that are driving the transition to a more equitable, wholesome world. And we have an advantage.  As Clare Densely expressed it in her inspirational presentation at the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers’ Association conference in November of 2015, the public perceives us as “mysterious and magical, practical and skillful, knowledgeable and full of wisdom and inherited folklore. We are gentle, brave, fearless, protectors of the environment and saviors of the planet.”

We cannot change the decisions of the past but an informed and educated public can  choose to make different choices in the future. Perhaps the next meeting in Paris to make history will be of associations that are organic in the best sense of the word; they won’t be secret or bureaucratic and they will design a world of which our children will be proud.  In the interim we will continue to vote with our wallets and our feet.