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April 1st to April 1st is how time is measured for the honeybee. As I write this article, news (dare I say, ‘the buzz’) on how their health, vibrancy and survival rate fared over the past year is just days old. And the buzz is bleak. CBSnews.com’s click-bate headline reads: “Millions of bees have died this year. It’s the ‘worst bee loss in recorded history,’ one beekeeper says.”
However, news from this same time one year ago announced quite the opposite. Washingtonpost.com’s tongue-in-cheek headline read: “Wait, does America suddenly have a record number of bees?”
So, what gives? Are the honeybees good … or not? Is it known that bees either succumb or adjust to “boom or bust” volatility or should we be reading more into this dramatic ebb and flow? The answer is ‘yes’ — to all the questions.
HISTORY
The honeybee came over the pond from Europe in the 1600s and landed in Jamestown, Va. More than 200 years later, they made it to the west coast, finally establishing their nationwide presence. In 1861, the first American Bee Journal was published and is still a highly regarded industry resource in circulation. At the turn of the century, and for most of the 1900s, intrinsic beekeeping methods existed in relative productive harmony alongside commercial, profit-motivated farms. Then enter the early 2000s when Colony Collapse Disorder was declared.
The Environmental Protection Agency hypothesized many causes for the disorder. Mites, new or strengthening disease strains, pesticides, environmental insecurity, climate instability and exploitive beekeeping practices have been considered.
Alex Tuchman, farm manager of Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary in Floyd County, adds: “Instead of approaching it as what’s best for the bee, the motivation became, ‘How can we get as much honey as possible?’ and ‘How can we increase production to increase profit?’ and ‘What is the easiest thing to do? What is the most convenient?’ All of which left the bees vulnerable.”
He further explains that many beekeepers don’t have a comprehensive awareness for the importance of a flourishing, diverse landscape of nutrients and often raise bees in mono-crop environments. They also artificially create queens and then split up hives to create as many hives as they want, often way more than the land can healthily support. Additionally, many commercial practices are known to use plastic or reused wax materials and often cart hives from place to place. “Bees are meant to stay in one location. They become rooted to a place, they learn what’s in bloom and when. They have incredible intergenerational knowledge that passes through,” Tuchman explains.
So, when 2024’s headlines boasted of a “boom,” with many articles citing “record high numbers” and “surges in colony growth,” Tuchman’s counterpoint was quantity does not equal quality.
“This thing where ‘there have never been more hives’ is really challenging to relate to actual health and well-being. It doesn’t mean they’re thriving just because there’s a high number of hives,” he sighs.
Which brings us back to the threat of colony collapse once again.
WHY AND HOW TO CARE
Spikenard is a 41-acre rolling landscape farm adjacent to the Little River in Floyd County. Tuchman and staff oversee 25-30 hives using bee-first philosophies. It is the first honeybee sanctuary in the United States and one of the only establishments that offers robust educational programming, hosting multi-day workshops for nationwide school groups.
“We’re trying to offer an alternative for anyone interested in a more natural way that’s focused more on the health of the bees, their well-being and the interconnected relationship between the human being, the land and the bee,” he relates.
Their mission statement: Our consciously cultivated honeybee sanctuary promotes sustainable and biodynamic beekeeping to help restore the health and vitality of the honeybee worldwide.
Biodynamic beekeeping uses principles that were established 100 years ago. It’s looking to the bees as a compass, to understand and interpret what they need.
Due to a sensitivity to their environment, bees are trustworthy tells on the health of the surrounding landscape. Are there toxins, polluted air or waterways, magnetic fields? Is there sufficient plant diversity? The bees will sound an early alarm regarding threats to themselves and to the human.
Honeybees pollinate 40-70% or our food diet as well as medicinal plants, like echinacea, rosemary and sage. And, of course, they give us honey, both a food and a medicine.
Every day, the Spikenard crew go on a “bee walk,” similar, perhaps, to a doctors’ daily rounds. On April 1st every year, they count how many made it through the winter. They look at the status of the queen and observe her egg-laying pattern. If the queen did not survive, they will either manually catch a swarm and introduce it into the queen-less hive, or the bees will understand to do that themselves. Do flight patterns infer an active hive? Does it smell healthy inside? Is there a lot of fermented pollen (aka, bee bread)? Is there enough honey to make it to the dandelion?
Spikenard has celebrated an 88% hive survival rate over its 15 years in operation. In fact, their most popular product for sale is the bees themselves, simply because there is a thriving abundance.
There is a reason the colloquial monikers we associate with bees are along the lines of “busy” and “worker.” If ants are our land-dwelling workhorses, the same could be said of bees. They are smart, resolute and methodical in their covenant to support a biodiverse ecosystem and uphold their critically central role in sustaining a demanding food chain. Phew, talk about pressure.
But Spikenard, with Tuchman at the helm, is doing the good work. They practice what they preach and enthusiastically pay-it-forward by educating the next generation of bee caretakers.
He concludes: “We would love to see this work continue to spread by raising awareness and sharing this place for people to experience and have a joyful relationship with the bees. We’re co-dependent. We need each other. The bees are our partners.”
So plant your flowers, your trees and your shrubs, read up on best honey-consumption practices, (visit the sanctuary!), and, above all else, let those dandelions bespeckling your yard, bloom away!
Photo courtesy of Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary
Text by Nancy S. Moseley
Nancy S. Moseley is a freelance writer who isn’t a huge fan of honey. Or bees. But she was so enamored with dandelions as a child (who isn’t!?) that she cried when the neighbors once picked all the ones in her yard to make wine. Looking back, she hopes they at least enjoyed the buzz.
