World Bee Day 2025
It’s World Bee Day and this year’s theme is “Bee inspired by nature to nourish us all”. While it’s important to highlight the threats facing pollinators on days like this, we’re leaning into the inspiration element of this year’s theme and celebrating the joy bees bring to our lives. We’ve asked our Lead Beekeeping Instructor, Tim Dutcher, to recap his recent apiculture adventure in Sri Lanka. There’s a lot to celebrate and inspire in Tim’s story, not the least of which is the reminder that the responsibility to preserve pollinator populations is a collective one; we are truly in this together. If each of us resolve to do our own small part to steward and advocate for pollinators in our unique corners of the world, together we can restore ecosystems, sustain agriculture, and continue to delight in the wonder of bees.
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It’s mid-May, the nectar is starting to flow, our first hive swarmed 2 weeks ago, we’re halfway through our first BKIR cohort, and last week we planted out our flower starts in anticipation of our cut-flower CSA beginning at the end of June. Suffice to say it is a busy time of the year here at Huneebee! From now until October, things can feel a bit overwhelming, which is why I also appreciate that the natural agricultural cycles allow for some downtime. The long days we put in over the summer are balanced by quieter weeks in winter, during which time I’ve been fortunate enough to get away. In 2023, I travelled to Haiti where I did some bee tracking with my young friends there, while last year I was in Brasil for Carnival (no bees involved). This year I went to Sri Lanka and India, where I had the opportunity to work with bees alongside my travel companion, Taylor (HBP’s sometime seasonal beekeeper and flower harvester extraordinaire).
Taylor is very adept at cold emailing organizations, institutions, people and programs in which she has an interest, so as we were planning our trip, she reached out to the Sri Lankan Department of Agriculture to see if there were any beekeepers or organic growers who would be open to us visiting while we were there. We quickly heard back from a man named Wimukthi who works for the Bee Development Unit in Bandarawela, which is in the vicinity of one of Sri Lanka’s most famous train rides.
Wimukthi’s response to Taylor’s email was full of enthusiasm so we planned to visit with him for a few days and meet some local beekeepers. We first met in person at Belipola Arboretum, where we connected Wimukthi with our hosts there who were hoping to plant more plants to support honeybees. We hit it off right away, and quickly began speaking in the international language of beekeepers: comparing disease issues and management techniques.
Tim meeting Wimukthi for the first time.
A few days later we met Wimukthi at the Bee Development Unit, which was our launch pad for trips to visit other beekeepers. The Bee Development Unit reminded me a lot of the CT Agricultural Experiment Station (CAES) in New Haven, only devoted to bees. At the CAES, scientists carry out plant and insect research as well as interface with the public to support education and ag-related initiatives. Wimukthi’s role reminded me a lot of the CT State Bee Inspector, who works out of the CAES. In his role, Wimukthi spent a lot of time doing outreach and leading workshops for current and aspiring beekeepers. Unlike in the US, where interest in and support for beekeeping on a smaller scale is high, in Sri Lanka, this interest seems to be more nascent, but growing. Everywhere we went we encountered people who were interested in beekeeping, but with little knowledge of how to get started. We’d always connect them to Wimukthi, who in turn always seemed to be teaching. In fact, when we arrived, there was a class learning to build bee equipment.
A diagram of a hive in Sinhala
Unlike North America, where European honeybees (apis mellifera) were first introduced in the 1600s, Sri Lanka is home to 4 native honeybee species, all of which we encountered on our trip (and all of whom you’ll meet in this post)! Sri Lankan beekeepers work primarily with the Asian honeybee (apis cerana), so promoting their husbandry is one of Wimukthi’s primary roles. Apis cerana’s body is smaller than that of mellifera, and their colonies are much smaller.
While there are some pest and disease pressures, they co-evolved with the varroa mite (the bane of US beekeepers) so keeping colonies alive is a little more straightforward. The bigger challenge is getting a colony to stay in their hive at all, as apis cerana are more prone to swarm and abscond. Because they are in smaller colonies, they also don’t make as much honey, making beekeeping on a commercial scale more challenging.
The first beekeeper Wimukthi introduced us to was a man who had been keeping bees for 60 years! He showed us a few of his hives at his home, before taking us to see his apiary at Adisham Bungalow, a former colonial home which now houses a Catholic monastery.
On our way back from the monastery, our new friend pointed to some trees where we saw the empty combs made by the giant honey bee (apis dorsata), called “bambara” in Sinhala. These bees build comb under branches in the open air. Due to their exposed nests, they tend to be incredibly aggressive, and in our time in Sri Lanka we heard a few horror stories about bambara stings. In fact, when we told people we were beekeepers and they expressed fear about bees, it was usually the bambara they were thinking of. It’s a bit similar here in the US where peoples’ relationships to our more aggressive yellowjackets tend to color their perceptions of all bees. The apis cerana colonies we opened with beekeepers were even more gentle than our apis meliffera; we often didn’t even use smoke.
Our next stop was with a gentleman who Wimukthi described as Sri Lanka’s urban beekeeper. He had around 200 hives, many of which he kept in the gardens of peoples’ homes (pictured to the left).
We had a lovely visit to some of his hives, and an even lovelier visit to his home, where he had prepared a multi-course lunch for us! We exchanged honey with him and gave him a spare veil we had brought with us.
On our last day with Wimukthi, we visited a community-based beekeeping project. On our way there, Wimukthi explained to us the nature of the project, which was primarily women-led. There were regular workshops where local farmers could learn about beekeeping as a way to add some additional income. They were taught how to catch a swarm, and if successful, were given free equipment to house their colony. When we asked how often they led classes, he told us multiple times a week. Little did we know that we were showing up for a lesson that day! I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to teach about bees, and ended up sharing with the group about beekeeping in America, with Wimukthi acting as translator.
Workshop participants tasting Huneebee honey
I mentioned earlier that there are 4 native honeybee species in Sri Lanka. While hiking in Sinharaja forest, I noticed a colony of tetragonula iridipennis, a small stingless bee, who had made a colony in a log on the side of the trail.
We encountered the 4th and final honey bee (apis florea, the dwarf honey bee) not in Sri Lanka, but in India, in a cave at the temple of Aloo Baba, a holy man who lives outside the city of Pushkar and has survived on a diet of only potatoes for nearly 50 years!