Mission Statement

The Save the Honeybee Foundation is an educational and research organization dedicated to providing pristine, protected habitat – sanctuary – for honeybees in order to control for variables that we believe to be stressors on the immune system of the bee. These stressors challenge the bee’s ability to heal from disease states that are killing hives worldwide.

These “stress variables” include, but are not limited to, automobile pollution, airwave pollution, pesticide and herbicide use in the environment, dramatic reduction in the numbers of wildflowers, as well as conventional and large-scale commercial beekeeping practices.

As part of this effort, the Foundation will develop and practice methods of keeping bees designed to enhance the overall health and well-being of the bees and to prevent disease states from occurring. These methods include, but are not limited to, non-invasive, holistic hive management techniques; the inclusion in habitat of high quality medicinal herbs and other plants for pollen and nectar sources; and the use of vitalistic and biodynamic healing techniques.

The final goal of the Foundation will be to raise honeybee awareness and to disseminate the results of our practices through published written works and apprenticeships within the sanctuary.

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Vision

Our vision is of a sanctuary where honeybees and medicinal herbs and plants are held sacred. The sanctuary will be located on pristine land. Caretakers and guests of the sanctuary will be asked to cultivate a sense of heart-centered reverence in relationship to the bees and plants. Indeed, caretakers will develop the capacity to acknowledge the spirit and intelligence of the plants and bees and to perceive the living world with the heart. In cultivating the use of the heart as an organ of perception we follow the work of Stephen Buhner, Jake Felsenstein, Masanobu Fukuoka, and Henry David Thoreau. While our understanding and use of vitalistic and biodynamic healing techniques are our own unique creations, they have been informed by our readings of Rudolf Steiner and Juliet de Bairacli Levy.

Within the sanctuary honeybees will live in hives with natural honeycomb, with minimal foundation designed to allow the honey harvest and observation of the hive to occur with minimal disturbance to the bees. The bees will both forage from, and receive biodynamic teas from, the medicinal herbs and plants in the sanctuary. Queens will be raised by the bees themselves, according to the natural instincts of the hive. In addition, we will not manipulate the drone population. Sugar or other imitation hive foods will not be fed to the bees. We will use vitalistic and biodynamic approaches to the treatment of varroa mites. These holistic beekeeping techniques were developed from within our own apprenticeship relationship with the bees and are closely aligned with the ideas of Gunther Hauk (Spikenard Farm and Apiary) and Michael Thiele (Melissa Garden).

Plants and medicinal herbs will be understood to be teachers and healers and will be grown and harvested with care, respect and gratitude. The forage and teas the bees receive from these plants will thus be infused with this heart-centered energy, as will the healing products that will be created from the plants and the hives. Our understanding of plants has been guided by the written works of Stephen Buhner, Gail Edwards, Pam Montgomery, and Susun Weed, to name just a few.

We intend to create a refuge away from the stress and toxins that have become our culture’s norm. We dedicate ourselves to beauty, love and gratitude and from this dedication we will create our honeybee and medicinal plant sanctuary.


To beauty we awaken
To love we remember
To joy we will flower
And with our love
We will merge
And plant the seeds in the heart of our Earth Mother.