When I travel I am looking to connect with the people and the place in a deep and authentic way. Yes… I want to read books and improve upon my tan, but I also want to feel connected to something outside of my ordinary range of experience.

Andrea dancing with new friends at a kava party in Lawena, Taveuni, Fiji.

I just got back from a trip to Fiji and was deeply touched by the depth of my visitor experience. I stayed in a number of places that were owned and run by Fijians, and in some cases owned and run by the village. The connection between my visitor dollars and the good it did in the communities where I stayed was real and immediate. I never felt so good spending money! In exchange, I got to experience Fijian nature and culture in a real, authentic way.

Andrea (at left), Mary and Fijian friends in Sabeto, Viti Levu.

Given my interest in food self-sufficiency, I was always on the lookout for how people were growing and harvesting food. In summary- cassava and taro, everywhere! There was no formal “agri-tourism,” but every experience was an opportunity to sample native foods. On the outer islands, you don’t go to the food store for your food you go to the land and sea.

At one point I was sharing granola bars with some villagers. “Are these Hawaiian snacks?” they asked. “Well…not exactly, I bought them at Costco.” And then I found myself having to explain what Costco was to the people who brought me a dinner the night before that consisted entirely of foods they grew or harvested from the ocean on that day.

Agriculture in Hawaii is second only to tourism in terms of an economic driver- and some farms have married the two together creating “agri-tourism” on the Big Island. Visiting working farms is a great way to connect with Hawaii residents, explore new areas of the island, and sample the bounty of the land.

Students from DePauw University sampling bee pollen.

Volcano Island Honey has been welcoming visitors to the bee farm, or “apiary,” for over 20 years. The bees have so much wisdom to share with us about how to live gently on the earth and in community with one another. Richard Spiegel, owner of Volcano Island Honey has been passionate about the bees and the environment for over 30 years.

Richard shows Lama Dhondup a frame from the bee hive.

Visiting Volcano Island Honey is always an authentic experience because Richard wears his heart on his sleeve (or his bee suit, as the case may be!) When you visit, Richard (resident beekeeper-hippy-lawyer-philosopher) shares his personal and professional philosophy evolved from over 30 years of working with the bees.

Next time you are visiting Hawaii, or have friends or family visiting you- consider spending part of a day at Volcano Island Honey. The company has just launched a new Private Artisan Apiary Tour designed to give visitors more one-on-one time with Richard and the Bees. (You even get to put on a bee suit and explore the inside of a hive, but you don’t have to!)

Posted by Andrea Dean.

From the Merriman’s website: “The Waimea restaurant is now widely recognized as the flagship home of Hawaii Regional Cuisine, the island-based culinary movement that has garnered worldwide acclaim. Chef and restaurateur Peter Merriman worked closely with local farmers, ranchers and fishermen to create Hawaii Regional Cuisine, which showcases fresh and local produce, meats and fish”

Now Hawaii Regional Cuisine has become the signature cuisine in Hawaii and Merriman’s legacy of supporting local farmers and using local ingredients has become the norm for most high end restaurants in Hawaii.

Last weekend, Richard Spiegel, the owner of Volcano Island Honey Co. stayed at the Kona Village Resort for a much needed and well deserved weekend getaway. Richard was all inner and outer smiles when the server brought a jar of Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey along with jams and preserves to the breakfast table. It was the first time Richard’s white honey was ever served to him in a restaurant. Always doing market research, the incognito Richard asked the server if customers ever ask about the honey. The server lit up and said, “Oh yes! Everybody loves this honey.”

Back when the movement was just getting started, Peter Merriman started using our Rare Hawaiian Organic White Honey at the Mauna Lani. Now, 20 years later, the Mauna Lani is still serving our honey to guests.

We are truly thankful for the visionary chefs who started the Hawaii Regional Cuisine movement and all of the chefs today who continue to appreciate and utilize our honey.

It was a sweet start for Volcano Island Honey. Today, there are eleven high end restaurants and resorts in Hawaii that serve our honey to their guests:

Kona Village Resort
Mauna Lani Resort Big, Island.
Four Season Resort Hualalai, Big Island
Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, Big Island
Hapuna Prince Hotel, Big Island
Royal Hawaiian Hotel, Oahu
Trump International Hotel Waikiki Beach Walk, Oahu
Sheraton Waikiki, Oahu
Moana Surfrider Waikiki, Oahu
Four Season Resorts Lanai, Lanai
St. Regis Princeville Resort, Kauai

The bees “draw out the comb” by adding wax on top of the foundation to create hexagonal cells, which is where they store honey and pollen as well as where the queen lays her eggs (in separate cells!)

Organic foundation is important because most beeswax foundation is contaminated from the use of toxic chemicals used by beekeepers in the hives to treat disease. The chemicals remain in the wax, which is processed into wax foundation.

Most beekeepers purchase this commercial foundation for use in their hives. Organic standards allow plastic foundation dipped in organic beeswax, but some organic beekeepers (like Volcano Island Honey Co. and Hawaiian Queen Company!) feel strongly that plastic should not be used in bee hives.

We produce raw, organic honey and have a commitment to nonviolent and non toxic methods to harvest honey, and in all aspects of production. We believe that organic wax foundation provides the basis for healthier, stronger bee hives, thereby increasing honey and queen production. Strong, healthy bees mean that trees and plants are pollinated which increases the agricultural productivity of orchard crops and maintains the health of non-native and native forest.

Making beeswax foundation in a small-scale farm setting is a lost art, there are not many people who know how to do it as the process has been industrialized in developed countries. The fact that it is not possible to purchase organic foundation means that making your own is a necessity for apiaries who do not want to use plastic foundation.

The process of making foundation is not complicated, but it does require time and patience. The only piece of specialized equipment required is an embossing mill. The embossing rollers come in both 4.9 mm and 5.1 mm sizes.

Volcano Island Honey Co. partnered with Michael Krones of Hawaiian Queen Company on the project, and we were fortunate to receive a grant from Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education to help us purchase equipment and develop and spread knowledge about the lost art of foundation making.

Posted by Andrea Dean

Source: Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture

The Aptly Named Varroa Destructor

Do you know that 1/3 of all the food you eat is pollinated by bees? The decimation of bee colonies is a threat to food production in Hawaii. In Hawaii we do not have the disappearance of bees (Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD), but we now have the devastating and aptly named varroa destructor, commonly known as the varroa mite.

The varroa mite is a parasite that attacks honey bee adults, larvae, and pupae. The varroa mite has been know to destroy up to 90% of wild hives and beekeepers can easily lose all or a majority of their managed hives. Until recently, Hawaii and Australia were the only remaining varroa free places in the world. The varroa mite was found on Oahu in 2007, unfortunately this did not result in quick and aggressive action by the private or government sector. As a result, the mite has now been found in hives on the Big Island.

The beekeeping industry in Hawaii is a $4 million per year industry, with the majority of that being on the Big Island. Hawaii’s beekeepers produce both honey and queen bees. But Hawaii’s beekeeping industry affects a much larger industry. The Kona Coast of Hawaii produces approx. 400,000 varroa free queens per year, or 20% of the nation’s needs. Each queen bee heads up a colony of about 45,000 pollinating foragers that fly and pollinate about 8,000 acres around its hive. Hawaii’s queen producers supply many of the nation’s largest beekeepers with mite-free queens whose colonies pollinate the food crops in North America.

Not Just a Honey Problem, It is a Food Problem

The varroa mite is not just a beekeeper’s problem, it is a food production problem that will affect commercial farms as well as the backyard gardener. The State Department of Agriculture estimates that Hawaii’s agricultural industry will lose $42 – $62 million from the loss of feral bees. When wild honey bees no longer pollinate crops, farmers will have to hire managed bee colonies to sustain production, if managed hives are available. Since there is a ban on importation of bees to Hawaii, if the bees die out replenishing managed hives may present an unanticipated problem. Pollinated-dependent crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers and melons will experience losses in both quality and quantity. Bees also assist in pollinating coffee, macadamia nuts, citrus, avocado, and guava. The loss of wild hives will likely mean lower production and quality in farms and private gardens and fruit trees.

Living with Varroa in Hawaii

Volcano Island Honey Company, as a certified organic apiary has been researching ways to treat the varroa mite in hives and still remain certified organic. (Just to be clear Volcano Island Honey does not have varroa in its hives.) The company has developed an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategy that would use non-chemical methods such as screened bottom boards, brood cycle disruption and possibly drone brood removal first and then, if necessary, so called “soft-chemicals” such as formic acid.

Beekeepers on the U.S. mainland and other places in the world have been managing varroa for over 20 years, but Hawaii’s beekeepers have not had the varroa mite and this presents some special challenges. Managing the hives with the varroa mite is much more labor intensive and the treatments are expensive, this is not an expense that Hawaii’s beekeepers anticipated. In addition, many of the beekeepers in Hawaii just do not have experience with treating hives for varroa and will need to learn what works and what does not through experience- which could add up to expensive trial and error. To compound the challenge- many of the soft-chemical treatments such as formic acid and thymol have not been tested in European honeybee hives in a year round, tropical climate like Hawaii. Therefore, accurate information on application for Hawaii’s climate is not readily available. The University of Hawaii has ramped up its Bee Project in order to provide Hawaii’s beekeepers with localized information on application.

Are Bees the Canary in the Coalmine?

Until the disappearance of bees (Colony Collapse Disorder of CCD) began attracting national media attention, most people probably never thought about the important role that bees play in our food production. Unfortunately, the majority of our food comes from industrial food production systems and the bees that pollinate the food crops have been industrialized as well. Thousands of bee hives are trucked across the country each year to pollinate tree crops, primarily large, chemically fertilized and pesticide laden mono-cropping nut and fruit orchards.

Volcano Island Honey Company feels that the bees are the “canary in the coal mine” of the condition of our global environment. When the bees start disappearing, that is an obvious signal that our environment is out of balance. The cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has not yet been found, but we feel that the decimation and disappearance of bees is indicative of the many errors of our ways- from industrial agricultural practices to over consumption.

What You Can Do for Hawaii’s Bees

The effort to combat the varroa mite in Hawaii is woefully under funded. The Hawaii State Department of Agriculture, which is already handling more agricultural pests than it has time and staff for, only has about $370,000 to address the varroa problem statewide. Hawaii’s congressional delegation has secured another $469,000 for Fiscal Year 2010, but this is only a drop in the bucket.

A multi-stakeholder group comprised of beekeepers, the agricultural industry, University of Hawaii, Hawaii Department of Agriculture, USDA and others has formed to try to collectively address the varroa problem (disclosure- the writer of this article has been retained as the facilitator/coordinator of this group).
The public can make a tax deductible donation to the effort to help the bees on the Big Island. Checks should be made out to The Kohala Center, reference Varroa in the memo, and mail to:
The Kohala Center
Att: Cortney Hoffman
P.O. Box 437462
Kamuela, Hawai‘i 96743

You can also learn about beekeeping and keep a hive in your own backyard! Volcano Island Honey Company owner Richard Spiegel will be having a beginning beekeeping class in October.

Posted by Andrea Dean