by Karen S. Voelkening-Behegan, MA, NTP, CGP
Since May was such a busy month for me, I decided to post an interview with our April speaker, Beekeeper Melinda Nelson, instead of write an article this time. Someone accidentally deleted the photos I took at the meeting, so I hope you don't mind using your imagination!
This is an interview transcribed from a video recording of a Skype call I did with Melinda in May.
Interview with Beekeeper Melinda Nelson
K: Hello,
everyone. I’m the founding chapter
leader of the Pasadena California Chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation and
this is Melinda Nelson of Buzz ‘Round Town.
She’s a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and a Beekeeper, and she was
our guest speaker in April. Hello, Melinda. Thanks for speaking to our Chapter in April. Can you tell us a little about yourself and
your business?
M: I remove bees, I have a business with products from
the hive called Buzz ‘Round Town and I have a website,
buzzroundtown.com. I love teaching people
about how bees help us and why we need them.
So I have people and kids and school kids
come over and I teach them not be afraid of bees
because we really shouldn’t be afraid of them.
K: So, people can
call you to schedule visits?
M: Yes. I book tours and talks and they can try on a bee
suit and see my equipment.
K: How did you get
into this business?
M: I always loved
bees and I always wanted my own honey, but I didn’t know how to go about
getting bees until a beehive swarmed into my yard one day just over my
head. I just walked onto my patio and
turned around and they were gone. A
couple days later, I have a compost bin behind the chicken coup, and I went to
put something in it and they were coming through the chicken coup into the
compost bin and when I lifted it up there was a nice big football-sized
hive. So I found a beekeeper to help me
put it into a hive box. He brought me
everything I needed and I kept the bees.
And that’s how I got started.
They swarmed into my backyard.
K: So the bees found
you! How long after that did you start
getting honey from the hive?
M: It took a couple years to get enough honey to harvest but
I did get to harvest. My first harvest
of honey was a little over a gallon of honey.
So that was exciting. And it was
iridescent.
K: Well your honey is
delicious. The best I’ve ever
tasted. I couldn’t believe the flavor of
the sample I brought home from the meeting.
M: My honey is all wild,
from wild bees. It’s raw and wild. You can’t get honey like that too many
places.
K: It was not just
sweet but it had a great flavor. I know you
have different aspects to your business, including not only the products but also
bee rescue. I’d like to talk more about
the products later in the interview. For
now, can you tell us about your bee rescue operation?
M: For bee rescuing,
I use different equipment for different bee rescues. But this time of year is swarm season, so a
lot of the time I just use a cardboard box and get bees out of a tree. I had to climb a ladder the other day to
about 15 feet into a tree. Actually the
bees were 15 feet up. I wasn’t quite
that high, but they were pretty
high. I had to shake the bees into a box
from a branch and then hold the box there.
So once I get the queen in, then the rest of the bees just follow.
K: Do you wear
anything special?
M: Yes I wear my full
suit and some leather gloves. It’s fun
to watch me catching bees. And then if
my husband is around, he’ll help me get bees out of walls, and we have to cut
into walls and ceilings and things to get the bees out. But we remove all the comb and babies and
everything and we use it in their home, in their new hive box.
K: So if someone
calls you because they hear buzzing behind their walls, how do you know it’s
honey bees and not something else?
M: Well, we can see
from their flight pattern and from looking at them that they’re bees, and
hornets don’t usually behave the same or look the same as honey bees.
K: So people usually
know what they’re asking you to remove.
M: They pretty much
know. Some people say “I think
they’re honey bees,” and I say, “Well, yeah, they sound like they are.”
K: So how long have you been rescuing bees?
M: About 9 years or
so.
K: And when did you start that first hive of your own?
M: About 2001.
K: So the hive rescue
came after.
M: Yes.
K: So how did you get
into hive rescue?
M: Another
beekeeper. I went and helped her with
collecting some bees and then my husband and I, we got a call from a church to
remove bees out of a tree. And these
people at the church called the newspaper and called the news Channel 9 and
things like that so all of a sudden I started getting a bunch of phone calls and
then it started. It just became a business.
K: Weren’t you
already working?
M: I was a dental
hygienist at that point and I was really looking for more hygiene work in the
dental office but the bees came and I really enjoyed working with them. Once I collected the bees, I fell
in love with them. So I saw the need to
save bees instead of killing them. So
every city was killing the bees and never even thought of saving them. And then the CCD came about, which is the
Colony Collapse Disorder, and we started losing our bees that pollinate fields
and orchards like the almonds in central California so people started becoming
more aware about bees and the need for them, so they would call me instead of
the exterminator.
K: Well, there’s a
good side to everything. Now that
there’s this Colony Collapse Disorder, people are beginning to care more about
bees.
M: Yes.
K: Now might be a
good time to talk about the colony collapse disorder (or CCD) and the
sensitivity of bees to their environment.
[Break in interview due to some background noise ... Unfortunately, I lost the middle third of the
interview so we’ll have to skip that part.
It was all about the nature of bees, the workings of the hive, and
Colony Collapse Disorder. One thing I’ll
add from this missing section of the interview is that honeybees are the only
insects that don’t pray on other insects.
In fact Melinda described how she watched the guard bees at the entrance
of a hive flip a beetle on its back to prevent it from entering the hive and eating
their honey. So the bees’ first instinct
is not to attack or harm. If you leave
them alone, they will leave you alone.
They only sting when threatened or in mortal danger. If you just stand there and watch them, they’ll
leave you alone. There’s so much more to
learn about bees, I highly recommend connecting with Melinda at Buzz ‘Round
Town!]
K: Let’s talk about your products now, and their
health benefits.
M: Well. Honey is
known to help heal the skin. You can
almost watch it heal if you put it on a cut or something, and any skin
problems. In fact, in the Middle East
they used it for children for burns instead of pharmaceutical agents and they
found that the parents loved it because they could take the children home from
the hospital and heal them at home with the honey. So, any honey really will do that. Because it’s a fermented food, like raw milk,
it kind of digests itself because it has the enzymes from the bees’ spit so
it’s not as hard on your system and your stomach as table sugar would be. So that makes it a lot easier for diabetics
and people who are ill to have a little sweet in their coffee or tea or
whatever.
K: But you can put it
in your tea too when you’re sick, right?
M: Yes. If you take it at night, it will help you go
to sleep and help you sleep through the night and feel more refreshed because
it makes your body produce melatonin. If
you take it an hour before you sleep, your body will produce melatonin when you
close your eyes and it’s dark. So it
helps you to sleep and then it also helps you to wake up feeling refreshed
because it feeds your brain while you’re sleeping. If you take it with chamomile tea, the chamomile
also makes you relax.
K: Can you tell us
about your other products? You mentioned
propolis.
M: Propolis is what the bees use for the hive. The bees use propolis like cement. But it also is hygienic. It helps them keep the hive clean because
it’s like an antiseptic. You can take a piece of propolis and … The bees make
the propolis from the resin of trees like pine trees, and if you put a piece
inside your cheek if you’re feeling bad or like you’re getting sick or catching
a cold, then you can use the propolis and it will take it away over night,
usually.
K: It sounds even better
than black elderberry or Echinacea or some of the other things you can use.
M: Well, it’s easy to
do when you just put it in your cheek for the night and then your cough or sore
throat goes away! I keep it in the
freezer in pieces so I can just grab it if I need it.
K: I have some of this
[holding up a vial of small golden pellets] but this isn’t propolis. What is this and what can I use it for?
M: That’s the bee
pollen. Now the bee pollen is from
pollen of flowers and the bees use it to make bee bread but it’s also good for
us because it’s full of minerals and it helps people with allergies because it
also has a little bit of bee spit in it so it’s easily digested. It’s not like the honey because in my honey
there’s all the components of the hive because I just strain it, I don’t
extrude it or heat it in any way, so you get the pollen in the honey. Plus you
can buy just the pollen alone, and it’s really healthy for you. And it gives you energy too in the
afternoon. The same with royal
jelly. Royal jelly is what they make for
the queen. Now the queen only eats royal
jelly; and all the larvae eat royal jelly the first 3 days of their larva stage,
but the queen eats it her whole life.
And royal jelly has more protein.
It has minerals in it also but it has more protein in it and that keeps
the queen bee alive for years. It’s good
for us. It helps our skin and I put it
in the face cream that I make. It also
gives energy too.
K: Do you have a list
of the different products?
M: I just have a pamphlet that shows all the health benefits
because there’s so many. Over the ages I
accumulated this information for my pamphlet from books from long ago, what
they use it for. I mean they used it for
eye problems, for all kinds of health problems, not just the skin.
K: Is this the honey?
M: Yes, the honey. That’s what my pamphlet is about, the honey.
K: So for the products from the hive, the list includes …
M: the propolis, the
pollen, the royal jelly, the honey, the wax. Beeswax is
the only wax that’s not toxic to the home when it burns. So you can use beeswax and not worry about
having toxins in your home at Christmas time or whenever you burn candles when
it’s cold and everything’s closed up. I
mean it’s alright to burn candles out on the patio where the air’s flowing but
you don’t want toxins in your home, and the paraffin and others, even soy
candles, are toxic when you burn them.
Also I have the lip balm. It’s
the favorite of most people because it goes on so smooth. It’s really good and healthy for your skin
and helps heal the lips if they’re dry, in the winter especially. And then my face cream has the royal honey
and rose hip oil.
K: And this? [holding up a jar].
M: That’s the
calendula cream. That I make. I infuse calendula flowers into olive oil and
then I also make a tea with calendula flowers and then use that in my calendula
cream. And that, it clears up … Well, this one lady had eczema and she came
back an hour later after trying a sample on her eczema and it was gone, totally
gone. So, calendula cream you can use
for anything and it’s so healing. And
then it has the beeswax and all the properties from that which is also healing,
so the two together make a great cream.
K: Now here’s another
product I bought from you but I forgot what it was because it didn’t have a
label. Which one is this?
M: That’s the royal jelly.
K: Does that need to be refrigerated?
M: Yes. It should be
refrigerated.
K: What happens if
you leave it out?
M: It’ll be all right. You should just put it in the
refrigerator. And it’s a gel. That’s the royal jelly. That’s the one I was saying has lots of
protein and minerals in it. And that’s
good for energy and you only need a little bit, just like a quarter teaspoon,
not very much.
K: And before we
finish, I wanted to hear about your honey and how it’s different from the other
honeys that we buy at the store.
M: Well my honey is first of all, like I said, from wild
bees, so it has a depth to it that you can’t find in most honeys, even Farmers
Market honeys because it’s not extruded and it’s only strained. And also the honey at the grocery stores can
be 49% corn syrup and not be on the label.
K: That’s legal?!
M: It’s legal. And
somebody said “Oh, that doesn’t happen in California,” but they just caught
some people. I don’t know if it was in
California. It might have been in Oregon
or Northern California, you know, bringing honey over and calling it corn syrup so they don't have to pay high honey tariffs. So really there isn’t enough honey in the world for everybody who wants
it. So we don’t make enough. And manuka honey is kind of a scam also
because there’s not enough manuka honey in all of Australia to send all over
the world so everybody wants to call it manuka honey and can change that too
and just add some dark honey like buckwheat which is similar and so you get the
same appearance. You really don’t have to
spend your money on expensive manuka honey.
You can get regular honey or my honey and it will do the same thing. It will heal just the same if not better
because mine’s not mixed with other things.
So, they’ll mix it with other types of honey.
K: Just like the rest
of the foods we talk about at the Weston A. Price Foundation. It’s so very important to know the source.
M: Yes. Yes. It
is important to know the source. You
have to know the beekeeper. Even with
the beekeeper, even at Farmers Markets, they may not put corn syrup in it, but
they might extrude it and process it commercially like a commercial processor
would. Which means extruding it, getting
all the pollens out so it won’t crystallize, and then heating. Extruding it also heats it to higher
temperatures than 118 degrees.
K: So it destroys the
enzymes.
M: Yes, it destroys
the enzymes that the bees put in it that make it fermented and then they heat
it, pasteurize it again after they get all the pollen and propolis and
everything good out of it.
K: The things that can go wrong with honey! First they can use antibiotics, then there’s
pesticides, then they extrude it, take everything that’s healthy for you out of
it, they pasteurize it, remove the enzymes, and then they put additives in it
to stretch it. And that’s the honey that
you’ll most likely get at the grocery store.
But what about if it’s from a health food store and it says “Raw Honey”
on the label? Can you trust that?
M: Well, usually,
yeah, there’s raw honey, and it’s OK.
But you just have to do a taste test, see if you like it. They sell raw honey. But people tell me it’s not like mine. Mine has a depth to it, like a good wine or
good olive oil or something like that.
K: Yeah, that’s what
I noticed right away, as soon as I tasted it, I was just blown away. I thought, “Oh my God. Now this
is honey!” I never knew what real honey was until I
tasted your honey.
M: Yes. There’s a difference.
K: I would love to
get my own hive, but the only thing is, I’m not sure how the moms in my neighborhood would react with so many kids around.
I think everyone might be afraid of the bees.
So maybe I should get you to come over and educate my neighbors!
M: Yes.
K: But then what if
someone has an allergy and gets stung?
M: Yes. You know I have Benadryl here, and this kid
that came by who wanted bees but he said he was allergic, and he did get
stung. He didn’t have a suit on or
anything and I was moving frames of bees out of the box and he didn’t want to
go on the patio, he wanted to stay out and watch, so I let him and he got
stung. So we gave him Benadryl. He’s not a young kid. He was in his 20s. And he didn’t get any reaction. So he wants to be a beekeeper. You better not be allergic to bees if you
want to be a beekeeper. So I keep
Benadryl on hand just for that purpose.
K: So I think that it’s time to wrap it up now. If you want to, just tell us the name of your
business again, and tell people how to get in touch with you.
M:
OK.
My business is Buzz ‘Round Town and you can
find it at
buzzroundtown.com and you
can email me from there or call me if you have any questions or just want to
talk about bees or any situation you have.
You can call me.
K: Well, thank you
very much Melinda. This was very
educational, and it helps me appreciate bees a lot more. So I’ll call you when I’m ready to get my own
hive.
M: OK. Thank you.
Bye Karen!
