Spotted in a back issue of BC Business magazine, there’s a lively little article about Paul van Westendorp. Even if you’ve never met British Columbia’s provincial apiculturist, the man’s enthusiasm and humour — and his lifelong devotion to the welfare of honey bees — shines through in the profile piece.

It’s not the bees’ honey-making ability that intrigues van Westendorp (he calls it “a wonderful by-product”) but their interconnectedness with the natural world.
“A lot of people don’t realize that bees are an absolutely critical component of the environment,” he says, leaning forward to fix his visitor with an intense gaze. “Plants have one big handicap: they cannot just yank themselves out of the soil, walk over, have some fun and walk back again.”

Introduced to bees by an inspiring grade school teacher in his native Holland, van Westendorp took his first beekeeping course when only 11 years of age — and there may be a lesson here for apiculture industry, in encouraging young people to take up beekeeping to replace those who are on the verge of retirement.

Beekeepers are getting more mainstream media attention than ever before, in the context of recent reverses to the industry, but it’s a rare pleasure to read an article that taps into the pure passion for honey bees that, in the end, is what keeps a beekeeper plugging away at the business.

See:
Good Buzz: sweet gig by Jessica Werb
BC Business, August 2007