As you drive the gravel of Vermont’s country roads and enjoy the scenic beauty of the many lush pastures which dot our countryside, keep in mind that many of these fields that feed Vermont’s dairy herds also provide a significant portion of the “bee pasture” so vital to the state’s honey bee industry. Vermont bees work within villages and city limits to provide honey and pollination to Vermont’s “urban” beekeepers.

“Many native Vermonters have ingrained respect for the nutritional wisdom of the bee, which goes into the fields and selects the materials for the making of a perfect food. With bees there are no new ways of checking the quality of the flowers it visits to obtain nectar. It knows if and when flowers aren’t up to its standards and moves along to others.  In Vermont one sometimes hears the saying, ‘We’ve got to trust someone—why not let it be the bee?’  The saying is more truth than poetry.”  As quoted by Vermont Doctor, D.C. Jarvis, M.D. Folk Medicine.

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