PART ONE: Where are we today?

It is great fortune to have a farmer’s market in your community that provides freshly harvested produce from a nearby farm and have the opportunity to speak directly with the grower.  Need an extra box of tomatoes?  Intrigued by those long beans?  The person to ask is standing right in front of you.  So, every time I hear someone complain about food prices I cringe.  “You mean these green beans are $2 per pound?” I overheard a woman recently exclaim at my local Sunday market.  If people had to churn their own butter, harvest their own berries or slaughter their own beef, what would their cost be?

In the early 1800s, 95% of Americans were farmers.  Today that number is only 1% according to the U.S. Agricultural Census.  In the span of 200 years most of us have lost all connection to agriculture.  Very few are interested in how food is grown, produced, packaged or shipped around the world.  It really has gotten so bad that some kids don’t even know that French Fries actually come from potatoes as Jamie Oliver’s recent Food Revolution TV program exemplified.

What happened?  As we moved further away from rural life we lost touch with an inherent part of our genetic code – how to plant a seed and watch it grow.  The industrial food model has made it so the only time we see food is when it’s wrapped in plastic and neatly displayed on fluorescently lit supermarket shelves.  It makes sense that we think food comes from behind cold, gray swinging doors.  Plus, we have gotten used to eating abundant amounts of cheap food in oversized boxes that processed foods are now cheaper than fresh produce and whole grains.  But at what cost?

The Economist Magazine in its January 23^rd 2010 issue wrote that 68% of Americans are overweight and 33% are obese.  Obviously we aren’t suffering a shortage of food; our affliction is the void of nutrients in our overabundance of food that is starving our bodies, causing disease and robbing our planet of the necessary nutrients we and it need to survive.  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 60 percent of all herbicides, 90 percent of all fungicides and 30 percent of all insecticides are carcinogenic.  Research from various sources, including the Environmental Working Group and the Pesticide Action Network, has shown that every person in this country carries detectable levels of toxins associated with synthetic agricultural chemicals.  Other studies have shown that half of the conventionally grown baby food sampled contains pesticides.  And thanks to science’s precise measurement capabilities even fetuses show pesticide contamination with some 200 different chemicals already pulsing through their bloodstreams.

Ironically, if you ask any farmer he or she will automatically say that farmers are the best environmentalists around.  My question is, then why are the majority of American farmers pouring synthetic chemicals on plants produced from genetically modified seeds?  And taking $15.4 billion dollars of taxpayer money in the form of farm subsidies to do it?  It seems as if everything is upside down.  While the number of farmer’s markets are rapidly expanding to every corner of the country totaling 6,132 in 2010, there still seems to be a lag in appreciating our food, the soil from which is it grown and the people doing the growing.  As Jim Fullmer, Executive Director of Demeter-USA, the sole certifier of biodynamic farms and products in the United States, recently said, “Unfortunately the consumer clearly has not understood what goes on in agriculture.  They just see it as a commodity and say ‘Give me food and make it cheap’.”

The ultimate food revolution began after World War I when scientists discovered they could increase crop yields by manipulating chemical reserves originally used to create weapons.  Nitrogen, for instance, is an essential macronutrient for plant growth and is also used in chemical warfare.  These increased yields proved miraculous for Europe, which was ecologically devastated after the Great War.  This “Green Revolution” really took charge in the 1940s as it radically transformed agriculture with synthetic fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, improved irrigation techniques and hybrid seeds that fed countries such as India and the Philippines on the brink of starvation.  In some cases yield increased ten-fold.

Yet, farmers in these same countries, including our own, have been abandoning these practices saying they are unsustainable, meaning that what they are doing to their land, their pocketbooks and their community is not environmentally, economically or socially sound.  To reach consistent yields in conventional agriculture year and year, chemical use must increase, but doesn’t take into account the fluctuating market price or the environmental costs, such as depleted, lifeless soil from excessive chemical use.  The land becomes exhausted from working hydroponically, solely relying on additives to achieve results.  While the first number of years may seem like a dream, suddenly the increased costs become a nightmare.  To put it in laymen’s terms – you can only poison a system for so long before it gives out.

Of course, the proponents of industrialized agriculture state there is no other way to feed our world without artificially manipulating production.  Our agricultural trajectory has progressed in such a way that it would be difficult to refute.   What I believe is that the industrial agricultural model has successfully masked the real costs associated with creating cheap and plentiful food available 24-hours a day.  If the environmental costs were included, such as air, water and soil pollution, the social costs of disease, such as avian flu, foot and mouth disease, E. coli contamination (12 cases so far this year), and resistant superbugs to both animal and human antibiotics, and the serious economic costs to clean all this up and patch it together again, we’d never be able to afford food again.

I didn’t even mention the numerous food security issues caused by industrial agriculture. The system runs on mono-cropping massive swaths of the same plant and lacks genetic, crop and ecological biodiversity.  It relies on fossil fuels to not only produce synthetic chemicals that literally fuel the farm but the fossil fuels needed to transport food and chemicals around the world.  In addition, the unfortunate human costs of war and environmental devastation in the fight to control these fossil fuels that feed the world.

And if agricultural monolith Monsanto spends $2.5 million dollars a day developing new GMO seed and chemicals from their $11.4 billion annual revenue stream to combat pest and weed resistance and withstand their new chemicals, how can we still be paying only $2.99 for a gallon of milk and $1.99 for a dozen eggs produced from hormone and antibiotic injected animals that live in monitored, miserable cages?  We’ve recently paid for it today in the form of the BP Deepwater Horizon 5 million barrel oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, 5,601 American casualties to date from the 9-year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those plentiful farm subsidies from our tax debt that keep the whole system turning.

PART TWO: Now Where Do We Go?

If you want to meet happy, well-balanced people, connect with your local biodynamic farmers.  The vast majority will say that biodynamics has enlivened their spirit, reconnected them to their work and provided them with a renewed sense of place on their farms.  A biodynamic farm is viewed holistically as a living, self-contained system that functions in concert with the wider world within which it lives.  Each farm’s goal is to be a self-sustaining entity responsible for its health and wellbeing without outside additions. It is the antithesis of commercial industrialized farming.

Observation is the cornerstone of this system, something all farmers once practiced.  A biodynamic farmer has to intimately understand the rhythms of the farm, the dynamics of its location, soil structure, weather patterns, water needs, and overall strength and weaknesses.  It is analogous to preventative medicine in the human body.  Create optimum health so that if an imbalance should occur – drought or pest infestation, for instance – the system will be better equipped to overcome the problem.  “Biodynamic farming aims to generate fertility and health from within the farming system,” Demeter-USA Executive Director Jim Fullmer said.

Like organic farming, biodynamics prohibits synthetic chemicals inputs such as fertilizers and all the “–icides” and does not use genetically modified seed.  Composting, particularly done on site, is the foundation of the system and biodiversity is the lifeblood. Biodynamics encourages animal integration, perennial plants, flowers, trees and open space, such as wilderness corridors where a wide variety of insects and microbes can thrive.  And, as with all good farming practices, proper crop rotations and cover crop plantings are a must.

What sets biodynamics apart is the use of homeopathic “medicines” called preparations, or preps, in addition to the biodynamic calendar that charts astronomical cycles and their relationship to the sun, moon and planets.  (Fullmer emphasizes that it is the science of astronomy not the pseudo-science of astrology.)  Each preparation is composed of natural ingredients, such as quartz or chamomile that is incorporated into the farm through compost or water.  The calendar, in turn, is a guideline recommending the optimal times to perform certain duties such as planting and harvesting.  The preps, in conjunction with the calendar, are meant to enliven the energetic forces already in play through good farming practices on the farm.

Biodynamics originated in Austria in 1924 with Rudolph Steiner, a renowned scientist and philosopher, after a number of local farmers questioned the effects of the new chemicals on their farms.  Even at that time farmers were already seeing negative consequences.  Through a series of lectures titled “On Agriculture” Steiner outlined his perspectives on the relationship between the earth, soil and cosmos detailing methods on how to enrich these connections to eliminate the need for external chemical inputs.  Biodynamics has changed little since that time, keeping its philosophical lineage in tact.

Today, there are 4,200 biodynamic growers and producers in 43 countries from Germany to South Korea.  In the United States, that number is about 200 and growing, still a tiny percentage of the two million remaining farms left in the United States, of which 14,000 are certified organic, according to the U.S. Agricultural Census.  Demeter International is the global certification organization that oversees the country certifiers to ensure strict upholding of requirements and regulations.  I had a unique opportunity to speak with Demeter-USA Executive Director Jim Fullmer, who is also full-time berry farmer, on biodynamics and its role in agriculture today.

How did you come to biodynamics and why?

JF: It was just a natural progression.  This is something you will hear a lot from farmers.  We all start out working with agriculture and agronomy.  Back in the 1970s when organic was more of a movement than an industry it was pretty influential for me back in those days.  I was involved in Oregon Tilth, which began as a grassroots movement.  And once you become closer with your work by observing your farm, observing nature and pondering how you can manage what is already inherent in it, biodynamics is simply a natural progression as you understand the wider connections that are happening.  As a result, using the preparations, for instance, is just recognizing the importance of harnessing those wider connections in the management of a farm.  Practicing biodynamics is an act more than an industry.

Were you skeptical at all before using the preps?

JF: No, not at all, as I said it is just a natural progression.  For me it wasn’t like it oftentimes happens today where the preps are laid in front of farmers and they don’t have a base with which to understand them.  At times it can be kind of putting the cart before the horse sort of thing.  But even if the farmers are already practicing organic of not, I have spoken with so many of them who agree that the act of farming is a spiritual thing; it really is.  Farmers understand that it is spiritual in the sense that the rising and setting of the sun, the seasons and, thus, the life of the earth dictates their lives.

What is happening with conventional and commercial farming?  Have these methods removed the necessity of observation?

JF: Everything has been put into a spreadsheet where management, labor and machinery don’t have a personal connection to the farm and thus no one is observing the rhythms of the farm.  Maximizing yields is the goal.  In so doing, we have lost touch with the art of agriculture, which is ancient and instinctive.  This loss is all very recent, really, within the last 100 years.  This is such a small period of time overall, essentially one generation.  If you look at if from that perspective is it shocking that it happened so fast.

Conventional agriculture as is practiced today is such a new, untested thing and it is already taking a nosedive.  The pressure of pests and disease are tremendous.  Chemicals lose their effectiveness because pests develop a resistance leading to the development of more chemicals to overcome the resistance and so it has become all about trying to dominate biology.  And it is not working.  If you look at it from a long-term model it is clear it is not going to work.  This is why there is a lot of effort being put into the buzzword of “sustainable” that is being marketed to death and yet it is meaningless.  The reason it is coming up is valid as folks are realizing something is wrong.  It is just a question of whether it will be too late.

Can biodynamcs be applied to global agriculture?

JF: Yes, and it is actually the one movement of the organic association that is connected internationally.  The organic movement has evolved toward the industrial model where you now have the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the European Union (EU) unable to agree on the definition of “organic,” which has created trade barriers and complicated issues.  Biodynamics has maintained its original international identity since the beginning in 1924.

What countries have the most Biodynamically certified farms today?

JF: Germany overall, and the European continent in general.  Biodynamics has been a major part of the marketplace there way before organic was coined or recognized as a product. In Europe it is more understood because biodynamics originated there.  It has bore the responsibility of carrying its roots forward without being arrogant about it.  And not that the Biodynamic movement is perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  It tends to unfortunately sometimes have this holier than thou attitude and it shouldn’t.  It isn’t a new faddish industry.  It represents the foundation of sustainable agriculture and upholds organic fundamentals, like closing nutrients loops on the farm, integrating animals back into the system, and having biodiversity on the farm.  These concepts can’t be ignored.  It is an interesting reality in America that people are slowly learning.

Why do you think Americans are a bit more resistant to it and what are the challenges to making the connection?

JF: Biodynamics has been portrayed primarily with a heavy emphasis on the preparations and the spiritual side of things, which is wonderful and there is a lot of passion there, but there hasn’t been the necessary emphasis on basic good agronomy.  So this can be confusing.  We have a very potent message that “this farm is a self contained system and these are the social benefits of that.”  For example, instead of shipping bird guano halfway around the world to your farm, generate it on your farm.  You are not burning oil to move it around and you are developing natural resources and creating an ecosystem that is healing the earth on your own site.  If presented in this way for the U.S. consumer it actually isn’t that hard.  Biodynamics is essentially the origin of organic.  These are the key core values of organic.  When the consumer understands this they are really shocked to hear it.

Is there a possibility of federal government becoming involved in Biodynamic certification?

JF: I hope not.  But there is a possibility and this is why.  If you look back to the 1970s when the original organic certifiers popped up, like the Oregon Tilth and the CCOFs they were philosophically driven movements based by region.  With these base original certifiers in place, the consumers started to realize that “organic” means something and they wanted it.  With increased demand came more organic certifiers.  The problem was that most of these certifiers all defined “organic” a little differently and the consumer got confused.  So the government stepped in and gave it a standard definition, which led to the National Organic Program (NOP).

Demeter remains an international member country organization.  We at Demeter-USA uphold a base minimum of international standards and then many countries move beyond that, which is what we do here in the United States.  That is why in any given country you only find one biodynamic certifier and it has been that way for close to a 100 years.  Part of the reason for providing our own certification and trademark is to keep it out of the hands of congress.  The USDA has enough problems with organic, can you imagine having them trying to define biodynamic?  Demeter is a not-for-profit organization and our mission is to respect agriculture in this country, not become this huge mega business.

What is the most devastating issue facing agriculture today?

JF: Probably globalism because there are no solutions whatsoever for it.  The food thats coming from all of these other countries is putting American farmers out of business and the local food model is going to be the only way to sustain them regardless of whether they farm conventionally, organically or biodynamically.  And then all of the methods that come with such an industrial approach to agriculture, which is killing the earth.  I can safely say that, because industrial agriculture is destroying its biodiversity and deforesting huge areas for globalism. 

What trends are you seeing?

JF: We get all kinds of people in our office and they are not always organic farmers.  We get a surprising number of conventional farmers that are good farmers.  And that is the flip side; there are plenty of good conventional farmers that are practicing good crop rotation and incorporate livestock into their system and they really cherish the rural American landscape.  We also get a fair number from the organic movement.  Mostly people are curious about what biodynamics is and how it moves beyond the organic system really perks people’s ears up.

Other questions revolve around understanding the preps and the moon’s affect on farming.  But they always lead up to the larger questions of managing your farm as a system instead of a machine and the economic value of that.  Some of the earlier press material has trashed biodynamics as being a bunch of hippies when it is actually one of the most conservative concepts out there – it almost defines conservatism.  It encourages self-reliance and creating resources not destroying them.  If you think all of this through it is not radical at all, and in fact is extremely conservative and rational.

What would our world look like if everyone turned to biodynamics?

JF: It would be totally transformed and that is not going to happen.  Biodynamics is a personal and spiritual path and you can’t expect every farmer to experience it.  But if did it would literally turn our society inside out.  There would be local food systems, people would realize the earth itself is a living organism and treat it as such.  It would be a major transformation.  It is coming, though I should say that biodynamics is not the only answer, it is one of many. 

If you look at indigenous agriculture this concept happens a lot and it has for thousands of years.  Biodynamics is a Germanic interpretation of a similar stream you will see in native American culture, Egyptian culture, ancient Chinese culture – agriculture is connected to a wider reality and for thousands of years humanity has realized that and harnessed that and it has only been a hundred years where we have forgotten this.  And it is shocking.

What do you see for the future of biodynamics?

JF: There is going to be a lot of interest in the marketplace.  Demeter is growing about 20% a year.  In 2004 we were at 30 members and now we are pushing 200 so I can see the number of Demeter certifications increasing up to the 2000 range within the next five years. And that is still small.  It isn’t even a measurable percentage of U.S. agriculture.  The organic marketplace is a much smaller segment than people actually realize and I can see biodynamics becoming a bigger part of the organic marketplace over the next few years.

Biodynamic agriculture really hits home once you are doing it.  It happens that one day when you step back and say to yourself, “My God this place is alive and thriving,” and that is when it becomes real.  It is really about getting more farmers to understand because they are the ones who are going to get it.  That is all that matters.

For more information on Demeter-USA please visit the website at: www.demeter-usa.org/

For information on biodynamic seeds visit Turtle Tree Seed Company at: www.turtletreeseed.org/

The “U-PICK BLUEBERRIES” sign appeared like a mirage to Matt Bardas on a recent Monday afternoon.  Unlike the June gloom that blanketed Los Angeles that day, the Santa Ynez Valley was glowing in summer sunshine and Bardas was hot and thirsty.  He had biked 60 miles that day from Carpinteria along the California central coast and the final uphill stretch from the Gaviota Tunnel on the 101 highway had kicked his you-know-what for the last five miles.  It’s the kind of steep that cars struggle breathing up.  Relief hit when Bardas saw the open gate at the Santa Barbara Blueberries farm where he reenergized with a pint of fresh blueberries and a can of cold soda in the shade.

Matt Bardas happy after eating fresh-picked blueberries.

Researchers have been touting blueberries as a superfood for a few years now because of its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory health benefits.  Consumers have responded by reaching for all the blueberries they can get their hands on.  Over the course of 25 years, North American blueberry production has increased from 90 million pounds in 1980 to more than 330 million pounds in 2006, according to U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council statistics.  Today, Michigan, the leader in blueberry production in the U.S. produces 99 million pounds alone.  “The boom in blueberry consumption comes from the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical value the fruit carries,” University of California Extension Small Farm and Specialty Crop advisor Mark Gaskell said.

This nourishing news is anything but surprising to cultures that have been regularly consuming blueberries for centuries.  Blueberries are one of the few native fruits to North America that botanists have traced back 13,000 years.  Native Americans used blueberries in all forms – fresh, dried, juiced, powdered, leaves, roots, and all to cure a number illnesses, not to mention simply because they’re delicious.  Plus, they are one of the only naturally blue foods around, something kids can get a kick out.  “The entire fruit is 100% edible and easy to eat, sweet, often sweeter than strawberries, and the world is crazy for strawberries,” Gaskell said.  “You can pop them in your mouth and kids love them.”

Santa Barbara Blueberries has proven to be a blueberry-lovers dream as a steadily growing stream of U-Pickers young and old eagerly anticipate the opening salvo each year to hand-harvest these baby blue powerhouses.  The farm’s 22.5 acres are planted in 14 different blueberry varieties amidst a 1,000-acre ranch cozy-up against the Santa Ynez Valley Mountain range.  It’s hard to beat the view and once inside the highway seems miles away.  “Having all the people here in the field is a joy as everyone is remarkably well behaved and respectful of the plants,” said ranch foreman Tom Lemkuil.  “And since there are no thorns on blueberry bushes even little kids can come and pick blueberries.”

Seven years ago when ranch owner Rolland Jacks bought the property, he was interested in a potential secondary cash crop.  He consulted Gaskell who recommended blueberries, which were just starting to be grown commercially in California.  For those first few years, blueberries proved quite profitable for Jacks in the wholesale arena, but once the large swaths of San Joaquin Valley blueberry plantings began to produce, smaller growers like Jacks couldn’t compete.  Thankfully, Jacks had a niece who suggested from the beginning that he start a U-Pick operation because of the farms proximity to the 101-highway easily accessible to tourists and locals who regularly traverse the road.  When the California wholesale market began to glut, Santa Barbara Blueberries shifted to target smaller local markets and the increasing consumer demand for grower-direct produce.

Blueberries are a relatively novel crop for California as blueberries traditionally require cooler climates with ample chilling hours for superior production, as large producers such as Michigan, Washington and Maine can attest to.  But rocketing consumer demand for blueberries propelled plant breeders to create newer varieties able to grow successfully in warmer environments targeting earlier harvest schedules.  Today states such as Florida, Mississippi and Georgia are also large blueberry producers bringing the total number of blueberry growing states in the U.S. to 36.  Once you add Canada into the mix, North America currently produces 90% of the world’s blueberries, according to the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council.  Five hundred metric tons is exported to Japan alone.

In our current global market, when the northern hemisphere is dormant, Chile is the leading blueberry producer, along with Argentina, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, that capture the international blueberry market from mid-October to mid-March.   A number of years back, just as the last South American shipments were reaching worldwide markets in mid-April, there was an international fresh blueberry void for a month or so before the North American season began.  To fill this four to six week inefficiency, warmer areas began planting newer blueberry varieties that produced much earlier.  Morocco has also recently joined the blueberry brigade, according to Gaskell who is consulting with farmers there.  Because its climate characteristics are similar to Central California’s, growers are filling the European market void as California has fed the American one.

Margaret, Margarita and Suzanna from Santa Barbara after a hot day of picking blueberries

Blueberries are one of the few fruits that can sustain long distance travel.  By the time South American blueberries reach U.S. and European markets, for instance, if not flown by plane, they have already been at sea in temperature-controlled cold storage containers for weeks.  Add in harvest and processing time and in some instances buyers are eating “fresh” blueberries 30 to 60 days old.  As such, consumers have responded favorably to having fresh blueberries that may be a bit more expensive at times but only have to travel a few days by truck as opposed to months.  Of course, the freshest blueberries come from harvesting them yourself and U-Pick operations like Santa Barbara Blueberries are gaining a larger customer share as people are also seeking to reconnect one-on-one with growers.  In this scenario farmer’s benefit by receiving favorable market prices and everyone benefits from maintaining agricultural lands in their environment.

In less than a decade of production, California is already ranked among the top five blueberry producing states in the country with 8000 acres harvesting more than 30 million pounds of blueberries each year and counting.  Santa Barbara Blueberries alone harvests about 35,000 pounds a year Lemkuil said and that number, too, will grow as the plants mature.  In colder climates, blueberry plants live anywhere from 40 to 60 years.  In warmer climates where plants stay evergreen all year their lifespan may be reduced to 30 years or so, though it is early to tell.  Most of California’s plantings are currently in their late teen years.

This year Santa Barbara Blueberries opened their season on April 24^th and depending on the weather may extend to Labor Day if lucky.  “It has been foggy in the mornings and in the mid-80s during the day so it is looking good so far for a long season again,” Lemkuil said.  Blueberry bloom is very weather dependent.  As soon as temperatures reach in the 90s for extended periods plants begin to shut down.  Therefore, prolonged blooming is dependent on cooler temperatures.  But not worry, because all those buckets you just picked at your local farm can last all winter in your freezer.  Just take Ken Warkentin’s advice.  He’s been running the Santa Barbara Blueberries farm stand these days.  He freezes the big ones, eats the medium sized ones right away, saves the small ones for pancakes and muffins, and lets the green ones sit on the counter to ripen.  Get yours while still available and don’t forget to wear a hat!  Find a U-Pick location near you by checking your state’s department of agriculture website or local extension office.

Ken Warkentin at Santa Barbara Blueberries

Santa Barbara Blueberries is open everyday during the harvest season and is located at 1980 Highway 101, Gaviota, Calif. Ph: (805) 686-5718.

For more information on University of California Extension blueberry research visit their website here.

U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council information is at www.blueberry.org.

It’s official.  Beekeeping is cool.  The Obamas are doing it.  Hipster Silverlake kids do it (and tweet about it).  Many of your neighbors are doing it.  Most importantly, farmers are way into it and what could be cooler than that?  According to Los Angeles Honey Company owner Larry Walker, he hasn’t seen this much bee excitement since the early 1970s when the “back to the land nature” movement was all the craze.  For this family owned company since 1957, and one of the last honeybee supplier’s left in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, this current resurgence is like nothing they’ve seen over the last half-century Walker said.  This year, his store has experienced a 35% boost in entry-level beekeeping sales; just part of a movement he says that is sweeping the country.  “We have seen a lot of new faces here, though a few have changed their minds once they realized beekeeping means that at some point you are going to get stung,” Walker said.

Walker attributes the latest honeybee trend to a number of things.  First off, he said, greater media awareness for the current honeybee plight called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has awakened the public to overall environmental issues and whetted their appetite to be actively involved.  Secondly, many of the urban-dwellers who are taking up beekeeping find it a relaxing, outdoor alternative to their mostly indoor stressful lives.  And, of course, the Obamas have given honeybees the biggest plug of all.  “People actually come in and say, ‘the White House has honeybees so I want to keep honeybees,’” he said, referring to First Lady Michelle Obama’s decision to keep two honeybee hives on the south lawn.

My interest with honeybees began as a young girl watching my great-grandfather and great-uncle suited up in white bee protective gear, face mesh and all, pulling out frames for bee inspection from the numerous hives my great-grandfather kept in his yard.  That was in the late 1970s.  My great-grandfather stopped keeping bees soon after that, yet my entire family is still eating the dark decadent chestnut honey harvested 40 years earlier from those ultra-productive bees.

Jump to the present day and for the first time in my life I witnessed two massive swarms of honeybees sweep through the backyard in the form of a whirling dervish, cluster on a nearby branch, and no sooner had they huddled together, buzzed off quicker than you can squeeze honey from a honey bear.  Winter rains brought abundant spring blooms for bee forage, swelling colonies and firing up their instinct to swarm.  During a swarm, the elder queen bee takes half the colony to find a new home, while the new queen is reared with the remaining half to repopulate the old hive.  I must admit, I, too, was excited by the prospect that perhaps the bees would create an exposed comb colony right there in the tree, believing they were a fortuitous presence.

So, after all this positive new hoopla, who would have thought those cute little honeybees marauding the property for food could actually create some controversy?  After all, most summer afternoons they are so weighted down carrying mouthfuls of nectar and burdensome barbells of golden pollen wrapped around their skinny legs they are barely able to “beeline” back to their colony.  Well, it seems that honeybees are at the center of a pollinator maelstrom that has created a heated debate between a plethora of environmental, agricultural, economic, and plain old sweet-toothed hobbyist beekeepers.  The issues are many, but some of the main ones include discovering the cause of CCD, the commercialization of bees, native versus invasive species pollination and habitat destruction.  The one thing all sides agree upon, though, is the importance of healthy honeybee populations and other pollinators for the environment.

Many environmentalists and honeybee hobbyists believe commercial beekeepers that truck their bees around the country renting hives for agricultural pollination overwork and overstress their bees, exposing them to unnecessary pesticides and other farm chemicals suspecting of causing CCD.  The also argue that honeybees, which are by definition an invasive species brought hundreds of years ago from Europe, eliminate native bee populations, resulting in the degradation of native habitat.  Others contend that habitat destruction for development is causing problems for native pollinators, not honeybees, and that the two types of bees work more effectively together rather than alone in habitat restoration and agricultural crops.  And growers and agricultural economists maintain that without commercial honeybee pollination, we couldn’t produce the quantity of food we do because native pollinators just aren’t enough.

According to the California Department of Food and Agriculture estimates, the total value of crops pollinated by honeybees in California in 2008 was $6,512,889,100.  About 100 crops in the state use honeybees for pollination, including almonds (one of the largest and most expensive bee migrations in the country), walnuts, plums, avocados, figs, citrus, pomegranates, dates, artichokes, cucumbers and more.  Across the country, honeybees are responsible for pollinating one-third of our overall food supply.  According to University of California-Davis Entomologist and Extension Apiculturist Eric Mussen, about one-third of our daily food supply is either directly or indirectly connected to bees.  The direct connection is obvious with the sample list above, but the tangential connection is equally as important, such as with seed production that relies on pollination to produce adequate seed.

The only positive outcome from CCD Mussen said is the infusion of funding for honeybee research from a number of organizations, such as Hagen Daz and Burt’s Bees that rely on the honeybee products.  Mussen said previous instances of mass bee deaths have occurred in the past, but have not been this prolonged.  CCD, which kills the majority of adult worker bees eventually collapsing the entire colony, has been ongoing since 2003.  Unfortunately, the primary causes of CCD are still a mystery, though the fact that researchers had already sequenced the honeybee genome proves crucial now toward investigating the problem.

Some possible causes scientists are studying include bacterial, fungal and/or viral diseases, newer classes of potent insecticides, tracheal and Varroa mites, global warming for the stress it places on bees having to endure longer or shorter periods of heat or cold, or perhaps a combination of all the above.  “It is not the fault of the commercial beekeepers that CCD is starting,” Mussen said.  “You can actually see it happen – which bees go first and the resulting consequences to the hive.  We thought this would be simple with simple answers but there doesn’t seem to be anything simple about any of this.  This is a horribly complex problem and on a scale of 1 to 10 we may be at a 2 toward understanding it, but the good thing is that you don’t have to be at a 10 for things to eventually get better.”

If you are interested in getting your own bees, beekeepers strongly recommend reading books, taking classes and getting involved with one of the hundreds of local beekeeping organizations found across the country before starting.  These organizations will help you better understand local beekeeping regulations.  They also stress that keeping happy bees involves a lot of work, so be prepared, though the rewards are worth it.  In addition, be sensitive toward your neighbors by asking them first if they contest to your plan.  Keeping bees near someone with a bee allergy could prove deadly.

Perhaps most importantly, according to Mussen, you must ensure that bees have enough space to find adequate food and water.  Each hive needs approximately one acre of bloom found within the four mile radius in which bees forage from spring until late fall.  So plant plenty of bee friendly flowers suitable for your area and suggest your neighbors do the same.  Winter bloom is great, too, such as from Eucalyptus trees in California that flower in that season.  He also encourages everyone to reduce or eliminate the amount of chemicals – including fungicides, pesticides, herbicides – and all the other “-cides” that kill things to protect the overall environment, including our beloved honeybee.

Queen Bee surrounded by her workers in a new hive. She is off-center to the right without stripes.

The Pollinator Partnership has organized the Fourth Annual National Pollinator Week from June 21-27, 2010.  For more information, including regional planting guides and other pollinator resources visit them here at www.pollinator.org.

For information from the Western Apicultural Society at the University of California-Davis Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, visit www.groups.ucanr.org/WAS. Or contact Eric Mussen, Extension Apiculturist at ecmussen@ucdavis.edu.

The Los Angeles Honey Company is located at 1559 Fishburn Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90063, ph: (323) 264-2383.  No website is available.

To find an abundance of bee resources across the country, visit Bee Culture, the Magazine of American Beekeeping at www.beeculture.com.

For a different twist on conventional beekeeping, visit the Backward Beekeepers at www.beehuman.blogspot.com/.

The Los Angeles County Beekeepers is run by Walter McBride of McBride Apiaries.  Phone: (818) 730-9510.  Email: waltmcbride@yahoo.com

Beekeepers Association of Southern California is found at www.basc.org.