Staring at the Beast
We have been working here on Pine Mountain with bees for 4 years now. A great learning opportunity came along this year when we were invited to help an organic farm to establish their own apiary for their fruit and berry production. The farm, up until this point, had hosted a commercial beekeepers queen rearing operation, which benefitted both parties, that is, until the department of agriculture sent a letter stating that the beekeeper was not in compliance with organic methods. When we first heard about it the commercial hives and most of the equippment had already been removed from the farm.
What a great opportunity I thought and the students were equally excited about the prospect of planning for a farm their own pollination and honey production. We would prepare and then move a few of my colonies into the berries.The first visit for each of my two student groups was to go and assess the situation.
Where would be the best location for the colonies. South-easterly facing, sunny location, protected from coastal winds and idealy a bit of shade in the early to mid afternoon. The bees also would need easy access to a source of clean water nearby. In the process of investigating that, we found a lot of rotten and contaminated equippment which was left behind.We seperated plastics from wood and burned slowly all hive bodies, frames and wax. Plastic frames and foundation sheets we took with us for save disposal. Once the burn was done we went back and went with large magnets through the ashes and removed all metal such as nails and pallet fixtures, metal angles. Before starting to build new stands for the bee colonies it occurd to me to take a little tour and see what the neighbors were up to. That was the morning we encounterd the Beast. It revealed itself in the form of a large commercial flower farm no more than 3/10th of a mile down the road.As soon as we entered the property, we saw 2 gigantic tanks on stilts for agricultural chemicals.
The beast was right staring at us.A conversation with the farmer taught us that there were at least16 agricultural/chemical compounds which were applied to the flower fields in a 2 week rotation system of night spraying.
Who would like to take a deep whiff of these flowers once they are nicly arranged in a beautiful vase?
But that was late last fall and thigns developed in our favor after all. Bear, at the Swanton Strawberry Farm, was as excited as we were about starting an apiary in the North Fields and agreed to buy 2 nucleus colonies plus the needed equippment, 4 students also got their own hives and I brought 3 colonies. Students of the monday group built the stands and we were ready to pollinate this years crop of berries and kiwis. All of us had a great learning experience as we tended to the bees, ate berries later and watched bobcats hunt birds. Bow hunting priviliges were given to us as a side reward. Just the presence of a group of young boys with bows kept many birds away from the delicious crops. win-win.
And the Beast? Word had it in June that the flower operation may have stopped operating or will in the near future.
In any case, we detected no toxic loads impacting our bees. The students took their colonies home after the pollination and we coninued with 5 hives in the fields. It was interesting to observe the bees after berries and poison oak bloom finished.They completly avoid near by Buckeye trees and traveled to collect eucalyptus about 1/2 mile away. Buckeye nectar and pollen is toxic to bees as well as to humans. Bees will collect it if nothing else is available, much to their detriment. We will continue to develop this apiary in our classes in the next few years. Bear, one of the farm managers, has already started to plant bee friendly cover crops. He is also planning to bring in more native and other nectar and pollen rich plants so that there will be a large variety of food through the seasons for native pollinators as well as for our new bee sanctuary. Visitors are also welcome. We had three groups of visiting school classes for day outings to learn about the bigger picture of our relationship to bees, agriculture and th natural environment.
