Oral History Feature | James Wilkes of Faith Mountain Farms

James Wilkes of Faith Mountain Farms is an interesting person. He has his feet in two very different worlds as a Ph.D in computer science and a beekeeper. James runs Faith Mountain Farms with his family and their few thousand buzzing business partners. BRAHM is also happy to sell Faith Mountain Farms honey in our gift shop, buy it from us or from the source at Faithmountainfarm.com

"All beekeeping is local, there is a normal forage area that bees travel and whatever nectar sources are there they communicate to the other bees in the hive. They do a little waggle, and they are communicating information in that dance. They are communicating are the distance from the hive, the sun angle, and the strength of the nectar source. Within the two to three-mile forage area of that hive really dictates the life of that hive, everything they need for life has to be in the two to three-mile radius.

Honey bees are wild in some respect, but you are managing them, working with their biology and natural tendencies. About 10 years ago now I was in my bee yard, trying to remember what I had done at a hive, you visit your hives every so often to look for signs of health and certain metrics. Remembering what you saw before is important because it changes. I was having trouble remembering and I had a phone in my pocket and had this thought, what if I can walk up to this hive and my phone says what you did last time, what you should be looking for this time, what’s going on in the region with bees that people are seeing or dealing with. That was the “Aha!” moment for Hive Tracks, now we have almost 30,000 registered users in over 150 countries."

Read his full interview here: https://www.blowingrockmuseum.org/farmforagefeast

Photo by Ashley Warren @naturalcraftphoto
Photo Title: Super Reveal

@faithmountainfarm