Bees for Development Journal 121 December 2016
Bee audacious! It was reading a letter in the April 2015 edition of Bee Culture Magazine that finally motivated Bonnie Morse to organise the unique Bee Audacious event that has just taken place in California. In his letter, Mark Winston, Professor and Senior Fellow at Simon Fraser University in Canada, had called for ‘Audacious ideas for the future of beekeeping’, arguing that for honey bees to survive, and for their health to improve, there has to be agricultural change and evolution of beekeeping itself1.
After two days of workshops, the Conference culminated with the presentation of new ideas aimed at shaking up the status quo of beekeeping and farming, to reverse a worsening epidemic in which it has become ‘normal’ for 50% of honey bee colonies in North America to die each year.
Mark Winston ‘The coolest bee meeting I have ever attended!’ “We need to create a lobby that would advocate for habitat, and to stop the misuse and abuse of pesticides.”
Jim Frazier, Professor Emeritus of Entomology at Penn State University, said the goal of the conference, which was to drum up as many “audacious and bold” ideas as possible, was achieved.
Tammy Horn’s suggestion of forming a Bee Corps to function as an educational arm was widely applauded. Others proposed the formation of a National Pollinator Alliance to work the political front, advocating for the environment and conservation.
Chas Mraz of Champlain Valley Apiaries, a Vermont-based honey producer, was among the thought leaders: ‘What we really lack - that others have – is a lobby,” he said. All images, with thanks © Sierra Salin
Bonnie set to work planning Bee Audacious, with Mark Winston, Marla Spivak and Tom Seeley joining her as advisors. And so it happened that a group of constructive, collaborative, and thoughtful people bringing experience from a wide variety
of bee-related sectors, from six countries, and 24 States of USA, were invited to spend days, not listening to lectures, but provided with time and space to think and reflect on our approach to bees and beekeeping, and to audaciously suggest fresh ways to address some of the problems that bees face.
Mark Winston is writing up the many proposals generated by the conference, and this will be published in March 2017. For now, here are five Audacious ideas from Bee Audacious thought leaders:
1. Small hive beekeeping by Tom Seeley, Professor of Biology, Cornell University Perhaps my idea is no longer terribly audacious, given the growing interest in natural beekeeping, but it is that we embrace another way of keeping bees besides the standard approach of managing colonies to be 1) as large as possible, 2) as disinclined to swarm as possible, and 3) as productive of honey as possible. Specifically, I am suggesting an alternative approach that enables bees to live more like they do in the wild, and (hopefully) to enjoy the health that I am finding wild Mark Winston Beekeeping should change Bee Culture April 2015 pp 13-15 1
Gary and Bonnie Morse, creators of the Bee Audacious gathering. 4
