February 1, 2010
I look forward to seeing this documentary when it comes out, and in the meantime, let’s help them rally to finish it. Don’t worry about the RSVP date, but please do RSVP if you plan to attend. Click here to learn more. Many thanks!
Let's Get the Word Out
October 28, 2009
For the latest update on helping the honey bee, please see: This post from February 1st, 2010.
As we sat down to lunch at a Manhattan diner last week, my friend said simply, “I’m worried about the honey bees.” I knew exactly what he meant: our honey bees are dying out and people are not sure why. The scientists call it Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). In some instances, commercial beekeepers say a full third of their hives have died in the past few seasons. It can seem like a small matter, but in earning their reputation as diligent workers, bees build the world we know. But what can we do?
Luckily, in the words of the poet June Jordan, “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” We have a world to fix and it’s time for the Do-It-Yourself approach. In the case of beekeeping, people like Sam Comfort will show us the way. I heard his talk last month at the Germantown Community Farm Skillshare, an all-day event that put the rubber to the road for sustainable farm practices. This month he’s in a Discovery Magazine article entitled, “Who Killed the Honeybees? We Did.” The “we” here are large-scale beekeeping businesses that routinely send out hundreds of hives to pollinate a single orchard or crop. By lumping all the bees together and not giving them diverse species for pollination, the bees get sickly and die.
Comfort refutes this system and instead sees the solution in creating “an infrastructure of small-scale beekeepers.” His company, Anarchy Apiaries, is about letting “the bees do their thing.” Take them out of the monoculture environment and open up their food sources again. To learn more — and be inspired — see the Discovery Magazine article linked above. Then perhaps we’ll see each other in Sam’s circle next spring.
Sam Comfort at the Germantown Community Farm Skillshare
Handmade Hives of Anarchy by Sam
