Arboreal Apiculture Salon

We are honored to welcome Laura Pustarfi, Ph.D. to the Salon. Laura is Director of the Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research Certificate Program and a lecturer in Philosophy and Religion at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Her work bridges plant studies, integral ecology, environmental philosophy, and psychedelic scholarship. She is co-editor of The Wisdom of Trees: Thinking Through Arboreality and serves on the board of The Plant Initiative, with ongoing contributions to the Plant Perspectives journal. Laura brings a rare blend of rigorous scholarship, ecological insight, and artistic sensibility to her work and teaching.

It was an honor to have Dr. Robert Mutisi from Zimbabwe as our guests at the Salon. Robert is a professional forester who specialises in commercial and social forestry plantation development. A passionate beekeeper and trainer who contributes to improved African beekeeping systems that addresses sustainable issues related to poverty, hunger, and the environment. Robert has pioneered a Nature-based Beekeeping approach in Zimbabwe where communities in marginal areas have realised their potential. The use of low-cost hives made from local material, bee ecology and native species, inclusivity, non-hive centric, scalability and sustainability have been key issues around Nature-based Beekeeping. He holds an MBA, MALIC (Master of Arts in Leading Innovation and Change), and a PhD degree in Agriculture focusing on honey production and marketing and several international qualifications on development work. Robert is also a beekeeping article writer that comes out in professional journals, honey steward and judge and an international speaker on issues related to African beekeeping systems. More info about Robert's work at Working for Bees and at [email protected].

It was an honor to have Bas Blaasse as our guest at the Salon. He is a writer, researcher, and filmmaker based in Brussels. His work explores the intersections of art, visual culture, philosophy, and ecology-often tracing connections between aesthetic practices and the conceptual or material realities they engage with. Together with artist Aladin Borioli, he published the book "Bannkörbe", an anthology of ceremonial use of masks in historical beekeeping. His current research focuses on collective practices in the arts and the historical development of the notion of landscape. He is also working on a documentary about nature management in the Netherlands. Bas studied philosophy in Leuven and Berlin and photography in Breda, and he received the 2023 C/O Berlin Talent Award in Theory.

It's an honor to have Dr. Keith S. Delaplane as our guest. Keith is Professor Emeritus of Entomology at the University of Georgia where he served as Director of the honey bee program there between 1990-2024. Research by Keith, his students, and coworkers resulted in hundreds of publications including over 70 refereed research papers, 7 books, and 5 book chapters ranging across basic honey bee (and termite) biology, health management, pollination, and social evolution, garnering over 6300 citations by peers around the world. His latest book, Honey Bee Social Evolution was published in October 2024. In 2014 he was inducted into the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for his honey bee research and education efforts throughout the UK. Keith and his wife Sonja live in Athens, Georgia, where they keep a few bee hives in their back yard in the Normaltown neighborhood.

Jovana Bila Dubaić is a Doctor of Environmental Sciences at the Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade. Her scientific field covers biodiversity protection and invasive species ecology. Her PhD thesis topic covered "Diversity of the Wild Bees in Belgrade: faunistic overview, patterns of distribution and status assessment of the chosen group population". More about the research she does at the Faculty read here https://srbee.bio.bg.ac.rs/srbee and her instagram page can be found at: belgrade.bees.ecology In this Podcast we talk with Jovana discussing her work with free-living bees and in particualr her use of citzen science and direct engagement with the public.

We were honoured to welcome Héctor Morales Urbina and Maggie Shanahan as our guests to Salon #40. They both are beekeepers and bee researchers from Chiapas, Mexico and the United States, respectively. Maggie shares some broad context around beekeeping in Chiapas and compare and contrast beekeeping systems in the U.S. and Mexico. Héctor talks about how beekeepers in Chiapas and their use traditional ecological knowledge to better care for their bees and discusses the ways that the Chiapa culture shapes beekeepers' relationships with their bees. Together, Maggie and Héctor discuss beekeeper-led strategies to build resilience in the face of industrialisation, broadening focus to consider not just beekeeping practices, but beekeeping systems. Supporting Links: Héctor's article: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/W2RM79S8ZAZZ4GH5A54H/full?target=10.1080/21683565.2025.2475464 Sign-up sheet to receive forthcoming Guidance Memo on Building Resilient Beekeeping Systems: https://forms.gle/2BPn3jPpjyLcwjW98

Kaylin Kleckner is a PhD Candidate at the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Laboratory. Through collaboration with Rhodes University, Kaylin conducts field research with wild and unmanaged honey bees in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. She used beelining techniques to locate 130 nest sites to study nesting ecology, population structure, and disease dynamics. Long term, she aims to inform local land management decisions and pollinator conservation initiatives in Africa.

Neste podcast, conversamos com Felipe Mendes, do Brasil. Felipe é um apicultor e consultor arbóreo e biodinâmico, pioneiro em abordagens inovadoras de manejo animal por meio do uso de TreeNests (colmeias em toras). Ele trabalha com híbridos de Apis mellifera scutellata (abelhas africanizadas) e colaborou com o Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) no Brasil, um movimento social que ocupa terras agrícolas não utilizadas para promover a agricultura sustentável e a autossuficiência econômica.

In this Salon we are joined by Dr Susan Murphy Roshi from Australia. Susan is a distinguished Zen teacher with a profound interest in the intersection of Zen practice and indigenous Australian concepts of 'care for country'. For 25 years, she co-led walks in Country with the late, highly respected indigenous Elder, Dulumunmun, Uncle Max Harrison, exploring the deep connections between these traditions. Susan's work emphasizes the transformative power of Zen koans in addressing life's challenges, particularly our duty of care for the Earth. Her latest book, "A Fire Runs Through All Things: Zen Koans for Facing the Climate Crisis," reflects this focus, offering a unique spiritual and philosophical approach to confronting the environmental crisis. Her approach encourages a shift in consciousness, moving beyond purely practical solutions to foster a deeper, more compassionate relationship with our planet. In this inspiring conversation with Susan, we explore how Zen wisdom can help us navigate the complexities of the climate crisis and cultivate a more profound sense of interconnectedness with the Earth.

Dylan Ryals is a life-long beekeeper with experience working on commercial pollination and queen-rearing apiaries. He is currently a PhD student under Dr. Brock Harpur at Purdue University where he studies honey bee genetics and breeding. He will speak on his ongoing research uncovering bee ancestry, genetic diversity, and population structure across the United States with special attention to feral and non-commercial populations.

In this podcast, we spoke with Felipe Mendes from Brazil. Felipe is an arboreal and biodynamic beekeeper and consultant, pioneering innovative approaches to animal stewardship through the use of TreeNests (log hives). He works with Apis mellifera scutellata hybrids (Africanized bees) and has collaborated with the Landless Workers' Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra - MST) in Brazil, a social movement that occupies unused farmland to promote sustainable agriculture and economic self-sufficiency.

Dr. Ellis is the Gahan Endowed Professor of Entomology in the Entomology and Nematology Department at the University of Florida. At the University of Florida, Dr. Ellis has responsibilities in extension, instruction and research related to honey bees. Regarding his extension work, Dr. Ellis created the UF/IFAS Bee Colleges and the UF/IFAS Master Beekeeper Program. As an instructor, Dr. Ellis supervises Ph.D. and masters students. Dr. Ellis and his team conduct research projects in the fields of honey bee husbandry, biology, conservation, and ecology.

It is on honor to have Ollie Visick from the University of Sussex, UK, as our guest at the Salon. Ollie Visick is a fourth-year PhD student at the University of Sussex, UK, studying wild honey bee colonies under the supervision of Professor Francis Ratnieks. His main areas of research are wild colony density and nest site availability. He has reviewed the colony density literature and conducted his own surveys in southeast England. He is monitoring over 40 honey bee nest sites on 6 estates in Sussex and Kent to calculate long-term changes in colony density. He has surveyed over 1,000 ancient, veteran and other listed trees at an additional 10 sites to determine whether they represent important nest sites for wild colonies. He has also used waggle dance decoding of honey bee swarms to assess whether wild colonies are limited by nest sites in mixed urban-rural areas.

In this epidsode we are joined by Fred Pearce, author of The New Wild - Why Invasive Species will be Nature's Salvation, Economists book of the year 2015. Fred is an award-winning author and journalist based in London. He has reported on environmental, science, and development issues from eighty-five countries over the past twenty years. Environment consultant at New Scientist since 1992, he also writes regularly for the Guardian newspaper and Yale University's prestigious e360 website. Pearce was voted UK Environment Journalist of the Year in 2001 and CGIAR agricultural research journalist of the year in 2002, and he won a lifetime achievement award from the Association of British Science Writers in 2011. His many books include With Speed and Violence, Confessions of an Eco-Sinner, The Coming Population Crash, and The Land Grabbers. Fred joins the Salon team to talk about his stunning book, the New Wild which has been so influencial in the teams understanding of honey bees postion in Europe and particulalrly North Amercia

In this podcast we are joined by Prof. Peter Neumann, the Vinetum professor of the Institute of Bee Health at the University of Bern. His reaserach covers all aspects of all aspects of bee health with focus on behavioural, evolutionary and molecular ecology of honey bees and their pathogens. Peter has been the adjunct Professor, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand, researching ectoparasitic mites Tropilaelaps spp. and Varroa spp. Peter has also been Chair of the research consortium "European honey bees surviving Varroa destructor by means of natural selection" that is comprised of eight research institutes from Belgium, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and The Netherlands; Management. He is also president of the COLOSS association (www.coloss.org) (prevention of honey bee COlony LOSSes) that is currently comprised of >1500 members from >100 countries.

In this podcast we learn that through math(s) we can prove that some of our long held beliefs about honeybees are wrong. Derek Mitchell researches into the heat transfer of man-made and natural honeybee nests at the School of Mechanical Engineering of the University of Leeds where he has recently completed his Phd with a thesis entitled "The Thermofluid engineering of the honeybee nest (Apis Mellifera) . He has had articles published in Beecraft, Bee Culture, American Bee Journal and Natural Honey bee husbandry in addition to his published academic work in the Royal Society Journal and International Journal of Biometeorology. Recent papers include: Publications: Mitchell D (2023) Honeybees cluster together when it's cold – but we've been completely wrong about why The Conversation November 24, 2023 https://theconversation.com/honeybees-cluster-together-when-its-cold-but-weve-been-completely-wrong-about-why-218066Mitchell, D.M. (2023_ Honey Bee Cluster – not insulation but stressful heat sink Journal of the Royal Society Interface. Mitchell, D.M. (2023). Are Man-Made Hives valid thermal surrogates for natural Honey Bee nests [in review] Journal of Thermal Biology. Mitchell, D.(2022) Honey bee ( Apis mellifera ) size determines colony heat transfer when brood covering or distributed," Int. J. Biometeorol., vol. Accepted for publication.

Beelining is an ancient craft and science of finding wild honeybee trees/nests. The pursuit is old as humankind and has gained new relevance for the conservation and rewilding of honeybees. In Salon 30 we bring together international practitioners of beelining to share and explore current and innovative models of beelining. The panel includes Thomas Seeley (US), Benjamin Rutschmann (Germany), Chiara Binetti (IL), Lukas Taminen (US), Joe Ibbertson (UK) and our own Michael and Cheyanna. Join us for this very special event where we get to hear the latest approaches to this ancient craft from leading experts in the field.

In Salon 29. we are joined by honeybee researcher Maggie Shanahan, and author of the 2022 paper "Honey Bees and Industrial Agriculture: What Researchers are Missing, and Why it's a Problem" - Link. The conclusion of that paper offers a great introduction to our conversation with Maggie in this episode of the Salon: "When honey bee researchers recognize industrial agriculture as the root cause of honey bee health issues, we open ourselves to the opportunity to collaborate meaningfully in these movements, and contribute to the future that must be built. We add our voices to the growing chorus that knows, and insists, that industrial agriculture is not the only way. It is one way. It is a way that we made. It is a thing we can change. The question is whether we open up and allow that change to happen through us, or dig in our heels until that change happens to us." If you would like to discuss the episode with others join our telegram channel - Arboreal Apiculture Salon

This salon features special guest Grace McCormack. She is a Professor of Zoology at NUI Galway, Ireland. Her interests lie in evolutionary biology and particularly in using molecular data to understand how organisms are related to each other and the impacts this may have on the conservation and the evolution of organismal traits. In this podcast Grace explores the question: Are wild bees distinct from those in managed colonies?

Our special guest will be Ph.D. Benjamin Rutschman from Germany. Benjamin is a honeybee researcher who works on honeybee ecology with a special focus on colonies living in the wild, their foraging resources, and their nesting sites. He got his Ph.D. from the University of Würzburg in 2022 and is now continuing his studies on wild colonies supported by a scholarship from the Graduate school of life sciences in Würzburg.

Our Guest will be Chelsea Batavia. She is an Environmental Scientist with the Delta Stewardship Council. She researches how human ethical values and beliefs affect environmental management and conservation. She is also a great cook as you will find out!

Our special guest is Prof. Dr. Lars Chittka. He is from the Research Centre for Psychology at the Queen Mary University of London, where he is a Professor of Sensory and Behavioural Ecology. His latest book "The Mind of a Bee" is a rich and surprising exploration of the intelligence of bees.

In this podcast the hosts and attendees discuss Frederique Apffel Marglin Salon podcast No 23. Frederique is challenging the foundation of western thinking and promotes new ways of being in relationship with the agency and sentience of the non-human world. Join us in this open discussion.

Our special guest is Frederique Apffel Marglin. She is Professor Emerita, Dpt. of Anthropology at Smith College and founded Sachamama Center for Biocultural Regeneration in Peru. Frederique is challenging the foundation of western thinking and promotes new ways of being in relationship with the agency and sentience of the non-human world. Her innovative research presents an opportunity for the arboreal apiculture movement to integrate pioneering scientific thinking and practices, increase our awareness of Deep Ecology in conservation and broaden our understanding of the interconnected intelligence of nature and life on earth.

Our special guest will be Thomas Dyer Seeley. He is the Horace White Professor in Biology in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University. He is the author of several books on honeybee behavior, including Honeybee Democracy and The Wisdom of the Hive. He was the recipient of the Humboldt Prize in Biology in 2001. Tom is the most well known and most respected scientists researching free living bee colonies. We look back over his long career. Podcast Reference: Darwinian black box selection for resistance to settled invasive Varroa destructor parasites in honey bees - Tjeerd Blacquière https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-019-02001-0

Our special guest for Salon No. 21 is Filipe Salbany. He has worked with honey bees for over 50 years in Africa, Europe, North America, and the UK. In November 2021 his work at Blenheim Palace (UK) received international attention when the Guardian published an article about the discovery of over 50 previously unknown honey bee colonies of mostly old genetic lineage in the estate forests. (For this episode we recommend a podcast player that supports chapter art. e.g. Overcast or Pocket Casts)

Our special guest is Prof. Dr. Scott F. Gilbert from the Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; Department of Biology, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA, USA. Scott will talk about his pioneering work about Holobiome, radically new perspectives on what it means to be an individual, and the origins of novelty. His research is an inspiring resource for arboreal apiculture and a deeper understanding of the nature of honeybees.

Beelining is an ancient craft and science of finding wild honeybee trees/nests. The pursuit is old as humankind and has gained new relevance for the conservation and rewilding of honeybees. Cheyanna and Michael will give an introduction to the logistics and challenges and share how beelining is used in projects in their work at Apis Arborea.

For Salon #18 we are delighted to have Matt Somerville from the UK as our special guest . He is a master carpenter and the founder of beekindhives. Matt has been a pioneer of arboreal apiculture and experimented with diverse hive designs. He has started to set up hundreds of log hives in the UK and is engaged in the conservation and protection of wild honeybees.

Our special guest is Dr. Frank Krumm from Switzerland. He is a scientific assistant WSL/SLF in Davos, a member of the Mountain Ecosystems group, a scientific advisor to freethebees.ch in this fascinating presentation he discusses tree-micro-habitats.

Our special guest for Salon #16 is Sabine Bergmann from Germany. She is an advocate for traditional and historical apiculture and promotes the rewilding of honeybees in Europe. Sabine and her students have made over 300 log hives which have been placed in projects around Germany. The podcast covers how she got started and the schools, community and nature reserve projects she has worked on. We recommend a podcast player that support chapters to view the presentation images.

We are delighted to welcome Ivan Pigarev, the Executive Director of the Natural Beekeeping Association of Russia and author and director of the upcoming documentary "Point of Return". He is a pioneer within the Russian Zeidler community and promotes arboreal apiculture throughout Eastern Europe. This fascinating interview looks into the roots of Russian arboreal apiculture and discusses what we can learn from it to develop a more sustainable and healthy future for beekeeping.

This special salon launches the new web site https://freelivingbees.com/ - A new initiative by the Natural Beekeeping Trust With this website the trust seeks to showcase and encourage practices that restore and support the honey bee and its natural habitat and recognize the honey bee as an independent wild species. Michael and Cheyanna interview trustee and fellow podcaster Jonathan Powell about the site and the story behind it.

This Salon explores the fringes of arboreal apiculture and what it takes to develop and unlock the potential of new paradigms. Michael shares his journey into uncharted territories of rewilding honeybees and elaborates on challenges and opportunities that come when we begin to re-conceptualize apiculture in the light of mass extinctions and a new evolving global movement of apian conservation. Touching on practical as well as philosophical questions, we look deeper into this emerging field.

This salon will focus on the rewilding of honeybees in various landscapes and ecosystems. We are delighted to say that our special guest will be André Wermelinger from Switzerland. André is the Managing Director of FreeTheBees, an organisation that has been instrumental in returning the lost craft of tree beekeeping back into Europe. André is a passionate advocate of wild Apis Mellifera, promoting both legal protection and monitoring of wild colonies by engaging with scientists and conservationists. More information about his work is available here

The Salon will focuses on what we may call 'Stillpoint', a transitional time between past and future, very creative but also challenging. It has an inwardly and outwardly dimension and is significant for our relationships to the entire web of life. 'Stillpoint' invites us into a reflection of a world in motion and continues our inquiry into the ongoing unfolding of our relationship with honeybees. Hosted by Jonathan Powell from the Natural Beekeeping Trust, Michael Joshin Thiele from Apis Arborea and Cheyanna Bone.

The Arboreal Apiculture Salon - A podcast exploring the science, beauty and spiritual expression of Abroreal Apiculture with Jonathan Powell from the Natural Beekeeping Trust and Michael Joshin Thiele from Apis Arborea and Cheyanna Bone.

Richard's book is a major reimagining of how evolutionary forces work, revealing how mating preferences—what Darwin termed "the taste for the beautiful"—create an extraordinary range of ornament in the animal world. Prum introduces agency and perception as essential components for evolutionary processes and challenges the dogma that holds that natural selection explains every branch on the tree of life: which species thrive, which wither away to extinction, and what features each evolves. We ask Richard about his unpublished work on pollination and bees to understand the influences of beauty and way the selection process is shaped by the memory of things beautiful ... or sometimes dangerous. The Arboreal Apiculture Salon - A podcast exploring the science, beauty and spiritual expression of Abroreal Apiculture with Jonathan Powell from the Natural Beekeeping Trust and Michael Joshin Thiele from Apis Arborea and Cheyanna Bone.

We will have several guests from Europe and the US to share a space of inquiry and discussion about the concept and their personal practice of 'Rewilding Apis Mellifera'. Presenters include Michiel Verspuij* (Ireland), Deborah Richmond (UK), Torben Schiffer (Germany) & Michael J. Thiele (US). Each will share their unique perspective on the subject. * For information on the Welsh project mentioned by Michiel Verspuij please watch this video edited by Jonathan Powell: https://youtu.be/FsvFmtgmkmI

In Salon number 7 we welcome Torben Schiffer to talk to us about the biology of honey bees free from the confines of beekeeping hives and manipulations. Torben works for Prof. Jürgen Tautz / Hobos Project (University Würzburg), his research focuses on the climatic conditions of tree cavities and beehives, and the effects on bee health. Additionally he is an expert on the symbiotic relationship between book scorpions and honeybees. He proved that book scorpions feed i.a. on varroa mites and beetle larvae (such as small hive beetle). Furthermore he is exploring the effects of beekeeping on the grooming behavior of bees.