The Reason You Should Think Like a Bee.

What would happen in a world without bees? We’re no strangers to this question in recent years.

Maybe you remember “Bee Movie” that came out a few years ago. A humorous cartoon starring the voice of Jerry Seinfeld about a young bee, recently graduated from college, who befriends a florist and soon finds out that humans are eating all of their honey. Subsequently, he sets out to sue the human race for stealing honey from the bees. When he wins the lawsuit all the bees quit their jobs and go on hiatus. Soon after, all the plants dry up and the food supply is threatened. The film ends happy, of course, with a frilly moral about not disrupting natural systems.

While the premise of the story is satirical, its a hypothetical scenario that has become all too real as we watch bee populations dwindle all over the globe.

We are all familiar with the doom and gloom.

We’d much rather focus on the solution!

That is just what Rob Keller of the Napa Valley Bee Company is doing with his Napa Valley Bee Exchange project, and his solution involves thinking locally and acting like the source of his obsession, a bee.

Running three large apiaries as well as a handful of personal hives all over the Napa Valley, Rob has built a reputation as one of the foremost advocates of the bees in Northern California. He harnesses a passionate drive and exemplifies compassion for the pollinators as valuable allies. In fact, you will often hear him say things like — “That make the bees angry!” or “The bees will be happier if…”

His goal as a beekeeper, educator and advocate has always been to work alongside the bees and their most natural inclinations rather than tinkering with and implementing man made interventions.

Think locally.

“We keep looking for the silver bullet for the problems we’re seeing with bees, with closer inspection you’ll find the silver bullet is in our own backyard.”

If we want to build strong and resilient bee population, we certainly must stop spraying our plants with harmful chemicals. However, the topic less addressed in this conversation happens to be something that we spend a lot of time talking about in most other parts of the food chain: locality.

It’s a simple question, yet rarely considered: Why are we relying on queens coming from Hawaii to stabilize a bee population in the Napa Valley? If the answer isn’t obvious enough, all you have to do is line up a photograph of each place side by side to see that the flora varies greatly.

The foremost goal of the Napa Valley Bee Exchange is to create a better facility for breeding a truly local bee stock. Translation: Rob seeks to raise queens for Napa Valley beekeepers in the Napa Valley.

“We will strengthen the local genetic stock of our bees, which will get us on a firm foundation of stabilizing the local bee genetics.”

But it doesn’t stop there. What better place is there to start a sustainable bee hub than on a community supported farm? The integrity lies in the Bee Co.’s relationship with Lizzie Moore and BOCA Farm.

“Our mating yard will also serve to further pollinate all the food that grows at BOCA farm to feed the surrounding community.”

Think like a bee.

Bees never work in isolation, so neither should beekeepers. Thinking wholistically about better solutions for allowing bee populations to thrive also cannot happen in isolation.

The Bee Exchange will serve as local an information hub for sustainable beekeeping methods It will be a space connecting existing beekeepers and their bees, with the next generation of beekeepers starting new apiaries. Think of it as a bee salon of sorts — to exchange thoughts, questions and healthy breeding stock. The Bee Co. will be running classes, lectures and demonstrations to educate people, young and old, about bees as pollinators, keeping healthy colonies, and honey extraction.

And multiply.

The power harnessed by a community such as this will certainly not be insular. If successful, the repercussions of scaling this are endless.

Rob and the Bee Co. have already gathered a caring community of chefs like Chris Kostow of Meadowood and Kipp Ramsey of Farmstead to show their support by offering incredible prizes that are bound to buzz away soon.

If you care about where your food comes from, then show your support for the bees as well and support the groundbreaking work of Rob Keller and the Napa Valley Bee Company.

Take a note from the bees, and pollinate this community.