The Bee Circus

An Encyclobeedia of Beehaviors

Bill Whipple & Todd Smith1

Under nature’s “Big Top” is a mayhem of amazing, small performers, and arguably the greatest show on Earth. There are the agile tightrope walkers who spin webs of exquisite intricacy, the laughable clown beetles that bumble through the garbage, the sinister scorpions that strike fear and awe with their fast as lightning reflexes, the mystical, lovely, and graceful Madame Butterfly who hypnotizes all that gaze upon her.

And don’t forget the strong worm who can lift 60 times its own weight. Then there are the aerial artists that belong to that gypsy race of pollinators that keep the whole show running. One in particular produces nature’s purest and finest delicacys — honey. The family of bees is as prevalent in our environment as the sound “B” is in our vocabulary. So ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves to bee amazed and bee dazzled beeyond beelief....

Let the show beegin!!!!!!

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BeeCome

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Beefore Which came before... bees or flowers? Primitive plants, like pine trees produce copious amounts of pollen carried by the wind for pollination. Somewhere along the way insects evolved and plants discovered that given a little incentive like sweet nectar and nutrient rich pollen, the insects could be persuaded to pollinate individual flowers requiring much less pollen. The elaborate designs of flowers and insects are yet another indication of the genius of nature and a testament to the theory of “success to the most cooperative�.

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Beelief Bees have been the object of man’s fascination since the dawn of his time.

Ancient civilizations worshipped bees for their mysterious behavior and for the “food of the gods� they offered. Thought to be the first animals domesticated by man, bees were an important connection to the ever mysterious Divine, an observable glimpse into the order, balance, and intelligence of nature. With their six-sided crystalline structures, the efficient way they work, their collective decision-making, and the selfless love and devotion they show for their hive, it is believed that they personify the next evolution of humans. In nature there is order, balance, and intelligence, but it is too big and too complex for us to grasp.

Bees exemplify it and make it so you can taste it.

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Bee hive If you look at individual bees closely, you’ll notice that they all have a little different style from hive to hive. Some are small with wider black bands around their abdomen.

Some are more yellow, some are fuzzier, some may have different markings on their heads, some are longer...

All of these variations indicate the genetic diversity of this species that covers a large portion of the Earth. Diversity is life’s greatest strength.

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Beeguile Propagation is essential for species survival. Many flowers have co-evolved with insects and must make themselves as appealing to the bees as possible for many plants depend on bees for pollination. They beguile the bees with beautiful colors and distinct, fanciful designs.

Thus bees can easily identify nectar giving plants while roaming around. Healthy and vibrant flowers suggest a better nectar source. The bees will favor it with visits to collect that nectar and spread its genetics. Honey bees are noted for their “flower fidelity�, meaning that once they begin foraging on a certain plant species they will exclusively forage on it until a better source is found. This is important because flowers can only be pollinated from like flowers. The well being of the plant is as important to the bee, as the well being of the bee is to the plant.

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Beeswax

Spelling Bee

Bees have tiny hairs all over their

When scout bees find a source of food they are excited

bodies and to a plant they are

about, they want to spread the news to the colony and

flying paint brushes. Nature’s

say “Extra extra read all about it!” They spell

intelligence has designed

this out to their hive mates by dancing a jig. They also

these follicles to catch pollen

need to tell their compatriots exactly where it is in the

inadvertently on the bee while

three mile range around the hive that they need to

she is foraging and thus deposit

forage. They shake in very specific ways, do turns and

it as she goes from flower to

walk back and forth to tell the

flower. This would not be nearly

fellow foragers where to fly

as effective on a smooth bodied

in relation to the

bee. It really is no skin off the

sun, which is

bee’s back to pass a little pollen

their primary

around from plant to plant.

beacon for direction.

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Beelong If there is one bee the hive cannot live without, it is the queen. The queen is the endocrine system and the ovary of the hive, and the presence of her pheromone lets all the other bees know that everything is running smoothly. The other bees have evolved to manage very specific tasks like the organs in our bodies. It’s as if a hive is one individual made of loose parts. During her natural lifespan of an average of three years she can lay over 1000 eggs per day and as many as 5 million eggs in total, which explains why the queen’s body is significantly longer than the other bees.

During peak laying season she lays her own weight in eggs every couple of hours.

She has reproductive organs but is lacking digestive organs and is completely dependent on being fed by her attendants so she can focus on her duties.

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Beereave Sometimes a hive’s queen dies.

This upsets the hive immensely and the hum of the bees changes pitch.

They also can get more aggressive.

If they are lucky they can make an emergency queen from some of the last eggs the deceased queen laid.

Emergency queens are unfit to lead a full productive life, but serve the temporary purpose of keeping the hive alive until the bees can rear a proper queen. Otherwise, without a queen to continually repopulate, the hive will die out.

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Grubbee If you like to eat grubs, honey bee larvae is by far the filet mignon of bug cuisine. Many indigenous cultures relished in the abundance of protein available in insect young. Fed on honey and bee pollen and kept in sterile beeswax cells there is no reason why bee larvae isn’t an epicurean delight.

We all know that bears like to feed on bee hives, but the idea that they suffer all those bee stings for the honey is false. They are really after the grubs and the honey is only a condiment.

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Freebee

Beetween

A bee starts off as an egg and

When bees first emerge from their cells they are

grows into a larva in its own six

quite docile and are referred to as “nurse bees”.

sided cell that we call bee comb.

During this phase, their primary responsibility

After nine days immersed in a gel

is to care for the larvae. In essence, they are

the cell gets waxed over for the

baby sitters caring for their younger siblings,

bee to finish its pupation. Twenty-

responsible for the full timefeeding and

one days after the queen laid the

cleaning of the baby bees.

original egg the new bee is ready to eat its way out of the cell and makes its way to the front of the hive. Finally it is free where it makes its “orientation flight”. As it hovers around the front of the hive, it is memorizing the location of the hive in relation to the surrounding environment. When it comes time for the bee to begin to forage it can always find its way back home.

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Ambeedextrous There’s no denying that bees are some of the hardest working insects in the circus and, unlike us, they require no sleep and work 24/7. On top of that, they carry a load of responsibilities throughout their lives. After their first task of being a nurse bee runs its course, they mature into making wax and honey from nectar, building comb, packing honey and pollen into the comb, tending to the queen and regulating the hive’s temperature. Their final vocations are as scout bees, guard bees, and foragers gathering pollen and nectar from an area of about a 3 mile radius from their hive.

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Beeline Bees are not really known for sight seeing or lollygagging. The expression “beeline� comes from the fact that bees seldom stray from their intended path. They fly in a direct route to wherever it is they are going and they do it swiftly.

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When foraging they can make hundreds of trips a day from flower to hive. There may well be a thousand flights of fancy in that teaspoon of honey you put in your tea this morning.

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Frisbee Generally, bees are most often spotted hovering in the air as they go from flower to flower. In the bigger picture they hurl themselves away from the hive, and like a boomerang, always return to the same spot. If I move a hive more than a couple of feet in the middle of the day when there are bees out foraging, they will pile up where the hive was previously as they return.

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BeesKnees If you look closely at bees returning to the hive after foraging you’ll notice small patches of color around the knees of their back legs. These are “baskets” that the bees fill with pollen. Pollen is used as a protein source to feed the developing larvae. I can determine if a hive’s queen is alive by merely observing at the front entrance when foraging individuals are bringing in pollen. If I don’t see any, there is a good chance there is no developing larvae to feed which means there is no q ueen laying eggs.

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2 Beelieve it or Not

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Beefallen In the summertime during peak activity a worker bee’s hard working life is over in a mere three to six weeks. Determined to die in the harness, it will forage until it doesn’t make it home, worn out in service to the greater hive.

There is no retirement home for bees.

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Beelow In the 1840’s Reverend Lorenzo Langstroth noticed that the universal space that bees create between combs to do their work was about 3/8 of an inch. They are such efficient designers there is no wasted area in the hive. That goes for the front opening of the hive which can also be as small as 3/8� high so they can easily defend against marauders.

BarBeeQ Bees like it hot, but not too hot. In the summer the hive is kept at a constant 94 degrees. When it is very hot outside they will be stationed at the front entrance of the hive with their wings fanning fresh air into the hive. Beehives do best facing east with western shade. This is because hives warm up quickly in the morning so they can get a jump on the days work, but not use up energy to keep the hive cool in the afternoon sun.

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Bflat A bee’s world is anything but flat. You could say life in the hive is “a ball”. Bees do like to work their comb in flat rows, but overall the active hive is a round ball. At the center of the hive is the brood chamber where the queen lays her eggs in concentric circles. Adjacent to the brood chamber is a layer of pollen of many beautiful colors from pale y ellow to deep red. This food is kept within easy access of the brood.

Wrapped around the pollen is the honey which gives the hive its energy to function.

If you pull out a frame of comb it is like an MRI photo of the hive. You will see a beautiful rainbow pattern of circles.

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B minor The beehive is as dark as a mine and bees are the keepers of the gold inside. Only, instead of taking it, they are making it. In the hive, the bee’s true headlamp with which they orient themselves is scent, and they constantly communicate with one another this way.

A hive can have as many as 80,000 individuals inside at peak season during a “nectar flow� and run with clockwork efficiency in complete darkness.

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Beehold Bees don’t like to be confined and will sting you if they feel threatened. There is a time when they are quite docile and that is when they swarm. A swarm is when the hive gets so crowded that the queen leaves with half of the hive. The queen will land on a branch of a tree nearby with thousands of bees surrounding her in one big hanging ball.

It is truly something to behold. If you move the branch, the swarm sways back and forth like jello. At this point they don’t have a home to defend and are in a trance-like state. Scout bees fly back and forth from the swarm and when one has located a suitable new home the entire swarm departs in a matter of minutes

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Beehalf

Phobeea

If the bees “split the scene” by swarming

People tend to be fearful

there is no guarantee that you will be able to

of anything that looks like

persuade them to move into another one of

a bee. Fear is usually not

your hive boxes. Most often they fly away and

necessary, but respect

find a new place of residence to their liking.

is. 99% of the time

One way to keep them from swarming is to

when you see bees,

make a “split”. Making a split is a controlled

wasps, and hornets

way to divide your hive into two hives. In the

they are merely foraging

spring when the hive is really ramping up for

for food. They have a

the new season and the queen is laying eggs

natural affinity for sweet

like a machine gun, it can get overcrowded

things like fruit juice. If you

quickly. This sends the message to the bees

see a bee flying around when

that they need more room, and that they can

you have food, it is not angry.

also afford the extravagance of proliferating

If you disturb its nest that

themselves. They start making new queen

is another story.

cells to prepare for swarming. Before they

When I find a

actually swarm, the

hornet’s nest during

beekeeper will remove a frame with a queen

the summer, and it isn’t right

cell and borrow other frames with brood,

next to the house, I put a flag

pollen and honey and

nearby to remind me that it is

create a new hive while

there, leave it alone, and thank

giving the old hive more

it every time I walk by for all

room to grow.

the wonderful things hornets are doing for our world

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B Major Bees have worked hard for their honey, pollen and larvae, which are all valuable sources of nutrients and the key to the survival of the hive. These resources are in high demand from outsiders like ants, skunks, bears, and even other honey bees. There are older bees in the hive that are referred to as “guard bees� and they mean business.

They will defend the hive with their lives so the others can focus on their work.

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Crabbee On warm sunny days the bees are preoccupied with their work while most of the older bees are out foraging. If it is cloudy, windy or rainy, bees get crabby because they are stuck in the hive and can’t work. The bees can get irritated easily and will show aggressive behavior. Usually this means that they buzz around your head, sometimes smacking up against it, or get in your hair to run you off. If this doesn’t work they will take it to the next level...

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Bee hive When a bee stings you can smell a distinctive bee smell. This is their warning scent. It smells quite pleasant except for the feeling that follows. The bee has released this scent to signal her friends that the “sweet spot� has been found and her comrades will accumulate there to repeat the message. People react to bee stings in different ways, from breaking out in hives to swelling.

Despite the unfounded fear of bees, you have twice the chance of dying from lightning than you

B Sharp

do from a bee sting. Bee venom is made from formic acid and is the same compound found in ants and

...Honey bee stingers are not only sharp,

stinging nettles. Regardless of the

they are barbed, so when the stinger goes

administer, the burning feel is the

in it stays in. When the bee pulls away,

same. Bee venom has long been

the implanted stinger will drag the venom

considered therapeutic for people

sac out of its abdomen. The bee dies

who suffer from arthritis. They

making the ultimate sacrifice for the good

find that by inducing bees to sting

of the whole. I always try to use a knife

the afflicted area they get relief

to shave away the stinger and venom

from this

sac or else risk squeezing the sac and its

debilitating

remaining contents into my bloodstream.

disease as the medicine is far less painful.

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3

The Birds & The Bees

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SusanBeeAnthony “Women rule the roost� could never be truer than inside a beehive.

The population of a healthy hive during spring and summer is 90% female. All these girls are worker bees in various stages of development and duty save one, and she is the queen bee.

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BeeBeeKing There is no king bee in this matriarchal society ruled by the queen and her ladies in waiting. However, essential to reproduction, a small number of males are kept around and they are called “drones�.

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Chubbee The drones have no stingers, they do no work, they live completely off the hard work of the females, and they are distinguished by their fat bodies and large eyes. Their sole duty is to hang around in the singles-club-in-the-sky.

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Beetrothed The only reason the sisters keep the drones around is for them to be available in case a queen needs to be mated. After a queen hatches out she must take her nuptial flight to be mated and this will be all that is required to produce eggs for the remainder of her life. She will fly straight up towards the sun with the patrolling drones in hot pursuit and may the best drone win. This flight reduces the chance of her mating with one of her own drones which encourages strong genetic diversity.

WannaBee In the fall when the temperature drops, the bees, like everything else, go into hibernation. The drones wanna bee in the hive, but the mating season is over and there is no more need for them. The worker bees eat off their wings and toss them out of the hive to die. This keeps the males, who will be easily replaced in the spring, from eating up the hive’s winter stores.

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Lesbeeans Even in the dead of winter a healthy hive is kept at a constant 94 degrees. With all the males eliminated, the girls huddle together in a ball for the frigid season. They use their stored honey to create the energy to shiver in order to release heat and keep the hive warm.

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4

Beehavior

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Beehave If you plan on being around bees it is important to know how they behave. They have a long-standing distrust of large, lumbering, dark animals. Since they see the color red as black and black is the color of bears, it is not a good idea to wear either of those colors around bees. Any movement in front of the hive gets them on the alert and fast movement seems to make matters worse.

Most often you will see beekeepers in white suits standing behind the hive when they work and moving steadily and methodically trying not to bump the hives in any way.

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Beenign When beekeepers work their bees and “rob” the honey, the bees can become irritated no matter how careful you are. The beekeeper’s best friend is his smoker. This device holds material like smoldering dry pine needles, and the bellows blows the smoke into the hive. The bee’s immediate reaction is to go back into the hive and eat.

They will line up and gorge themselves on honey. The theory is when bees smell smoke they associate it with the forest on fire and instinctively store up on calories in case the fire forces them from their home. This belly full of honey has a remarkable effect of making them quite benign.

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Beevitamins

Honey and bee pollen are powerhouses of nutrition, energy and medicine. Pollen is a good source of B vitamins amongst many other attributes. Think about all the different sources of nectar plants the bees collect from to make honey. In nature these diverse flowers are most often perennial plants whose roots are mining trace nutrients from deep in the soil. These trace elements are essential to the bee’s health as well as our health. Since 1945, 76% of the trace elements in our food have disappeared. Eating natural foods like wildflower honey instead of processed sugar makes the need for vitamin supplements unnecessary.

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BeeWitched From the nectar of the flowers the bees make honey through a process of digestion and regurgitation. Honey has unique qualities that are used in traditional elixirs, herbal infusions, and medicinal syrups.

Honey can also be used for its antibacterial properties by being applied straight to a wound instead of antibiotic creme. Derived from the greater mysteries of the bee, honey evokes a magical quality in the products made from it. The origin of the word “Honeymoon� came from the belief that if a newlywed couple drank honey wine (mead) under a full moon then their first child would be a son.

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5

To Bee or Not To Bee

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Beethoven Man has long observed the usefulness of bees and has orchestrated them in a role for his circus. They were once cherished primarily for production of a concentrated sugar source found nowhere else in nature. Now that we have access to inexpensive processed sugar, honey has become merely a luxury byproduct of their service to man.

Pollination is now their essential function.

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BarBee

Cabbee

So man has created a

In 1990’s we witnessed our first mass die off of honey bees due to

designer bee, one that

the inadvertent introduction of the varoa and trachial mites. These

will most efficiently carry

were parasites hitching a ride on the bee’s backs and throats

out his tasks. Over the

respectively, feeding on them and ultimately weakening them.

years much of the bee’s

Medicating bees became a common practice with beekeepers, but

aggressive nature has

using insecticides when the host you are trying to save is an insect

been bred out of it and

is tricky business.

bee keepers have selected bees that make lesser amounts of propolis so they can devote all their energy to making honey. Propolis is what the bees use to line their hives and patch things together. It has antibacterial properties so it alsoacts as their immune system, ealing up the cracks so disease can’t enter.Any reduction of their natural defenses reduces their resiliency to environmental stress.

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Beetles When there is an invasion of a new species they often end up being very successful and it may take a while for the environment to bring things back into balance. The healthier the environment, the quicker balance is restored. If we use chemical pesticides to kill our new imports we also end up weakening many of the native species that would take care of the problem naturally if left to their own design. Nature may be slower, but it will do the job more thoroughly and indefinitely without detrimental effects to our environment. Its so much easier to just “let it be�.

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RugBee As circus performers doing their tricks for us, the bees must constantly be on the road.

Commercial bees are commonly shipped by the semi truckload from crop to crop to be pollinated all the while having their honey removed and fed cheap processed sugar. A large proportion of hives end up at the almond pollination in California for their grand finale.

Pollinating almonds is a problem because there are so many almond trees in one area and not enough native pollinators due to habitat loss and use of excessive chemical sprays.

Massive single crop agriculture like this is not possible without the gypsy honeybees that can be moved when a farmer begins to spray. Almond pollination in particular is hard on the bees because the flowers themselves have little nutrition. This time of year is well before bees are naturally ready to break dormancy when there is little native forage to sustain them.

Because there is so much renumerative compensation for this service beekeepers return again and again regardless of the many hives that die. The dead bees are shook out of the hive boxes like old rugs and replaced with new ones for the next season. It’s ironic that honey bees enable the very system that kills them.

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Beedraggled We are now learning to create emergency queens and splits in huge numbers to repopulate hives for the next season’s planned obsolescence. With man’s cohersion, bees are adapting to a system where hives are cloned, artificially reared on inexpensive processed sugar, exposed to agricultural chemicals and GMO pollen, heavily medicated to compensate for a stressed immune system, shipped around the country, and sent to California to die. A new industrial bee is evolving to keep the whole show running. With fewer and larger bee suppliers it is getting increasingly difficult to acquire naturally raised, genetically diverse bees suitable for traditional small scale sustainable beekeeping.

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Beewilder With all that man demands of this aerial gypsy, a susceptibility to parasites and diseases has increased to the point that bees are just vanishing from their hives in a condition referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The traditional beekeepers who don’t medicate their bees, and just let the weak hives die while reproducing new hives from the survivors, notice that these survivor bees are producing significantly more propolis. It would appear that we are letting them revert back to their original wild state of providing their own natural immune defense.

If allowed to their own devices through natural selection free of chemicals the most successful hives show signs of good hygienic habits that remove the larger parasites from each other without chemicals. Most exciting is that the hives that we can keep alive without chemicals are starting to look like a bowl of jelly beans. In the same hive you will witness bees of great variety in appearance. Since diversity is nature’s greatest strength these mongrels have a better chance of adapting to their unique local conditions. They are taking a different evolutionary road than their industrialized sisters. They know the more baskets they have their eggs in, the better chance they’ll have breakfast in the morning.

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RaBees So called “killer bees”, or more accurately, “Africanized bees”, have been making their way north to the United States since they escaped from a Brazillian bee breeding program in the 1950’s. The Africanized bees are a hybridization that has reverted back to more primitive traits. They don’t have rabies, but they retain a very strong sense of protecting the hive and maintain much smaller hives. Some fear that they will change our familiar European honey bee into a mad beast making it too difficult to work with them. Others contend that their genetics offer a chance for further hybridization that will give the bees the resiliency they need to survive the changes in the environment.

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Bumblebees Scientists say that bumblebees are so horribly designed aerodynamically that technically they shouldn’t be able to fly at all. Fortunately for bumblebees, they don’t know how to read scientific papers and they bumble along as one of our many native pollinators. These native pollinators aren’t as finicky as honeybees when it comes to pollinating plants in cold weather and rain, and are much more effective at it. When all my honeybees have died off in the past I was worried about my fruit trees being pollinated. Low and behold, come full bloom, the flowers were covered with a variety of native pollinators. It is very important to make sure that these natives have plenty of habitat and that they forage throughout the growing season on a wide diversity of flowers.

Native pollinators are very susceptible to pesticides and other harmful agricultural sprays because they live on site and cannot be moved like honeybees when its time for a farmer to use these chemicals. The Japanese have all but eliminated their native pollinators due to excessive use of agricultural chemicals and now rely on people for hand pollinating

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Beecause It is said that you get what you pay for.

This is true with food. Is saving a few dollars by shopping at a large supermarket chain instead of your local farmer’s market really worth the cost?... If the production of the industrial food kills off the pollinators, other beneficials, and life’s overall diversity?...

If it forces small family farmers off their farms and impoverishes the farming communities they live in?... If it erodes billions of tons of top soil each year, leading to desertification?...

If we can’t drink our water anymore?... If the air becomes harmful?... If it is the number one source of carbon release in the atmosphere?...

If it requires 10 calories of fuel to deliver 1 calorie of food?... If it at all adversely affects our health or the health of our children? What if, instead of having to buy bottled water, or buying vitamin supplements, medications and paying for doctors, or watching the obesity, malnutrition and mental instability degenerate our children, or paying taxes to the government for cleaning up messes made by mega corporations associated with industrial agriculture? All the while donating money to environmental organizations.

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Beestro What if instead, we just went down to our local farmer’s market and bought our food there? What if we bought fresh, good tasting, seasonal food from small diversified family farmers that smile at us and know us by name, who don’t use chemicals and whose practices actually improve the quality of the environment through farming, and work the land like it was the place they intend for their grandchildren to raise their kids and work the land? All the while keeping the wealth and jobs in your community? Would it be worth investing a few extra dollars into that kind of future?

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Derbee So the race is on. Are we just rounding the first bend, or are we on the home stretch heading for the finish? Where will you place your bets? Man, foaming at the mouth, seems to be digging his spurs into nature trying to get all he can get out of her as fast as possible, while the honey bee tries to hold on for dear life.

Will we go so fast as to leave the honey bee and the rest of nature’s diversity in our dust unable to catch up? Can we even finish the race without them?

What awaits us in the winner’s circle? A trophy is just an empty cup after all.

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ElizaBeethan To Bee or not to Bee? “That is the question ”

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Beeleave Believe it or not, we can change things for the better, or...

find someday that they may be gone 53

*APPE N D IX

What Can We Do? First off, buy food from farmers who don’t spray chemicals that inhibit diversity, natural balance, and the general health of the environment.

Negative action has negative effects just as positive action has positive effects. Protesting large agricultural corporations like Monsanto, ADM, Cargill and the like is a negative action leading to frustration and burnout. Why not instead support agriculture that is encourages health for all beings. Buying food from your local small farmers is a positive action that is regenerative for you and your family and seems to solve many if not all of the woes outlined. In America, we call ourselves a democracy. It is true to the extent that the only vote that counts is made with the dollars we spend. Where our votes go determines who has influence with the policy makers of this country. In regard to food policy, the good news is that if you cast a regretful vote in the morning for breakfast you can make a better decision for lunch. Blow that one, and there is always dinner. You don’t have to wait four years between elections. The polls are open at all consumer outlets at all times.

So how do we make choices with our dollars to change food policy? There is much deception broadcast from the USDA on behalf of large agri-businesses as well as small local farmers at local tailgate markets. That seems like a hopeless statement, But it is an invitation to step up personally and take a proactive role in national food policy one purchase at a time. This simple responsibility ends up influencing environmental policy as well as energy policy not to mention social policy! The label “organic” has become nothing more than a marketing scheme by the USDA. By no means is it an indication of integrity, good nutrition, or environmental policy. “Free range” or now even “local” are designations that have been usurped by those who wish to capitalize on people who mean to cast their “votes”

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conscientiously. Then what do we do?! Do we throw our hands up in well deserved disgust? It takes some thought and effort, but we can get to know our “candidates” (farmers) by talking to them at your local farmers market and if possible visiting their farm. We have a right to know about our food and to care about what we put in our bodies. Understandably, people feel awkward asking farmers question about their practices, it’s kind of like asking someone what religion they are. But I’m here to tell you, as a farmer, I love nothing more than hearing someone ask how I do what I love to do.

At the market I wish people would ask me questions like: Are you organic? Why (not) and what does that mean to you?

Do you use synthetics? If so, where and why?

What do you use for fertilizer?

What is your most challenging problem (bug, drought, etc)?

What is your solution for it?

How do you contribute to your community?

If you visit my farm: Ask to see my fertilizer and spray supplies.

Get a shovel and see how many worms you can find in a shovelful of soil. (You can tell more about a farmer by how many worms they have in their fields than any other single factor.)

Ask about the wild spaces I encourage and the habitat for beneficials that is created.

We really can make a difference in the world and we do it decision by decision every moment. It may feel a little disorienting at first, but in time, change will become comfortable.

This is how we turn our human experience into a regenerative spiral. This is how we make things better. This is how we heal this world. That is how we ultimately begin heal ourselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Bill Whipple has been a pear farmer and has been raising bees in West Virginia for 25 years. He devotes most of his work towards developing diversity on his farm to support a diversity of food product that he sells at the local farmer’s market. Bill believes human beings can make the world a more beautiful, bountiful, and blissful place. Proceeds of this book go towards continuing this work.

To see more of what Bill does go to: Barkslip.com

Todd Smith is a graphic designer living in Asheville, NC. After a long career working for non-profits, he now owns a green greeting card company that showcases some of his work along with other artists. Todd is also an avid street photographer, inventor/designer and grower of edible plants. He believes that the foundation of a sustainable society is a willingness to know and to obey the laws of nature. Todd’s e-books can be seen at: issuu.com/stewarttoddsmith ©

2014 All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or electronically stored or transmitted without permission from the authors.

Flights of Fancy Publications 29 Zephyr Drive Asheville, NC 28806 Book design: Todd Smith

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