Our lives depend upon beekeeping…R. Steiner

 

Author Michael Pollan points out that in the question of health care reform nobody talks about the elephant in the room:  the lack of nutritious quality of our food. Nearly ninety years ago, farmers had already noticed a decline in the fertility of fields and in the health of the animals and asked Rudolf Steiner for solutions. This resulted in insights and indications for both agriculture and beekeeping.  This change in paradigm outlined by Steiner is an evident need today when honeybees are close to becoming an endangered species, when factory-farmed dairy cows have lower life expectancy (from twenty years to three or four years), and when we are poisoning the land, water and ourselves with pesticides.

 

The exploitive, industrialized methods used in food production and in beekeeping are connected to the ruin and destruction of the natural world and to its delicate, interrelated ecology. In both cases, only a spiritual understanding of nature and her beings will take us forward in evolution. Gardeners, farmers and beekeepers must widen their horizons to include the planets and the zodiac as well as the earth, forces as well as substances, meditation and creativity not simply recipes. The basis of the solution is to become unselfishly aware of “the other,”---plants, animals and the rest of humanity---and their needs for health and well-being.This course will look at the effects of mineral fertilizer on plants; the substances: silica (bee)-clay (cow)-calcium (worm) and their respective planetary correlations; biodynamic preparations; the four-fold plant and Maria Thun's research; life rhythms and their practical application in garden and farm; the honeybee's role in nature above and beyond pollination. We plan to visit a bee hive on a sunny day, and stir and apply the biodynamic soil preparation BD #500. Visit, spikenardfarm.org.

 

Suggested reading: Rudolf Steiner, Bees, Introduction by Gunther Hauk, Spiritual Foundations for the Renewal of Agriculture, Stella Natura Calendar, edited by Sherry Wildfeuer, titles will be available in RSI Bookstore.

  

GÜNTHER HAUK has been a teacher, biodynamic gardener and beekeeper for over thirty years. In 1996 and co-founded the Pfeiffer Center in Spring Valley, NY. Since then he has given trainings and workshops on organic/holistic beekeeping methods and biodynamic gardening.  In his book Toward Saving the Honeybee (2002/2009) he calls for a radical change in beekeeping methods. In 2006 he co-founded Spikenard Farm, Inc.with his wife, Vivian. The Spikenard honeybee sanctuary is in Floyd, VA. Learn more at spikenardfarm.org.