Ecofarms: Jamaican Beekeeping with Grace Foster-Reid (S6, E26)

S6, E26 - Ecofarms: Jamaican Beekeeping with Grace Foster-Reid

Brian: Welcome to the Beekeeping Today Podcast. I am Brian Kramer, owner of Sunshower Honey Company. Coming to you from the historic Winney Farm on beautiful Bainbridge Island, Washington.

[music]

Jeff Ott: Welcome to Beekeeping Today Podcast, your source for beekeeping news, information, and entertainment presented by Betterbee. I'm Jeff Ott.

Becky Masterman: I'm Becky Masterman.

Kim Flottum: I'm Kim Flottum.

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Jeff: Thank you, Sherry. A quick shoutout to all of our sponsors whose support allows us to bring you this podcast each week without resorting to a fee-based subscription. We don't want that, and we know you don't either. Be sure to check out all of our content on our website. There, you can read up on all our guests, read our blog on the various aspects and observations about beekeeping, search for, download, and listen to over 200 past episodes. Read episode transcripts, leave comments and feedback on each show, and check on podcast specials from our sponsors.

You can find it all at www.beekeepingtodaypodcast.com. Hey, thanks, Brian, for that great opening from up there on beautiful Bainbridge Island. You know, folks, you too can submit an opening to the show. Just record your opening on your iPhone or your computer and send it to us here at questions@beekeepingtodaypodcast.com. Becky, we need to get this show over quickly because I am so late on getting my Christmas shopping done. What's your last-minute gift idea for a beekeeper?

Becky: That's a great question, Jeff. I think that any kind of mite treatment is a great thing to put under the tree. Just don't open it because it might interfere with those pine needles and the holiday scent you're trying to go for, but taking care of your bees, letting them have a healthy new year is a great way to gift your beekeeper.

Jeff: Gifts can run the gamut of expensive to inexpensive. Often, it's nice to give a gift to a fellow beekeeper. One that's always welcome are hive tools. Hive tools are a great idea. You can never have too many of those.

Becky: In fact, you should have more than one. I think that is a great idea.

Jeff: Another, I know I've talked about this before, are the magnetic hive tool holders are handy to always have that tool nearby. You like smokers, don't you?

Becky: I do.

Jeff: Smokers are a good idea. Not smoker smokers, but bee smokers.

Becky: A good smoker is so important, and I think it's nice to have, for sure, a backup one, just in case. A smoker is great. You know what's a neat gift that somebody could get for their beekeeper friend or family? It would be a place to put your smoker. A metal box that you can put your smoker in so that when you're traveling if you're in the car, you can keep it safely enclosed. That's a good gift.

Jeff: Yes. It seems like every season, you see some story somewhere about a smoker that, going down the road, and with all that rush of wind through the smoker, it sets everything afire in a back of a truck, back of a car. It's not good.

Becky: It's never happened to me.

Jeff: Well, that sounds like a story for another episode, Becky. Wait a minute while I write this down.

Becky: You need to go shopping soon, so we better get moving.

Jeff: That's right. On today's show, we have a beekeeper you met several years ago, Grace Foster-Reid. She runs EcoFarms down in Jamaica.

Becky: EcoFarms Jamaica. We are taking the listeners to Jamaica in December, which I think is very nice of the  Beekeeping Today Podcast. Everybody should be in Jamaica in December.

Jeff: I am on my way, Becky. Let's open the lines up and let's talk to Grace. First, a quick word from our friends at Strong Microbials.

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Jeff: While you're at the Strong Microbial site, make sure you click on and subscribe to  The Hive, their regular newsletter full of interesting beekeeping facts and product updates. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Sitting across this big virtual Beekeeping Today Podcast interview table, we have the pleasure of talking with Grace Foster-Reid, owner of EcoFarms in Jamaica. Grace, welcome to the Beekeeping Today Podcast.

Grace Foster-Reid: Thanks, Jeff. Hi, everybody.

Becky: So happy to have you here, Grace. So happy to see your face again.

Jeff: Becky suggested we talk to you because she was so impressed about your operation and what you do with bees and beekeeping and how you are using them to serve the community there this time of year. This is a great time to think about what bees can do for the community and how you can serve others while also working with bees. Give us a history of who you are and just how you got started with bees, and then we'll come back and we'll start talking about the EcoFarm.

Grace: No problem. I'm Jamaican, but I went to school in the States, Rice University, and then MIT, where I have degrees in Civil and Environmental Engineering. Then I came back to Jamaica. I came back home and worked in a bauxite company. Bauxite is a refinery that converts bauxite, which is dirt, to aluminum. What happened is that there was a slowdown in the economy, and the company closed. I lived in a rural town, and there was not another option for me with an engineering degree.

I went with my dad to a farm that he has, a farm that has been in our family for 40 years. I was quite depressed that day. I'm like, "Dad, what are those little white boxes over there?" He said, "Well, those are bees." I'm like, "Bees? Wow. I'm buying honey, right?" Then I went and researched bees and found that the bees are phenomenal because from the hive, you have five products, and those five products can do so many things. I'm like, "Wow, I can do something with this." That started my journey in the bees.

I was thinking that because I was in a place where things were a bit tight because I had no job. My thought was, "Well, what about other people? What about if these bees can not only feed my family but also help other people who are having a rough time in life?" That's how EcoFarms actually started.

Jeff: I'm going to jump back real quick. Did the bees belong to your father, or were they somebody else's on your father's farm?

Grace: No, there were 48 colonies that he had, and I'm using past tense because I stole them, right? I took their bees, but he wasn't taking care of them. He had somebody who came in and took care of them.

Becky: Grace, what year was that?

Grace: I'm guessing that was about 2014.

Becky: Okay.

Grace: Yes, 2014.

Becky: You're up against the 10-year anniversary next year, so that's something to celebrate.

Grace: Yes. Sometimes I never thought we'd make it this far with the bees, but we're here.

Jeff: What is EcoFarm?

Grace: EcoFarm is really about the vision is to create 100 jobs amongst at risk people or marginalized people by innovating honey. That's what EcoFarms is all about.

Jeff: You just do bees and honey and hive products?

Grace: We used to. Remember I told we started because we stole my dad's bees? Well, what happened is that last year, he gave me the farm. I didn't have to steal the farm. He gave me the farm last year, so we're doing a bit more than honey now. We have the bees are the pollinators and honey producers. We have coffee and all other things that we're actually venturing into, but the bees are the pollinators, so they're in charge.

Becky: Can you share the beekeepers who are on your team? We met one in particular who gave us a hive tour and he was deaf. Can you share a little bit about your beekeepers?

Grace: Yes. We work with Jamaica Deaf Village to train deaf folks in beekeeping. The guy I met was Javel. Javel, he was a pleasure to work with. Javel, we actually sent him to China on a course with 70 folks from around the world, all hearing. Javel was a valedictorian. He has since left the area and he's now in Montego Bay, which is on the other side of the island. He had his own bees.

Becky: He does have his own bees now.

Grace: Yes, he has his own bees. Right. He has his own bees.

Becky: Oh, that's a success. That's great.

Grace: The other gentleman was Romaine. Romaine migrated to the States. I'm not sure if he has bees yet. It was Javel and Romaine. We had one fellow who was actually autistic who's working with us because we've gone beyond even deaf to other kinds of impairments. One other gentleman who has some other mental-- Actually, developmental issues.

Becky: Where are you? You had 48 colonies. Are you still right about at 48? That's a lot of bees.

Grace: Yes. Actually, it went up. I went up to just over 100 to about 112 and then I dropped back down. I dropped down this year to about 93. I was a bit consumed with the other aspects of life, and I had a little bit of bee neglect, to be honest, but we're still above what we got.

Jeff: You work primarily with other people in the community with disabilities, primarily deaf and other disabilities?

Grace: Deaf and other developmental disabilities. As I said, we have one person who's autistic, and then also we're trying to bring in some women too, some single mothers. We have one autistic, one single mother, and the two gentlemen who are deaf. That's what we actually do. What I realized is that my bees have suffered a little bit because I was so enthused and so caught up in helping and sharing and developing people that we didn't have enough time to spend on the bees with professional help.

I had to balance that off. I was not very happy about that, but it had to be a realistic choice. We do that. We actually have our bees in four locations. Two on the farm and two about half an hour away from the farm. We reap our honey in Jamaica anytime from about December back to about May. What we had done is that we actually have set up a reaping facility and a facility to extract the honey on the farm, and then we take that honey from the farm to the factory where you went, Becky, which is actually my garage, right?

Becky: Right.

Grace: There we do our minimal processing. In terms of our operation, we converted to wooden frames because when I had gotten them from my dad, they were all plastic frames. Over time, we transitioned out of that and to a more organic beekeeping activity.

Jeff: Do you sell the honey then locally with your label on it or do you sell it to a processor?

Grace: No, we don't have enough to go to a processor. Our honey is our raw material. We do honey sticks, which is honey in a sachet, which we actually flavor with all kinds of stuff like cinnamon, tamarind, lemongrass. We have infusions of that. We have honey that we have in a jar with a little burlap on the top that we sell to hotels. Our honey sticks go to people like Starbucks. Starbucks uses our honey. We also make mead. We do mead and we do a bit of bee pollen.

Jeff: That would be a great marketing thing, Jamaican mead.

Grace: Yes, it really is because what we do, we have-- Our bees get something called bitter honey, where the bees feed on a medicinal plant and that basically has all the medicinal values of honey and the herbs. It's alcohol, so it tastes good. Then we use sorrel, which is a hibiscus that's here. We use Jamaican fruits and herbs to make our mead.

Becky: Do you sell that in restaurants or do you sell that to the public?

Grace: We do mostly to the public. We do to the public through our website and also through some gift shops take it and individuals buy it. I'm really poor. Becky, I'm a good beekeeper. I'm a good engineer, but I'm a poor marketer. I do no marketing. I really don't.

Becky: You can't be good at everything, Grace.

Grace: No, Becky. I really cannot . [laughs]

Becky: I'm a really bad engineer, so there you go.

Grace: Oh, You are?

Jeff: I've never driven a train. I don't know.

Grace: You haven't. [laughs]

Jeff: I'm lost there. You say you're a bad marketer. I can't really believe that, but we will have your website in our show notes so that folks can take a look at what you're doing with your honey and any of the pictures you have and the story of what you're doing. That will be available for our listeners. I look forward to seeing that.

Becky: I need to talk about Varroa. We've already been talking for a few minutes and somebody has to bring it up. Grace, I know we communicated in the past and you were looking for a way to manage Varroa. Are they still a big problem in your operation?

Grace: This is where the engineering side of me has come into play. What I did, I've been doing breeding and splitting for using the hives that are more resistant to the Varroa mite. Over time, the load has dropped significantly. I've also tried some of the fogging with the peppermint oil to bring about the hygiene and that too. I don't have the data, but I'm seeing even less. Over the past five years, having bred out for the more resistant bees, I'm seeing very, very little Varroa mite.

Jeff: How big of a problem are Varroa in Jamaica?

Grace: It's a significant problem. When they came out in the-- What year was it? We had significant losses of colony losses. Most beekeepers use Apistan strips. It's something that we look for and it's something that has affected us really negatively. I think it's more or less under control.

Jeff: It's a management issue at this point, not a loss issue. Besides Varroa, what are the overriding concerns for beekeepers in Jamaica?

Grace: We can have issues with ants at times, especially right now when it's raining. Every couple of years we have issues with colony theft.

Becky: They're packing them up and moving them?

Grace: Yes. I think about five years ago, I lost about eight colonies. One dude who was actually a beekeeper who had been working with some other people who they actually found. You have to be concerned about that. Of course, we live in the tropics and we have hurricanes, so we have issues of weather, and then we also had a couple of years where we had droughts, and then other years where we had too much rain. It's extreme weather that's also an issue for us.

Becky: How many months of the year do you have to feed your bees, if you have to feed them?

Grace: I feed them early. Our season is from September to about May. Starting as early as June, July to feed right up until about November.

Becky: Oh, that is a lot of feeding. Are you feeding a one-to-one syrup? I would think that you'd have all sorts of problems with it going bad also.

Grace: I used to do the one-to-one syrup, but what I found that has worked is using sugar and just use like a spray bottle and just make it quite moist and then leave it in the hive and then make sure there is a water source. The advantage of that is that it doesn't go bad. The bees, if they don't want it, they just leave it and you just take it out. It's like a very thick slurry solution that you give them.

Jeff: Let's take this opportunity to take a quick break and hear from our friends at Betterbee. We'll be right back.

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Sherry: Hello,  Beekeeping Today Podcast listeners. As the year winds down, the team at Betterbee wants to extend a heartfelt for making this another incredible year in beekeeping. Your passion and dedication inspire us every day. To show our gratitude, we're excited to unwrap a special holiday gift just for you. From now until December 15th, 2023, enjoy an exclusive 10% off all orders at betterbee.com, with savings up to $150. Just enter the code Jolly at checkout, that's discount code J-O-L-L-Y, and watch the savings buzz into action.

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Becky: In Jamaica. Does anybody hire out bees for pollination? Are you being paid at all if your bees are pollinating any specific crops?

Grace: No. We don't have that here. What we have is a couple of other companies, they have actually gotten bee themselves.

Becky: Oh, no. Okay.

Grace: Or they've gotten bee themselves or the benefits for free from other beekeepers who are close, but there's not really a market for that. A paid market for that.

Jeff: You had mentioned your eco farm has coffee. Are bees used in coffee pollination?

Grace: We have a 50-acre coffee farm. We had bees. I bought the bees onto that location about six years ago and the yield went up by 47%. Take away fluctuation that you have in production. That was significant. Anywhere on the farm that I put the bees, you can see the difference.

Jeff: Interesting. Do you think it's because they're caffeinated? Are they getting caffeinated-

[laughter]

Jeff: -on the flowers?

Grace: The bee wakes up a bit earlier to get the coffee.

[laughter]

Jeff: Well, I'm just was wondering if there's caffeine in the floral source in the nectar or in the pollen or I don't know.

Grace: Well, I can't tell you. The coffee honey that we get, if you put a bottle on for a year and you open it, it smells just like coffee.

Jeff: Oh, I'd love to have that.

Becky: I think everybody here wants a bottle.

Grace: Actually you smell the coffee aroma.

Jeff: Oh, I'd love that.

Grace: The bees love it too.

Becky: Coffee honey.

Jeff: I have to go back and clarify this. The bees working on pollinating the coffee plants, you saw a 40-plus% increase in production.

Grace: In the coffee production.

Jeff: Oh, in the coffee production? Not in just the honey production, but even in the coffee production. Absolutely. That's cool. Coffee honey, I like that.

Becky: I can't move off of coffee honey right now, but I'm going to try. In Jamaica, our beekeepers doing any migratory beekeeping so that they can collect honey from a specific source.

Grace: We actually have a couple of our big farmers who do that, who actually chase the blossoms.

Becky: Okay. Chase the blossoms. I love that.

Grace: We do that.

Becky: That sounds like a movie or a book.

Grace: It's not something that lots the beekeepers do, but some of the bigger ones have a truck and they can move them around.

Jeff: Well, how many beekeepers are there in Jamaica?

Grace: Last time, it was over 2000.

Jeff: Really?

Becky: Wow.

Grace: Don't quote me on that. Okay.

Jeff: No one's listening.

Becky: Let's say plus or minus 500.

Grace: There you go. We had a dip in the economy in about a couple years ago. There was actually an increase in the beekeepers, but what happened is that the average holding in it not going to be the average person has probably less than 50.

Jeff: Are you using standard-length drill hives, deeps?

Grace: Correct.

Jeff: What about the honey supers? Are they deeps or are they medium?

Grace: Mostly deeps. You have a couple of people who use medium, but mostly deeps.

Becky: Back to coffee honey. No, I'm kidding.

[laughter]

Becky: This is related. When you are extracting, are you extracting different floral flavors? Are you able to separate out your harvest?

Grace: More or less. Because you can know the coffee-- When the coffee blossoms, so if you actually go in there and time that you can capture that. What we have is we have coffee blossom that you have another thing called logwood, which is a bit of a minty kind of honey. We have stuff like quick stick and occasionally you get the bitter honey, which is a herbal honey I was telling you about, and, of course, the multi-floral. If you can time the blossoms, then you can get the floral type.

Jeff: I have to ask a coffee question again. Is the coffee honey dark? Like a dark roast?

Grace: Yes.

[laughter]

Becky: We're going to have to retitle this. This isn't Grace Foster-Reid. It's going to be coffee honey.

[laughter]

Jeff: True. Well, that's really neat. Well, besides the varroa and the weather, what's the situation with American foulbrood or European foulbrood? Do you have problems with those diseases?

Grace: We have American foulbrood, but it's not as much as a polymer. It was about 10 years ago because-- We have a very good apiculture, like a Ministry of Agriculture or apiculture division. They're very good, they're very responsive. They have an organization in every parish. Which is like a state. They have meetings. When problem came out, they actually went through, they trained some beekeepers to become inspectors. They called boxes and burned them. It's not a big problem. A beekeeper might have one or two boxes quickly, they'll burn them, get rid of them. It's not endemic.

Becky: Do you have much of a problem with pesticides?

Grace: Personally, yes. Because I said that our farmers may be a bit too enthusiastic with their use of Roundup on those kind of things. For me personally, what I do, I have my-- Some of them are on my farm, and my farm, I don't use pesticides like that. Then Jamaica has lots of bush. You can actually put your bees in an area that they're not going to be affected by pesticides or farming of that sort. You can be diligent.

Becky: You have refuges. That's nice.

Grace: Well, remember that we're not doing that migrate to beekeeping or we're not doing blossoms of almonds or that kind of thing. Most of our honey is from trees and wild bushes, and those kinds of things. We are not really as affected by the pesticides.

Becky: Grace, you mentioned that you have some help from the government. Do you also have regular beekeeper meetings where you are interacting? Is there a regular conference that you go to just for Jamaica?

Grace: No, so what we have-- Starting at the very top, they have the Caribbean Beekeepers Association and they have an annual conference that they moved from country to country. They had one in Trinidad, Grenada, they moved that around. Then you have our Jamaican Association and Jamaica has 14 parishes and each parish has its own associations and has meetings and trainings, getting information out there. It's a pretty good network.

Becky: That is, it sounds very organized. I want to go to the next Caribbean beekeeping conference. Doesn't that sound like fun? [laughs] Have you been, did you say that?

Grace: I went last year on Zoom. It was really high-tech, some really good presentations. Very good.

Becky: It's a whole different set of problems than what we have in Minnesota and the US.

Jeff: I would think so. Jamaica being an island, you would think it's pretty much isolated from all those problems or could be. We've already established that you've had problems with American foulbrood and the varroa. What about the Africanized bees from the '80s? Did you get hit with those, with the influx of the aggressiveness of those bees?

Grace: Not badly. Trinidad basically has a lot of Africanized bees. I think they're probably from Venezuela. They're close. We e don't have an issue there, knock on wood, that we'll be spared of them.

Becky: Are you importing queens from other islands or other locations?

Grace: I know that we wanted to actually import from Hungary about three or four years ago to refresh our genetics. I know there was a little bit of an uproar about that. I'm not sure what happened. To actually import bees or to import honey to Jamaica, you have to go through the government. It's regulated.

Jeff: You have your own local queen breeders?

Grace: Yes, we do.

Becky: I'm wondering if your ports are monitored for swarms. That's how they believe Varroa got to Australia. I'm assuming that you would have even more opportunity for swarms to catch on from different ships.

Grace: I've not heard of that. Knowing the way our government operates, they probably are, but I personally don't.

Becky: I'm just curious because right now everybody's worried about Tropilaelaps coming into the different countries and so depending upon what your trade routes are, that would be interesting.

Grace: Does the US monitor your ports?

Jeff: Yes.

Grace: For farms.

Jeff: I would say all the big ports do for sure.

Becky: It's one of the things that people wanted in the Farm Bill for better monitoring, but it's not the farm bill, it's a customs and immigration border security. It's something they want more of because they're worried about other mites.

Jeff: From generally speaking, the APHIS, they have their inspection points at all the ports I believe. I'm sure one of our listeners will let us know if I'm wrong.

Becky: APHIS works with the border patrol.

Grace: I'm going to ask our ministry about that.

Becky: If not, Jeff and I can come and help with help Swarm Patrol. Then we can check it out. At least we're not really experts or anything like that. We're just looking to go to Jamaica [laughs] .

Jeff: [laughs] Well, talking about invasive species and everything, I know in Europe is the yellow-legged or Asian hornet. The yellow-legged hornet is causing big problems. Since there's I would imagine a lot of trade between Jamaica and the UK and Europe, if you're having any issues with that, the Asia hornet or that yellow-legged hornet that's causing problems now?

Grace: No, no issue. Is that the one that you also had in the West in the US too?

Jeff: No, it's a different hornet. That's up near where I'm at near Seattle was the, what they called the Asian giant hornet and they renamed it to the Northern giant hornet. That was brought in through ports, they believe in Vancouver, so Vancouver, Canada. The Port of Ventries are always a hot spot for invasive species of all kinds.

Grace: Globalization, to globalize.

Jeff: Well, we've covered a lot of ground in Jamaica and it really sounds fascinating. I've never really considered beekeeping in Jamaica, but I imagine there's all sorts of challenges we haven't discussed. About your program at Ecofarm, the benefit to the people who work there, do you have one or two success stories of-- Well, you mentioned at the very beginning, two beekeepers who've gone off and started their own, but other people that you've touched through this that have benefited from your program with working with bees?

Grace: Of our first beekeeper, Damien. I mean Damien is not deaf, but Damien, he actually now has a career out of beekeeping where he goes around and keeps many people's bees. He basically supported himself through that. We also had Judith. Judith used to work in a factory but she was just so enthusiastic about the bees. She went through and she's not in beekeeping now but she has really progressed financially. I could talk about Javel, Damien, Judith.

My thing, Jeff and Becky, is that I don't want you to come here and spend the rest of your life. It's a launching pad. It's a launching pad. You're going to come, you're going to learn something, and then you're going to take it and make it even greater. That's what we have been doing.

Becky: I think that we should actually maybe paint a picture for the readers of where-- I'm going to say it with a Minnesota accent, but it's Mandeville.

Grace: Yes, Mandeville.

Becky: Maybe you could just paint a picture of that region in Jamaica and what you're close to because it's not next to the beach.

Grace: No, no, no, no, no. If you come into Jamaica, you're flying to Kingston, which is in the East of the island, or in the west which is Montego Bay, where the tourists normally are. From Montego Bay, you drive two hours, which is long for Jamaica. Open up the mountains into the middle of the Island to Mandeville which is basically about 2,000 feet above sea level in the mountains. It's a pretty big town for Jamaica with 100,000 people in the town and the surrounding communities. It's green, it's cool, it's lush. Where our bees are, we actually drive into the hillside even more, past a place called Doppel Church where you have trees growing on both sides of the road, overshadowing the road. Some places you have to stop to let another car pass.

I mean, it's in the middle of nowhere. I must tell you, when I'm in my bees in that setting, I solve so many problems. If you're out there in nature, there's nothing. There's nothing but you and your bees and some birds singing and the fresh mountain air. It's heavenly, so that's where we are. That's where we are in Mandeville where we have our bees.

Becky: I'm lucky enough to have been there, and so I can tell everybody it is lovely. It's absolutely gorgeous. It's a different Jamaica than a lot of people get to see.

Grace: Yes, not the beaches.

Becky: It's the people.

Jeff: I have one last question. Again, back to the weather. Have you been impacted by hurricanes that come through nearby the island?

Grace: We had a couple of hurricanes in 2014. The impact of weather was we had a hurricane. I mean, the thing about a hurricane is it basically sticks away the blossoms. Hurricane season is from May up until December, and when you have a late hurricane in October, I mean that season is gone for you, your honey season is gone. What we do is that because honey can't spoil, honey is basically imperishable. We always have a year's supply of honey that we save every year in case we have a drought or a hurricane that we can provide our customers.

Becky: That's good business planning.

Jeff: That is. Disaster recovery. That's really good. Well, Grace, is there anything that we haven't asked you about that you'd like to bring to our attention and to the attention of our listeners?

Grace: You have no more coffee questions? Are you done with the coffee?

[laughter]

Are you finished?

Jeff: I was saving our listeners, sparing them from my questions about coffee and coffee honey. I love it.

Becky: I don't know why-- It's coffee honey, just it sounds so lovely. [laughs]

Grace: Actually, I'm really happy for this because I just said I've been quite busy and I hadn't got up to the bees in a bit, and I'm actually going to go out there on Saturday. I must tell you something. Last year-- I've been doing all this work with people who are disabled. Last year my daughter pointed out something to me and I went to the doctor. They found out that I have ADHD, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. What I realized is that when I'm in the bees, I know why I love to be in my bees so much, because my bees were medicine for me. When you have ADHD, your brain, it just functions differently. I mean, it talks differently. I mean, it's hyper.

When you go in your bees, it stimulates that part of your brain that needs to be stimulated to actually work. I think that bees-- I mean, I'm thinking that I was doing Ecofarm for people who had the disability, but I was the one who had developmental disabilities and was benefiting from it. I'd like to encourage all listeners, anybody with ADHD or any hyperactivity that beekeeping is the thing for you.

Becky: I love that you're one of your 100.

Grace: Yes. [laughs] I'm one of the 100 Becky. I'm the number 101.

Becky: Oh, thanks for sharing that though. I think that is so good. One of the things I've-- Even though Jeff and I keep going on about coffee honey, and there are so many differences between keeping bees in Jamaica than keeping bees in the States, but when you describe being in the bees, that's all the same. It's just all the same. It's why we're doing it. All of us who are keeping bees love to get into those colonies because all of a sudden you lose time. It's just this process that just takes you to a very relaxing, regenerative place.

Grace: Bee mindfulness. Right?

Becky: Bee night mindfulness. There you go. It's all the same.

Jeff: Well, Grace, we really appreciate you taking your time this afternoon to come on the show and tell our listeners about EcoFarms. Folks, you can check the show notes or go to EcoFarmsjamaica.com and read all about Grace's work and see pictures of their-- You have wine too. What a beautiful bottle and wine, honey, mead, I'm on my way. I can't wait to visit.

Grace: Yeh mon. Come, come.

Jeff: Thank you, Grace. I look forward to having you back.

Grace: All right.

Becky: Thanks, Grace.

Grace: Thanks Jeff, Becky .

[music]

Jeff: You must have had a great time visiting Grace. When was it, Becky? 2018 is that what you all decided?

Becky: It was Grace who visited Minnesota in 2018, but we took the Bee Cruise to Jamaica in 2017. That is when-- I think there were about 30 of us who got on a couple of buses and we traveled from the port to visit her farm and her operation. We've never been more welcomed. I mean, it was just such a lovely experience. Yes, the first time I met her officially was in 2018 when she came to Minnesota.

Jeff: She seems like a very warm and welcoming person and a typical beekeeper.

Becky: Yes, typical beekeeper. I just remember when I first met her and I found her online because I was looking for a place to visit in Jamaica when the cruise docked. I found her operation and learned that she was not once, but twice graduated with an engineering degree in the United States, and yet her passion was to go home and to serve her community. That just has always stuck in my mind. She's lived her life with a lot of purpose, and I think it's just exciting to hear how she brought bees into it.

Jeff: I agree. The folks that we've had on the show over the years who work with bees and in their communities to help others throughout their community, I admire. It's hard work, and it's rewarding work. I'm glad there's people out there doing that.

Becky: It's good for the bees. It's good for the beekeepers. It's good for everybody. Right?

Jeff: Absolutely. That about wraps it up for this episode. Before we go, I want to encourage our listeners to rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts or wherever you download and stream the show. Even better, write a review and let other beekeepers looking for a new podcast know what you like. You can get there directly from our website by clicking on the reviews along the top of any web page. We want to thank our regular episode sponsors, Global Patties, Strong Microbials, and especially Betterbee for their long-time support of this podcast. Thanks to Northern Bee Books for their generous support.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank you, the Beekeeping Today podcast listener, for joining us on this show. Feel free to leave us questions or comments at leave a comments section under each episode on the website. We'd love to hear from you. Thanks a lot, everybody.

[00:40:58] [END OF AUDIO]