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.

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, 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.

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.

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.

To speak about the elderberries, this Saturday July 16 @ 10 AM we are honored to welcome Lewis Hill, Greensboro, Vermont and Denis Charlebois, St-Jean-sur-Richleau, Quebec, Agriculture Canada to our honey house on Route 7 in Ferrisburgh.

Lewis and Nancy Hill are authors of many books on gardening and plants. As friends of Honey Gardens over the years, they have encouraged us in our work with bees and plants, introduced us to elderberry and provided the cultivars for our organic elderberry nursery. These cultivars, Coomer and Berry Hill, have been selected for growing larger berries and good overwintering.

Elderberry is a “turning point” word in my work with bees over the last 40 years. Without the elderberry, Honey Gardens would not be here for it was the elderberry, as it was mixed with our bees’ raw honey and propolis, that allowed us to make an effective formula and diversity into plant medicine. Elderberry has the anti-viral agents that chemical medicines do not have and thus many people find relief support for colds, flu, and building up their immunity system within hours.

Lewis will share stories from a lifetime of growing plants in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. The Coomer and Berry elderberry cultivars will be available one of each is necessary for good pollination and fruit set.

Denis coordinates the research on elderberry farms across Quebec. One of the original purposes of the project was to study the use of elderberry as natural color for the European market, and now the berries are being used in jam, wine, and medicine. We visited an organic field on one of these farms recently it is exciting to see more acreage being devoted to medicinal plants and crops that provide income for small farms as they diversity.

Sam and I were in the High Laurentian Mountains of Northern Quebec recently visiting Anicet Desrochers and family. Anicet has provided the Russian bees over the years that are crucial to our organic beekeeping, strengthening the bees and helping them overcome the mites. As most of the Honey Gardens bees died over last winter and fall, we have had an opportunity to introduce more Russian queens and re-build our colonies. One of the exciting moments during this visit was when Anicet said that his bees were moving into the era beyond mites, and that they are no longer an issue with his bees.

We have been harvesting and extracting the new crop for several weeks, and it is beautiful. The rain and heat have brought many luscious flowers to the land, and we are grateful.

Thank you for your interest in and support of the work of our bees and plant medicine.