by Tim McFarlin

Invasive Species! This phrase may bring to mind hordes of magenta spiked Loosestrife marauding their way through our northeastern wetlands or perhaps it’s the choking assault of the Kudzu in the south. Our landscape is thoroughly inundated with non-native species and growing by the year. Honey bees were brought to the Americas in the 1400’s, making them an invasive species. Do you think people are being invasive anywhere in the world now?

What is truly native? Is it defined by geography or chronology, or both? How long does a species have to be somewhere to attain native status? To me these debates are a waste of energy. We are all of the same world and we cannot halt the blending and mixing of it. So what can we do when the land as we know it is being overgrown? Rather than react and try to cut it out, poison it, or introduce another species to control, I feel that we should learn its history what it has to offer and establish a place for it in our lives. A perfect example is dandelion. Dandelion is cleansing to the liver and kidneys, the greens are nutrient dense, its value to our bodies cannot be elucidated here. So we harvest the plentiful, encourage the rare. Find out what the plants’ medicine or food value is, its utilitarian uses, what animals eat it, what insects live on it, how it smells, its beauty.

Honey bees, however, are not targeted or maligned because of their non-native status. Through thousands of years of study we have discovered and continue to discover the healing qualities of hive products. Everything the bees make is good for us. We have been inspired to investigate further, driven by a passion and curiosity to know more. Why not apply this same zeal to learning about plants and animals, native or otherwise? I assume that every creature, plant or animal has many healing qualities, if not to us, then to the living earth itself.

I would ask for a moment that you suspend the negative thoughts that are associated with an invasive species. Purple Loosestrife, I learned from my Peterson guide, is useful as a gargle for sore throats, cleansing wounds, and good on stings we use it in our Throat Spray and Wound Wash).Through further research we learned a local herbalist had treated Irritated Bowel Syndrome and Chrone’s disease with it. Is it coincidence that the plants’ spurious growth comes at a time when these maladies are rampant in our society? There is much more to investigate. Purple Loosestrife also absorbs Nitrogen and Phosphorus from surface water. Purple Loosestrife is our number one honey plant in dry years, giving life to a wide range of pollinating sections. The bees work it as it has many blossoms per spike and flowers for weeks. As for Kudzu, the entire plant has many and varied medicinal uses. The Chinese have a rich history with this plant as it is native to Asia. There is a wealth of potential for this plant. One of my favorite little plants is Plantago major. This little invader is in our propolis salve it cleans wounds, stimulates healing, draws infection, the leaves are rich in vitamin, the seeds are nutritious, keeping bugs away due to its B vitamin content, and it flourishes in disturbed places where little else except other healing herbs grow.

Poison Ivy. What images does this name conjure in you? Itchy, blistery, to be avoided. Poison ivy grows in disturbed areas. Other vegetation soon begins growing amongst the ivy, animal trails weave their way through the now lush area, because people have stayed out, allowing the earth to heal itself. The poison ivy is the guardian of this healing. Poison Ivy is native as far as I know, and I only mention it here as an example of seeing beyond ourselves.

The Earth as a living matrix seeks its own vitality, repair, reproduction, and we (all life) are connected on levels beyond just the visually evident. If we look beyond the confines of our own constructs and the purely material, if we quiet our minds then we may see and feel without prejudice the essential value and beauty of all creatures. Indeed these “invasive” species are healing us and the land. If we stop reacting defensively, challenge our mental comfort zones and relinquish our prejudices there is no end to what we can learn, understand and ultimately live in harmony.

the bears and the bees

by Todd Hardie

He nourished him with honey from the rock …….. Deuteronomy 32:13

In the early days, bees made their homes in rocky places, and on hot days when the rocks got hot, honey would ooze out. Out of the hard places in life, we are given sweetness.

July 29, 2003

Much of our work these days is cleaning up after black bears devour our bees.

They scatter the homes of the bees, and after we find all of this, we walk around the bee yards and into the fields and woods beyond picking up the pieces. It takes hours, and at first, I felt so violated. The weeks that we pour into building and restoring equipment each year have felt so frustrating as the bears keep tearing apart the homes of our bees.

We try to save the bees, hoping that the queen and as much of the family as possible are in the boxes.

The other day, a bear(s) knocked over 13 colonies in the Plessis yard. This was a record. Usually they destroy one to three at a time.

If we come days later, many of the bees are still clinging onto their broken homes, faithfully clustered as a family, now exposed to the rain and sun.

We keep adding wires to the

electric fences in attempt to keep the bears from slipping through. The standard fence now has seven wires, and it is our hope that these will keep the bears away. I am amazed at how many stings and electric shock a bear will take for this meal. Buying and installing all of this equipment is expensive – last week the income from selling honey was only slightly more the amount we had spent on trying to deal with the bears alone.

We are approaching 60 colonies of bees lost to the bears this season. The day was spent putting frames and boxes on the truck that had been dismantled by the bears in the last few months. When we went to the Herb bee yard, we found that two more colonies had been taken by the bears in the last three days. Here we learned that the batteries that we use must be recharged after five days or they lose enough of their ” sting” that bears walk right in. A few weeks earlier we did not understand how the bear was getting into the fenced in bee yard until we saw that the bear was climbing an ash tree next to the fence and then jumping over the hot wires to get into the bee yard.

I was weary and sad. All of the trials with the bears had worn me down, but this was naturally being merged into other information that I was continually gathering. I have increasingly seen that I have spread myself too thin and was trying to do much in order to make our beekeeping-agricultural business work, especially in a year of a light honey crop. The bears were giving me a message – let go of trying to work in so many wide-spread geographical areas in order to serve (metaphorically) Manhattan and Boston and everywhere in between and now work to serve a more regional and local market with honey and focus more on plant medicine.

A peace has settled over me. I see the bears now as our allies. They had helped me to see something that was much more important than all of the equipment and honey we had ” lost” to them this season and last.

I was so thankful.

December 5, 2003

Our relationship with the bears this year is just one part of the comprehensive changes at Honey Gardens Apiaries to be more sustainable and in relationship with our family and community. Thank you so much for your interest in and support of our bees and plants that allow us to do this work.

I had a hunch about what’s inside those white boxes you sometimes see along rural back roads. They always seemed to stand silently as I sped from errand to errand, along the roads I drove to get me off the busier highways.

My summer experience at Honey Gardens Apiaries was just that “getting off the busier highways”. And I came to understand that such peace is in the essence of beekeeping.

As I was focusing my energy on graduating from Bard College in the Hudson Valley of New York, I tried some amazing honey thanks to my friend April Howard. She told me that she was an old family friend of Todd Hardie, the founder and continuous inspiration behind Honey Gardens. Todd and I met in Vermont before the snow had melted, and, with both of us taking faith in the friendship that was blossoming, in May I moved my van to the back of the honey house and had myself a house for the summer. On that first night, hearing the coyotes that lived close by certainly aided the feeling that I had no idea what I was getting into.

The next day I was stung five

times as I walked to my first bee yard. I had not yet put on my veil. I said to myself, OK bees, and waited for any kind of allergic reaction. Tim McFarlane, who would be one of my many mentors over the summer, was supportive. And then he made sure that I was no stranger to good, hard work.

I would not have brought myself to this situation if I weren’t confident in my own ability to adapt. That’s just what I did and not just to the bee stings, which are pretty much unavoidable. It’s the life of a beekeeper: up in the morning, sometimes before dawn to move hives full of drowsy bees and tired and satisfied in the evening. Taking each day with the sustenance of working with and being a part of nature. (Remember, beekeepers have the lowest cancer rate of any occupation.)

It was not long until the day came when I pulled a strange looking frame out of a hive. I called to Tim, who was busy checking for bee eggs on the other side of the yard. Tim, what is this stuff? It’s HONEY COMB. Eat it! And I did. And it was wonderful.

So many other grand opportunities ensued: the first taste of royal jelly, pulling the first honey of the season, the celebration of extracting honey from bees I placed in the field, and always working with the bees and understanding them better. I was joining noble ranks here: visiting the uncanny queen breeder Anicet Desrochers in north Quebec, relating with beekeepers all over upstate New York and Vermont, realizing that beekeeping creates one large family.

Our work with plant medicine

also put me in touch with herbalists and many groups of people committed to finding a better relationship between humanity and its surroundings. It is really something to fall asleep and dream about purple loosestrife. It seemed that I had a ticket to expand my world view, finding happiness in beekeeping, living off-grid, and enjoying the minute particulars that make summer in Vermont.

top 10 ways that you can help the bees

1. stop cutting and using artificial fertilizer on your lawn

Most lawns have many flowers that give nectar and pollen to honey bees and other pollinating insects. These give life to the bees at a time when their natural sources of nourishment are being diminished. Seeing the natural expression of a lawn is a beautiful thing, and not cutting it will save time and reduce pollution from not using the lawnmower.

2. buy honey, beeswax and other bee products from local beekeepers

Much of the honey in stores over the years is dead, contaminated honey from China and other parts of the world. Safety is in question. By using local honey, you are supporting quality and the pollination of your food and flowers at home, as well as the local agricultural economy.

3. think about it all after you get stung by a “bee”

Most of the time people get stung, they blame it on a honey bee, while it is actually one of their “aggressive cousins”, the wasps, hornets, and yellow jackets. But with whatever stings you, this small creature is protecting itself from you, the big aggressor. The value of bee venom therapy is also increasingly recognized as being very medicinal with its role in being an overall health tonic, for treatment of some cases of multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and now Lyme disease.

4. plant trees and flowers that will feed the bees

As you plant locust, willows, red maples, basswood trees and grow flowers that attract the bees like borage and bee balm, the honey bees in your neighborhood will have more to eat and be strengthened. Insects pollinate almost 40% of our food supply, with much of this being done by honey bees, and as the value of pollination is many more times more important than the honey we get from these, you can help by establishing sources of for the bees.

5. advocate for GMOs crops to be banned to help protect the honey bee

6-10… We will be grateful to get your ideas to complete this. todd@honeygardens.com

Our season and work with the honey bees starts when there is snow on the ground in March. Through the late winter, spring, and early summer for almost four months, we visit the bees and encourage them to grow into strong colonies to make honey and prepare for the next winter. We are never quite sure when the bees will start to make “surplus” honey it is much of a mystery and there are so factors that we have no control over (length and coldness of winter, rainfall and temperature in May when the bees are getting stronger, bears, the parasitic mite, the loss of bee yards and flowers to suburban sprawl)

For years I defined the ” turning point” as that specific moment in the time when we realize that the bees have made a honey crop. This moment is a relief, after months of work in the field, it is truly memorable. I will never forget the turning point of 1997, on July 5 when I found honey for the first time at the Glake bee yard. The sound of horse’s hooves and metal wheels of the Amish buggy resounded in the air from one side of the field to the other.

As we are now in the midst of our harvest this season, I see that a larger turning point has taken place. Honey Gardens Apiaries’ diversification from solely working with honey bees and offering honey to working with bees, herbs and plants to make plant medicine is well underway because of the efforts and love that two people have given us. It is time to give thanks.

Elderberry

is the first word that describes the beginning of the turning point with our work with bees.

We were guided to elderberry by our dear friend Lewis Hill in Greensboro, Vermont. For years he has studied elderberry, which are native to and older than Vermont, and bred plants with fruit that are larger than those in the wild. Elderberry is rich in Vitamin C and controls viruses that chemical medicines do not touch, as in the common cold and flu. Elderberry builds up the immunity system, and when it mixed with raw honey, bee gathered propolis and organic propolis, the result is potent plant medicine.

With Lewis’ help, we have started the Vermont elderberry project. We are growing two of Lewis’ cultivars, ” Berry Hill” and ” Coomer” and have started an orchard of elderberry plants to supply berries for our extract and also make plants available each Spring to those who want to grow elderberry, a ” Johnny Appleseed-type” project to help re-populate elderberry in the region.

Purple loosestrife

is one of the reasons that we are able to work with bees in the north. The bees gather abundant nectar from purple loosestrife each season, including the many years that there is a drought in the region. Growing in wet, swampy areas, the purple loosestrife yields abundant nectar, giving life to pollinating insects across this land. It is also pure plant medicine, and we now make a very effective throat spray & wound wash because of the help of Barbara Nardozzi. Her words about this new product describe how it works, but even more so, refer to her generous spirit and how she has helped Honey Gardens Apiaries so much in the last year.

“We never cease to be amazed in life when

people and events come together synergistically, where their efforts and the resulting outcomes grow far beyond the potential accomplishments of a single individual. Our propolis, purple loosestrife, and Usnea wound wash, the newest product offered by the honey house, is not only the result of such synergistic human efforts, but its key ingredients are synergistic players as well. The herbs and propolis work beautifully together to promote tissue repair, heal fresh scar tissue, decrease inflammation and bleeding, stimulate local immune system functions, and act as an antibacterial, antifungal, anti-inflammatory, and antiviral agent. The astringent quality contributes its effectiveness as an antidiarrheal agent as well. In the language of wound healing, this is indeed broad spectrum coverage.”

Lewis and Barbara, you have helped us to see what is all around us. Your love and ongoing support of the bees and people have truly been a blessing. You both continue to show us that the best crop in Vermont is our people.

Thank you so much.

how you may help the bees

This has been a challenging season. The honey crop came late and is a light one so far. Bears have destroyed many bee hives, and the loss of bees and honey to the bears is more than we could ever have imagined. All of this has forced us to look even deeper and more honestly at ourselves to see what we can do to be more sustainable with each other and our work at work at Honey Gardens. We have invested our energies into extending our plant medicine line, to be making products that heal and help people, using moderate amounts of our bees’ Apitherapy raw honey and plants. We are letting go of distribution of honey to such a broad geographical region. The marketing of our Apitherapy raw honey will only continue with the support in the marketplace of our plant medicine products. We appreciate your ongoing support of these at your health food stores, food cooperatives, and via our website. If these stores do not have them yet, please let us know so that we may contact them and send samples. Thank you.