Bees for Development

There is a fantastic organization called Bees for Development which I recently learned about thanks to a former student and now friend. The idea is to be an information portal for beekeepers across the world (but mostly in poor, remote areas) who might use beekeeping as a means of income generation. It’s inspiring.

They provide all sorts of information for beekeepers, mainly through their publications, and through consulting services, and through offering a host of informational resources which help from everything from the technical aspects of beekeeping to accessing local markets, writing funding proposals, and forming beekeeping associations.

Here at American University, using our new hives on campus, I can now teach about the merits, challenges, and even the technical dimensions of beekeeping, along the same lines as Bees for Development is offering (from the UK). The International Development program at the School of International Service, where I teach, seeks to build connections between the theory of international development and its practice (as well as to foster a solid educational basis in its global and local contexts, and the ethical debates in the field). My beekeeping apprentice, Lindsay, is pursuing the Master’s International program; learning beekeeping here on campus is helping to prepare her for her upcoming work as a Peace Corps volunteer. Finding organizations like Bees for Development is my latest favorite organization doing terrific development work, and to see them doing it at different scales than ours here at AU is a huge inspiration.