While exploring the local food community, I happened to come across Foxhollow Farms in Crestwood, KY. Although Foxhollow primarily raises grassfed beef, they also host a number of events at their wonderful community center. I was excited to read that they would be hosting a two day seminar with renowned beekeeper Gunther Hauk.

There's been a fair amount of media coverage regarding beekeeping lately, mainly concerning Colony Collapse Disorder. Mainstream media reports discussing CCD will identify a few potential causes, but they admit that the primary cause is still unknown. Gunther has over 30 years of beekeeping experience, his Illinois hives have been largely unscathed by CCD, and he has never lost a hive to the varroa mite. Among small beekeepers this is an amazing track record, and it reassures my belief that Gunther truly understands the honeybee. His methods combine traditional beekeeping and concepts from biodynamic agriculture. The May 2007 edition of Acres USA included an article from Gunther entitled, Colony Collapse Disorder: Do We Harvest What We Sow?. His article provides a wide perspective on the problems facing the honeybee.

The workshop was a great event, despite my lack of bees (and beekeeping experience). Gunther is an amazing person who I feel very lucky to have heard speak. I took some notes during the workshop, and while I can't claim to speak for Gunther, I think I can summarize his argument for why CCD is occurring. Everything commercial beekeepers are doing to their bees is for the sole benefit of the beekeeper. There are many abuses rendered onto the bees:

• Transporting them across the country on the back of semi-trucks
• Queen-breeding using artificial insemination (weak Queens)
• Situating them in the middle of vast expanses of mono-culture
• Pesticide/Fungicide/Herbicide residues from crops
• Sugar feeding (i.e, robbing all their honey and feeding them corn syrup)
• Prefabricated foundations, some of which are plastic
• Preventing swarms

While it may seem like a laundry list of things to blame, Gunther firmly believes that there isn't just one source to the CCD problem, and thus there will be no silver bullet. The solution will be small beekeepers raising bees in a way that minimizes the stress upon the bee and uses selective breeding to improve resistance to common bee ailments.

With all this mind, I felt like I was ready to start beekeeping. At the workshop I had the good fortune of meeting Richard Hosey, owner of Hosey Honey. We came to the realization that I needed bees, and he needed a website. Fast forward a few weeks, and I'm building hoseyhoney.com, and working with my new hives. I enjoy working with the bees, but they still intimidate me somewhat. Hopefully that will go away with time. Right now the nectar flow is somewhat slow, but there is a fair amount of activity around the patches of clover. I will post an update in a few weeks once I harvest some honey, but for now you'll have to settle for a picture of the hives.