Saving the honeybee one beekeeper at a time!

Dear Friends,

Akin to the great gifts that 2018 gave us in terms of expanding our on-farm educational programs, in 2019 we are staying true to the core of our mission by extending our outreach into the world.  We are now called to engage more actively with a wider audience and bring the message of healing our relationship to the bees and the earth to ever larger circles.  There are a number of ways in which we plan to do this, and we need your support to make it happen!  The activities that will spread the message of Spikenard further in 2019:

-Teaching a 6-month webinar course called Foundations of Biodynamic Beekeeping which already has people signed up from 7 different countries and all across North America.  For people that can't make it to the Sanctuary but who are serious about beekeeping, this is a great place to learn our methods and join a cohort of other beekeepers from around the globe who are taking up sustainable biodynamic beekeeping.  In partnership with the Biodynamic Association.

-Continuing to publish articles, and coming out with a new book on Spikenard methods of beekeeping.

-Building collaborations with national and international organizations with like-minded missions who we can collaborate with in promoting solutions to the honeybee crisis.  We are scheduled to speak already at several major agricultural and beekeeping conferences in 2019, including the Virginia Association for Biological Farming Conference, The Biodynamic Conference 2019 in Lake George, Master Gardeners Symposium, and more.

-Teaching about beekeeping, supporting native pollinators, gardening and pedagogy at different Waldorf schools across the country, in partnership with AWSNA.  Part of our educational mission is to help schools bring more awareness of the honeybees onto campus, into curriculum, and into the wider community.  Planting forage for the bees is a great way to start transforming campus and ‘setting the table’ for the honeybees to begin a relationship with the students.  Offering advice and helping to assess the possibilities for honeybee forage, native pollinator forage and housing sites, and bringing honeybee hives to different schools are all initiatives that we can help with.  Giving talks and lectures to all ages of the student body, as well as to teachers, parents, staff, and other local interested parties are all often part of our school visits. 

All this outreach activity means that we are taking on more work, and we are therefore in a phase of capacity building wherein we are growing our staff to fit the growth of the organizations impact.  This year we are already in the process of hiring 2 staff and 4 interns:

-Biodynamic Farmer-Gardener, Full Time Year Round

-Marketing and Outreach, Part Time Year Round

-And 4 new interns who will come to work, and learn along with us for three month durations.

These positions will help to free myself (Alex) up quite a bit from the day-to-day farm responsibilities so that more of his and the other Co-Directors (Gunther and Vivian) efforts can be channeled toward the important expansion of our message to our greater audience.  This, we hope, will also serve to bring more people to eventually come to the Sancutary to witness the devoted work for the honeybees and the beautiful flowering landscape first-hand.

Sending deep gratitude to all of you, and please feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.

Yours,

Alex