Project Summary

A Detour by Way of the Beehive: Traditional Apiculture in a Changing World

United Kingdom, Tanzania, Egypt, India, Russia, Germany

For my Watson year I studied the traditions of six distinct beekeeping cultures and examined how they have been shaped by globalization, industrialization, and environmental change. I interacted with an ancient subspecies of honey bee in Egypt, worked with killer bees in Tanzania, and climbed to beehives in century old trees in Russia. Furthermore, I traced the traditions of Britain from skepping to natural beekeeping and learned how to work with three different honey-producing species in India. I also apprenticed with a biodynamic beekeeper in southern Germany. While convening with beekeepers and honey bees in each country I explored the human-bee relationship as a broader metaphor for how people relate to nature, studied how cultures maintain local beekeeping traditions, and documented methods that could deliver modern apiculture from its current state of distress.