Bees — Island Agriculture's Newest Buzz Word

by Kelly O'Brien

On an island where recycling barely exists, electricity is as conventional as it comes and virtually everything we buy is imported, sustainability may seem like a distant goal indeed. Fortunately for us, sustainability on the Virgin Islands is about to get a boost from, of all places, honeybees.

The VI Department of Agriculture has recently launched an initiative to stimulate the beekeeping industry here on the islands. Although the correlation between beekeeping and sustainability may not be immediately apparent, developing local crops to meet market demand is a big step toward agricultural sustainability.

“In this time of crisis, with the price of everything going up,” says Agriculture Commissioner Louis Petersen, “it’s good when we can do things for ourselves. That’s the way we need to grow our industry.”

And apiculture (the technical term for keeping bees) is an excellent candidate for this kind of growth, says Petersen. Not only is beekeeping a relatively low-intensity craft (“it is really the bees that are doing the work,” says Petersen), but it’s also extremely compatible with our existing resources and yields a wide variety of benefits.

The primary benefit, of course, is creating an abundant supply of locally harvested honey. Right now, if you walk into a grocery store on the islands, you’ll most likely find only one or two kinds of honeys, imported from the continent somewhere. Currently, your only other option is to hit up specialty stores or get in contact with a local beekeeper – for instance, like St. John’s own Mr. Small.

According to Mr. Small, who used to sell his honey at local grocery stores, Virgin Islands consumers definitely prefer local honey to imports. “As long as my honey was there, not one jar of the others’ would sell,” he says.

But honey is just one among many excellent reasons to stimulate the beekeeping industry. For one thing, a thriving bee population is absolutely essential to a healthy agricultural sector. “Bees pollinate 95 percent of all our fruit,” says Mr. Small. “Only 5 percent is other insects.”

Not only do they contribute to the industry overall, but bees provide numerous ancillary products as well. Both beeswax and bee pollen have many uses from candles and beauty products to dietary and medicinal supplements.

For example, Mr. Small insists he can cure any allergy (including his wife’s severe bee allergy!) by administering a home-made concoction of pollen-infused honey mixed with hot water. St. Thomas beekeeper Charles Leonard also attests to the medicinal value of bee pollen – Virgin Islands bee pollen in particular.

“Bee pollen here is a lot more potent and a lot more medicinal,” he says. This is because most honey here is wild honey, meaning that the bees don’t collect their nectar from a homogenous crop like they would in the States. Most beekeepers in the States keep their hives in an orchard of a particular crop, whereas the bees here have free run of an extremely varied ecosystem. Thus, the bee pollen collected here contains the benefits and antihistamines from a greater spectrum of plants.

It’s clear that the territory has a lot to gain by cultivating a strong apiculture industry, and the Department of Agriculture’s initiative has big plans to capitalize on that. For one thing, the department has been developing a marketing strategy to promote locally harvested honey. The idea is that any honey cultivated in the U.S. Virgin Islands can be marketed under the Virgin Fresh Honey label being developed by the department. (Think the Florida Orange Juice or Wisconsin Cheese branding initiatives.) They’re also making efforts to educate the public on the benefits of bees (and dispel unwarranted fears).

But the key cornerstone of their campaign is a joint venture with the University of the Virgin Islands Co-operative Extension Service designed to train a new crop of beekeepers. Carlos Robles, an extension specialist with UVI-CES, has been heading up that program.

“Our goal with the project was two-fold; we saw that the potential for honey as a commodity to be sold in the territory was great, and we wanted to create another group of entrepreneurs in the agriculture industry to […] take advantage of this value-added product,” he says.

The program seeks to do that by offering beekeeper training courses that teach not only the craft but also good business practices. The pilot program took place on St. Croix earlier this year, and they’re currently gearing up for a second course, set to begin in October. The St. Thomas program is in full swing, and the St. John program began just a few weeks ago.

In each case, the programs draw on the resources of the island – the instructors are all experienced local beekeepers and the land the students work on is often donated, as it was here on St. John by Rupert Marsh. This community support is key to the success of the initiative, says Petersen.

“To grow this industry, it takes all of us, not just farmers, not just the department,” he says.

So, keep an eye out for Virgin Fresh Honey, and your chance to do your part!

October 9th, 2008