Professional beekeeper Geri Hens will address a meeting of Slow Food Buffalo Niagara at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 28, in Frizlen Group Architects, 257 Lafayette Ave., Buffalo.
Hens is the owner of Hens Honey Bee Farm in Pendleton, the only New York State producer of USDA raw organic New York Native Wildflower and Tree Varietal Honey. The farm has 1,000 colonies in 11 counties in western and northern New York. They produce 16 kinds of wild vegetation honey in three forms: liquid, cream, and comb.
In addition to a discussion of her work as a beekeeper and the lives of bees, Hens will provide an overview of new directions in farming and farm products in Western New York and New York State. She also will have products from her farm to sell after the meeting.
The meeting will be free and open to the public. It will begin promptly at 6:30 p.m. Light refreshments from Martin Cooks http://www.martincooks.com/ and Buffalo Cheese Traders, LLC http://www.buffalocheesetraders.com/# will be served beginning at 6 p.m.
For more than 20 years, Hens Honey Bee Farm has met/exceeded USDA standards for organic honey production for bees, honey and beeswax. Hens’ bees produce 16 varieties of native/indigenous vegetation liquid, creamed and comb.
Hens is proud to be an environmentally responsible honey producer and organic apiculture industry leader. She provides organic apiculture consulting and mentoring, educational presentations, swarm collection and relocation services.
Former vice president of the Western New York Honey Producers Association, she serves as a bee specialist for the local Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE), including Erie and Niagara counties in addition to several other New York CCE programs. In addition educating the public, growers and beekeepers, she is offers swarm collection services and consults regarding issues pertaining to pollination insects (especially honey bees, bumble bees, and native bees).
Hens, a participant in the Indigenous Women’s Imitative, is a retired, tenured SUNY outdoor educator, administrator, professor and coach. Geri also was a major contributor on honey bee wellness and health management for Ross Conrad’s textbook, “Natural Beekeeping.”
Slow Food Buffalo Niagara is a chapter of Slow Food USA and shares its belief that everyone has the right to good, clean and fair food. Slow Food USA advocates for food and farming policies that are good for the public, good for the planet, and good for farmers and workers.
After speaking to Hens for quite a while I began to understand more about the organic apiculture that she practices. My immediate question was “how can you control what the bees are feeding on?” Unlike cows, bees cannot be penned in and controlled. She explained that if there is sufficient nutrition for the bees within a mile or so, they generally will not travel any further than that in search of food. However, the organic designation is not only about what the bees are feeding on, but how the bees and hives are managed. Organic standards for apiculture focus on a host of criteria including hive management, bee health management, contaminant risk assessment, forage availability in the ecosystem, and pest management. USDA organic standards do not allow the use of hard chemicals in the health management of bees and hives. These include fungicides, insecticides, and some antibiotics. They do allow the use of “soft chemicals” such as oxalic and formic acids. Hens explains that the United States is on the lenient end of organic certifications for honey, as for most other agricultural products. Countries such as Denmark and New Zealand have much more stringent requirements to become organic. Hens holds herself and her operation to these much higher standards, using neither soft nor hard chemicals.