The Bee Keeper

Received From Clif Sanderson, one of our Founding members

“Bees are smarter than people,” says New Zealand professional beekeeper and dowser, Kerry F McCurdy, “bees know about survival, so listen to them.”

Yet it is true that all over the world bee colonies are collapsing. There is much finger pointing happening between big industry players, expensive research and grand plans but nothing has changed, bees are still dying. The bees may have got fed up with the industrialisation of their lives through massive sweat-shop apiaries and are saying enough is enough. Whatever the cause, some reports say that if they do leave we, the perpetrators, will not survive beyond five years without them.

Bees are responsible for bio-diversity over the 26 million years they were on the planet before us; without bees, biodiversity will vanish. Already Kerry sees black holes for bees around NZ country areas where monocultural rural thinking has made an un-assisted bee life impossible.
Kerry knows his bees and he is concerned but believes there are ways to help. He has developed a thriving business placing designer hives in people’s backyards and gardens, teaching a new wave of wise organic beekeepers.

For him, one of the major ways is to support, teach and practice professional dowsing, which he has done in other countries and is preparing special teaching DVDs. He suggests dowsers to step up, prove your skills to yourself then help local beekeepers and garden landscapers get it right. “Without dowsing, I could not get the bees to be so healthy and, yes, happy,” he exclaims with enthusiasm.

When I asked him about the dance bees do when they return loaded to the hive he smiles a little. They live in a field which doesn’t relate to our way of navigating, the dance he sees often is a little dance of exuberance, a kid’s kick-up of the heels, a joyous happy to-be-alive feeling. They have, he assures me, a huge sense of humour. Kerry is learning all the time, not stuck in the old ways.

Sitting for the interview within arm’s length of a buzzing hive, in a noise like an old time treadle sewing machine, he shows that his hives do not have the conventional landing platform at the base of the hive. That platform means that the heavy bee had to climb all the way up right through the middle of the traffic jam inside the bulk of the hive all the way up to the top section, then all the way down to get out again. Kerry has no such arrangement, I can see at each level he has 15mm round holes, therefore the worker bees arrive at the penthouse, spend little time unshackling her pollen or nectar and off back to work, logical according to Kerry when you think it through.

As well, a bee’s rear legs are longer than the front ones, landing on a flat surface is awkward whereas it is comfortable to land with the front legs clinging to the edge of the round hole and then legging it up into the arrival hall. What’s more, the short transit time means that possible piggy-backing varroa mites are not in a good area to climb off their bee’s back, and are thus carried back outside and away.

I am watching Kerry closely and with a little concern because he is walking towards a five stack hive that he has selected to open to gather some fresh honey for us. I am just beginning to wonder if we might be best to wait inside the car with the windows securely closed when he laughs at our discomfort.
Where are the ‘spaceman’s’ beekeeper’s protective gear – the gumboots, the rubber gloves, the head covering? He has his shirt open, shorts and no hat at all. “Oh,” he says, “Why would they sting me, they know me like your chook and cat know you, plus I love them.” And sure enough, gingerly, my wife and I edge closer until we too are leaning over the hive.

The thousands of bees seem to be ignoring us, Kerry says, because our energy fields that bees see, shows calmness and love. He explains, that the little smoke he is using is not to put the bees asleep but to disguise the smell of the pheromone they will produce when disturbed, so the colony does not panic. Isn’t that such a lovely picture?

Over-smoking by unknowing honey gatherers may create havoc, putting the bees into survival mode, eating honey ready to leave... but with us there are no nervous sudden flights of retreat. No one gets stung. No angry attacks. What an incredible feeling of being at one with this colony of – can I say – sacred beings? An intense relationship with the thriving life force.

Let’s revisit Kerry’s opening comment – “bees are more intelligent than humans.” Don’t get me wrong, this man is no New Age flower person (although it wouldn’t be surprising to see him wearing a flower in his hair). He has lived a very full life, coming to beekeeping only after many years of natural farming and world travel.

Now he manages his 600 hives by himself, creating his own path through all the difficulties and joy of following no one else’s approach. Depending only on the amazing results he achieves between himself and his ‘friendly teddies’ – the quiet colonies he has responsibility for.

Many accepted facts about beekeeping are not facts at all but mis-interpretations. What one bee knows all bees know! They are a single body spread out, but still in touch, returning each evening to be a single body.
Industrial sweatshop conditions for bees, artificial insemination, overriding natural selection, sugar feeding, long distance moves for generation after generation is weakening the species. Varroa mites have wiped out the gene pool of our regular honey bee, api-malifera, and therein lies the problem industry is creating for the species.

Most commercial apiaries average 30Kg of honey per hive harvesting once a season, Kerry harvests three times a season; with his best colonies delivering about 90kg of honey each season. Industrial beekeeping is about money and systems, not environment or the best interests of bees.
Dowsing. Using dowsing knowledge, costs are brought down, bee health and honey crops improve by a gestimated 30%. Kerry declares his success “..has a lot to do with dowsing.”

He carefully dowses for each colony’s energy field, ensuring the hive sits correctly on intersecting ley lines, the same method for tree planting he says. Varroa mites like people, do not like to live on ley lines, though cats and plum trees do. Even the direction of the hive plays a big part in the happiness of the colony inside, as it would with us, again this vital information from dowsing, like talking to the bees themselves.
Negative energy flows occur in 4 of 5 locations he works with, these are seen with dowsing rods of course and eliminated with crystals, as plain as the nose on your face.

Zillions of cell phone messages, remote control signals and WIFI systems are like endless electronic rain for bees that eventually flows like water down valleys, but electrostatic follows the earth’s magnetic lines.
He has designed a simple electronic device (purchased from Dick Smith) which he places under the hives, all sound through his lap-top program gives a colour picture of the colony’s noise. This color picture of each colony tells everything to Kerry’s practised eye, but remote dowsing is where his future lies, he believes. Just practice practice practice.

He loves to get requests to remove any swarm because he is sure that the health of the queen bees are much better if they have grown up in their local surroundings, bees learn the timing of every food source in their 40 square kilometer feeding range, this knowledge is cumulative, it takes 3 or 4 years for a colony to be fully mature.

He is ready to give advice, and as a dedicated dowser, would love to see everyone offering their skills, not just to beekeepers, but by helping others to accept we each have the power to move the world in a better direction.