It is always an honor to be around a person of courage.

This week I spent three days with Paul Cappy as we gathered some of our colonies of honey bees in eight yards around and in Chittenden and Addison Country, Vermont; he is taking over the stewardship of these bees, bringing them to Florida for the winter to make an increase in the number of colonies and then back to Lake Ontario, New York for the pollination of apples in the Spring.

Paul has been with the bees for 48 years and started pollinating when he was 16 years old. Over these years he has managed his own commercial operation, inspected thousands of bee hives for the Department of Agriculture in New York, and been a faithful advocate for the honey bee.

Bravery is required to run a commercial bee operation in these times, and anyone like Paul who is willing to make the commitment, work the long hours and expose themselves to the risk of losing a large percent of their bees each season and fluctuations in the crop, deserves our deepest respect.

Farmers like Paul are some of the unsung heroes who support the operation and prosperity of our country. It is hard to understand the level of work required until you work with along side him.

This week, we gathered bees in the snow and wind, from early in the morning, until the evening when the light of the full moon allowed us to work. Nothing would stop Paul; when his truck and forklift would get stuck in the mud, I would pull him out with our truck. When the fields were too wet and the hills too step to get his truck in to the bees, he would carry them ¼ mile on his forklift to get them to our trucks, hour after hour. If they were not taken to Florida for the milder winter and early spring, when hives are split to increase the numbers and make up for losses, many of these colonies would pass on.

As Paul is a savior of the bees, he is typical of the men and women across this continent who are committed to honey bees. With almost 40% of we eat dependent on pollination by insects, much of this by honey bees, our food supply depends on these farmers taking care of the beautiful insects. Honey bees are the “canary in the coal mine”; their populations are crashing this winter because the water and air are not clean anymore. In the bees’ weakened state, mites and viruses move in to decimate our honey bees.

The truth is that the average age of beekeepers is increasing. With fewer young people going into the field these days, less honey is being produced in North America. Correspondingly, there is more contaminated, dead honey from overseas filling the shelves of your market.

Thank you for supporting the beekeepers in the United States and Canada who take care of the bees and support their continued existence in our communities. If you have the patience and some of the courage of Paul Cappy, consider mentoring with a beekeeper and supporting these divine creatures. The bees are a gift and you will receive great satisfaction and health benefits by passing on this old culture.

Friday, Dec. 15, 6 pm: Beekeeping in Nigeria & Ghana- Free Slide Show & Talk by Apiculturist Keith Morris, Honey Gardens Apiaries

at the new honey house, 2777 VT Route 7, Ferrisburgh, Based on Keith’s recent experience with FarmServe Africa, learn about alternative beekeeping techniques, “top-bar hives,” the role of bees in their native habitat, and ways these West African communities are developing mutually beneficial partnerships with this amazing insect. Our honey house is on the West/Lake Champlain side of VT Route 7, about a mile north of Vergennes and ½ hour south of Burlington, the old Marvins Carvins property.

a field report from Keith Morris, part 1 of 2

Throughout this past summer I’ve had the honor of working in West Africa as a volunteer apiculture specialist with FarmServe Africa. I met with small family farmers, youth groups, a variety of co-ops, women’s collectives, ‘resettlement communities’, university students and professors, as well as agricultural specialists and extension agents in Nigeria and Ghana, all excited about the power of the honeybee and its medicines.

The art of beekeeping is anything but new to Africa, the original home of the honeybee. As long as people and these creatures have coexisted, there have been ‘honey hunters’, and legends and rituals surrounding this magical insect. The world’s first master beekeepers were the Egyptians, who saw honey as tears of the sun god Ra, and moved hives up and down the Nile on rafts to pollinate crops. Kings and queens were prepared for the journey to the afterlife with giant pots of raw honey, and their bodies were mummified with secret recipes made with the antibiotic and preservative properties of propolis.

In Africa today, the legacies of missionaries and colonialism as well as contemporary corruption and destructive economic development continue to erode agricultural traditions, especially traditions of healing with plants and products of the beehive. The intention of apicultural training programs are primarily economic: to create additional income to alleviate poverty, and to diversify and add value to farms’ products; but the benefits of a partnership between people and these insects are far greater in scope.

The vast majority of people in Africa have little or no access to formalized healthcare, yet are still subject to a dominant cultural perspective that their traditional means of healing are ‘primitive’ and ‘backward’. This has resulted in a tremendous loss of knowledge about medicinal plants and their uses, and a perceived dependence on manufactured ‘medicines’. As I came to realize the magnitude of this loss, I was overwhelmed with gratitude for my community of growers and herbalists at home, and appreciated further the importance of the mission of Honey Gardens. I found new esteem for those who are working to preserve traditions and learn more about healing plants, and these people became some of my greatest allies and teachers in Ghana and Nigeria.

Honey, beeswax, and propolis extracts are ideal mediums for many of the vast diversity of medicinal plants in West Africa; they preserve them and make them more palatable, protect and disinfect wounds, and offer their own important healing and nutritive benefits.

By bringing the beehive directly into the agricultural landscape, we bring in one of nature’s greatest teachers about cooperation and mutually beneficial relationships; the makers of the world’s only imperishable food; greater pollination for crops and higher germination rates in saved seeds; wax for light, preserving wood, batik, and healing salves; the potent and diverse nutrients of pollen and larvae; and the powerful medicine of propolis. These things not only offer potential for an endless variety of products to be made for sale, but most importantly, provide people the increased ability to generate medicines and healing practices for their own communities.

“If we do not do the impossible, we shall be faced with the unthinkable.” Murray Bookchin (1921-2006)

The gathering of elderberries will continue for several weeks as the luscious umbels of purple berries ripen at a different pace throughout the fields.

Walking through the plants we can see that the deer have been here and left their mark. There are chunks missing from leaves on one side of the land.

After growing for three years, these elderberry are able to weather the grazing of the deer. Now that they are seven feet tall, there is a natural pruning taking place each season. The deer jump over the fence wires, no longer electrified as the charger and battery have been taken to a bee yard along a bear highway where it is needed.

When the elderberry are younger, being a meal to a deer means a passing in life. Now there is a balance in nature here, a dynamic equilibrium of the wild.

We see the interdependence of nature and people everyday. This web is delicate, and yet it is so strong. There is enough here to feed the 4 legged deer and the 2 legged people. In the flexibility of life, all are provided for, all is interdependent.

thank you for your interest in and support of plant medicine,