honey-bees – Our Green Cathedral

All five of my grandchildren have social media devices of some kind, varying in capacity and complexity. What is striking is how the three eldest, ranging from ages 10 to 16, are quick to pull out their ‘phone’ to confirm a fact, look up an image, check a spelling, or find an answer to an issue being discussed. The world is at their fingertips, literally, and they know how to access it. All five are more competent on their devices than am I on my cell phone. And yet at school they are required to relinquish their phones on arrival and listen to different people talking at them as the day progresses.

In his marvelous book, Honeybees, A natural and a Less Natural History, recently translated from the Dutch, Jacques van Alphen describes how “There is a tradition of passing on knowledge through courses and conferences, and meetings between beekeepers often give rise to lively exchanges on all aspects of the profession. The danger, however, is that age-old practices are not called into question, or re-evaluated and brought up to date… As a biologist and an outsider, I was amazed at what beekeepers take for granted. …all the new knowledge about bee behavior, genetics and evolution has not led to fundamental changes in beekeeping.”

The first beekeeping class I took, for example, was run by an elderly, competent beekeeper who was also the state inspector, and who talked at us for all but half an hour of the six classes. Looking back on the notes I took during those twelve hours, frankly I am not surprised that I lost both of my hives in the first year, nor that some were taking the class for the third, fourth or fifth time.

Challenging the status quo is not comfortable. I wrote two months ago about how Cézanne’s art, misunderstood and discredited by the public during most of his life, challenged all the conventional values of C19th painting because of his insistence on personal expression and on the integrity of the painting itself, regardless of subject matter. Personal expression and the integrity of the painting would seem to us to be basic, yet his works were mostly rejected in his lifetime, even as, five years after his death, he was recognized by Manet and Picasso as ‘the father of modern art.’

If the first half of the C20th was the age of physics, starting with Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and ending with the atom bomb, and the second half was the age of molecular biology, starting with the discovery of the DNA helix and ending with Dolly the sheep, then it was predicted that the first half of the C21 would be the age of the brain, and, with particular relevance to education, how we process information. Scientific journals bear testimony to the fact that the work is being done, yet it is seldom evidenced in classrooms. Indeed, if my grandfather could come back to life he would be confused by much of modern life, yet if he walked into a school he would know immediately where he was.

I would think that beekeeping classes are ideal situations for a different approach. The ‘students’ are mature, self-motivated, set their own standards, take responsibility for their own learning and, if their needs are not met or the realities of beekeeping is contrary to their expectations, are free to leave. They bring their life experiences to each class at the end of which they have a new, practical, useful, life-long skill.

Most teachers would give an arm and a leg to have students like this. And what do we do? In most cases, talk at them in a way in which, as Jacques van Alphen says, “age-old practices are not called into question, or re-evaluated and brought up to date…” It is more training than education, the difference between which was explained to me early in my career, when I was asked if I would want my daughter to have classes in sex education or in sex training.

We know that talking at people is, for most students, an ineffective way of learning. In words attributed to Mother Theresa, “There should be less talking. A preaching point is not a meeting point.” So, in a technological age, how might it be different, particularly in adult education with motivated students such as described above? There are four steps involved.

First, even before the first class meets, the task of the facilitator is to guide the participants to the literary and internet sources that are relevant and appropriate for the upcoming classes. I use the term ‘facilitator’ deliberately, in that his or her task is to facilitate the learning process, to make each participant (a term I prefer to student) responsible for his or her own learning, rather than feeling the need to teach it to them. Indeed, my favorite definition of education is by Parker Palmer – creating the community in which truth may occur.

Hence participants arrive at the first class with the basic knowledge that the facilitator would otherwise have to spell out for them, which would have consumed most of the time allocated to each class.

Secondly, the classroom seats are in a circle, with the facilitator as part of that circle. In this way the questions raised by the based on their class preparation are what they really need to know, rather than what the instructor thinks they should know. Rather than a one-way flow of information, it’s a mutual interchange of questions and responses. Again, in my experience, the process of discussing previously processed material is not familiar to many students – we have been conditioned to sit and listen to the expert – and initially the facilitator has to take more of the lead than he or she might like. But very quickly the circle takes on a life of its own, and the facilitator becomes as much a gatekeeper of the process. After all, we’re dealing with mature people, and I mean ’mature’ not in terms of age but in terms of a willingness and an ability to get the task done.

To repeat the above, “Challenging the status quo is not comfortable.” Some twenty years ago I was invited to run some classes for experienced teachers working towards their masters degrees. Thinking that I was dealing with mature, motivated students, I planned to facilitate a mutually interactive environment. It did not work – the teachers came unprepared, waited to be told what they needed to know, and were anxious to know how they would be graded. Indeed I had misread the level of maturity of the majority of the class. One of the significant advantages of the beekeeping classes is that there is no grade, no necessary affirmation from an exterior ‘authority.’ Each participant is the determiner of their own level of success.

As an aside, many teachers are notoriously resistant to change. It is not surprising; after all they chose the profession in part because of the positive, comforting, supportive feelings they themselves experienced at school – certainly I did – and want to recreate those, even though as adults they might be a generation advanced from experiencing them. They see change as a threat rather than as a way of enhancing those feelings; hence it is even more important that we have data from the neuroscientific field to combat decisions based primarily on emotions. More about that next month.

Thirdly, the latter part of the class would be in the apiary for practical application of the material discussed. My preference is to allocate three participants to a hive, to ask them to take notes using a prescribed format of what they observe as they work through it, and with each following class the triad returns to the same hive, thus following its development as the season progresses.

I can imagine the counter-argument that, at least in the first classes, a basic core of knowledge has to be created. I agree. We’re not talking about the what so much as about the how. This requires trust from the instructor-turned-facilitator; trust that self motivated students, given the tools and the responsibility, will learn more, and more efficiently, in a way that is appropriate to their own needs.

Finally, the content has to be adapted from the conventional syllabus, not least because of the increased time made available by the work done by students before classes. For example, the reading done for the final classes needs to be oriented to some of the newer discoveries about honey bees, to include bee behavior, genetics, the influence of chemicals in our environment, and the challenges of a warming climate.

“The complexity of our present trouble suggests as never before that we need to change our present concept of education,” argues Wendell Berry. “Education is not properly an industry, and its proper use is not to serve industries, either by job-training or by industry-subsidized research. It’s proper use is to enable citizens to live lives that are economically, politically, socially, and culturally responsible.”

Or, in terms of the Hebrew proverb, “Confine not your children to your own learning, for they are of a different generation.”

A friend and colleague was verbally assaulted recently when, at a social gathering, she mentioned being a beekeeper. The accusation was that, by keeping honey bees, a non-native species, she was depriving other native pollinators from access to increasingly limited natural resources.

Honey bees, because they are ‘managed’, are easy targets for which a distinct minority of Americans (0.4 per cent of the population) can be held responsible. Indeed there is a growing public movement against honey bees, possibly a swing of the pendulum after the media attention provoked by CCD. It seems this antagonism was prompted in part by a misinterpretation of the mission of the Xerces Society – that the society’s focus on native bees and pollinators is seen as an attack on honey bees, with the assumption that the latter impact the health and habitat of the former. An example is the website of a company called MeliBio, which promotes the new product called “Mellody, a plant based honey made without bees.” The company claims that “the commercial production of honey is destroying the biodiversity of our planet and wiping out the native bee population.” Their solution to this blatantly fear-based accusation is a man-made mixture of fructose, glucose, water and glycolic acid, together with plant extracts and flavorings. Incidentally, according to an article by James Naeger in the March issue of ABJ, which I strongly recommend, the cost of a 12 ounce jar of Mellody honey, including shipping, was $43.

Certainly, in a world of dwindling natural resources, competition between honey and feral bees is real. It is also much disputed. There is research which suggests that, under certain conditions, in deprived habitats in particular, honey bees may reduce available forage for native pollinators, with implications for the health and viability of the latter. There is also compelling evidence to show that honey and native bees can thrive together, or that there is no observable impact of honey bees on other pollinators. When asked this question directly at EAS in Ithaca in 2021, David Tarpy ’s response was that in a healthy environment, honey bees can co-exist with other pollinators to the mutual benefit of all. For example, Ross Conrad, writing in the February issue of Bee Culture, points out that many of our native pollinators will forage in weather that otherwise keeps honey bees in their hives, and that the different lengths of the proboscises of pollinators (those of the honey bee are relatively short) causes them to work different flower sources.

Rather than eliminating or proscribing certain pollinators, the focus, as is so often the case, needs to be on the environment. After all, as Becky Masterman and Bridget Mendel write in the same issue of Bee Culture, the nectar and pollen-bearing flowers that are not available to honey bees are also missing for native bees.

Pollinators, any and all of them, are simply the messengers. For example, one consequence of the dominant use of pesticides and fossil fuels in the US is demonstrated by Masterman and Mendel in a graph that plots US honey production v total honey imported (Bee Culture, Feb 2024.) Between 1991 and 2021, American honey production declined by 41 per cent. Imported honey, by comparison rose by 520 per cent. In 2021, the amount of imported honey was four times greater than that produced internally, compared to 1991 when imported honey was less then half of that produced locally. This dramatic change cannot be explained solely by honey bees, who have been on this continent for some 400 years while the decline in native pollinators is a more recent phenomenon coinciding with the significant loss of a wide variety of insect pollinators across the globe.

Similarly, Ron Phipps, in the March issue of American Bee Journal, describes how, between 2020 and 2022, US honey production declined by 15%, the number of colonies declined by 9 per cent, and productivity per hive decline from 54 to 47 lbs/hive. A recent report in the American Honey Producers Association newsletter indicated that honey yields in the US have been declining since the 1990’s and found that, besides climate change, the decline was “connected with herbicide application and land use changes which result in fewer conservation programs which support pollinators.” Not just honey bees, note, but all pollinators.

To cite Ross Conrad again, “The real source of the decline in native pollinators is you and I. Between our use of pesticides like neonicotinoids, and our addiction to fossil fuels … it is humankind that is the actual cause of the decline in native pollinators, not the honey bee.” To put it bluntly, the human species is the most successful invasive species our planet has ever seen. Habitat loss is the prime driver of the loss of pollinator species (cutting down trees to build a housing complex and then naming the streets after the trees that have disappeared, doesn’t cut it!) and all pollinators are negatively affected by pesticide, herbicide and fungicide use, pollution, climate change, diseases and parasites.

Instead of focusing on unsubstantiated competition between pollinators, our focus needs to be on a healthy environmental policy together with improved agricultural practices which promote new and improved habitat that benefit all pollinators. A vital concept in this scenario is that of regenerative agriculture, whereby focusing first and foremost on the quality of the soil, a system’s capacity to support all life is increased. And it was this panorama which inspired the term regenerative beekeeping.

So what can we do at a local level?

First, it is important that our associations are seen to be inclusive rather than exclusive. This can as simple as making certain that the names of our clubs, as well as the stated aims, include all bees, if not all pollinators. Hence the “Punxsutawney Beekeepers Club” rather than “Punxsutawney Honey Bee Club” which aims to support and promote either all bees, or, even better, all pollinators. And our members need to be acutely aware of the reasoning behind the language. After all, we refer to ourselves as ‘beekeepers’ rather than ‘honey bee keepers,’ with the implication that we have an interest in and commitment to bees (and pollination) in general.

Secondly, we need to organize presentations to our members about the diverse relationships between honey bees and other pollinators, as well as the vital importance of pollination per se.

Thirdly we need to support, not least financially, those organizations that are working to improve habitat for all pollinators. Some are well represented in Pennsylvania, eg. The Bee and Butterfly Habitat Fund www.beeandbutterflyfund.org and the Pollinator Stewardship Council @pollinatorstewardshipcouncil. Both will provide speakers for meetings, if not in person then by Zoom, and the former offers free or greatly reduced seed mixes for landowners to plant high-quality pollinator habitat on 2 or more acres of land. There are many other such organizations that individual bee clubs can research for themselves.

And of course, in combination with their hives, we can encourage our members to build or establish suitable habitat for all bees, bats, moths and butterflies including, for example, allowing the leaves of Fall to remain in place over winter in that they create a superb environment for a range of native pollinators. The argument that garden beds ‘look nice’ without the leaves puts appearance above habitat, as does the use of chemicals in gardens to green up the lawns and kill ‘weeds.’

Again, in the March issue of ABJ, and describing the potential competition evoked by holding the annual conference for the American Beekeeping Federation and the North American Honey Bee Expo at the same time of year, Tina Sebestyen cites a friend as responding that ‘the two conferences serve different types of beekeepers who are attending for different purposes, and both are needed.’ Whence goeth the beekeepers, so goeth the bees.

Tag: honey-bees

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