Video: A Pollination Celebration at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills

Some say drumming will coax them in. Others insist they can sing to the bees to get them to make a move.

Alice Dworkin, estate manager at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills, tried drumming, but without success.

“They didn’t listen to me,” she said.

Instead, she relied on another technique—shaking a branch hard enough to send the bees into the new home. Dworkin helped wrangle swarms of bees at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills.

The bees decide that it’s time to move on—the hive has gotten too large. A new queen emerges and the swarm heads out, usually to a low-hanging branch.

“The queen is at the very center of this liquid, revolving mass of bees,” Dworkin said.

They hang there sometimes for days as scout bees are sent out on a mission to find a new place to call home. For those folks keeping hives of bees, the challenge is convincing the bees to move into their hives.

“As long as the queen gets in, all the rest will follow,” Dworkin said.

She’s helped three different swarms find homes in the boxes at Camphill Village Kimberton Hills in the two years she’s volunteered there.

Recently, Dworkin helped convince Gov. Tom Corbett to declare this week, June 20 to 26, Pollinator Week in Pennsylvania. Dworkin sent a petition to Corbett’s office, and received confirmation of the week complete with the shiny gold seal.

While she noted that that’s “kind of the most boring part of the story,” Dworkin conceded that labeling the week can help to create awareness about pollinators and their importance to the environment. Particularly, Dworkin focuses on the larger issues of creating biodiverse landscapes, which pollinators are a part of.

In honor of Dworkin’s efforts and Pollinator Week, Camphill Village Kimberton Hills opened up for a public tour on Wednesday. A small group meandered through the organic crop rows, poked around in the apple orchard and perused goods in the craft shop and weavery.

The bees on the site were a central piece of the tour, and Sue Clee of Camphill Village Kimberton Hills met the group near bee hives and answered questions. The number of honeybees kept at Camphill shrunk over the winter, likely due to freezing issues, but the site still houses more than a dozen hives. The bees help pollinate the crops, which are tended to by village residents and volunteers.

As part of Pollinator Week, Camphill Café will feature a special menu featuring pollinated foods. The menu is available through June 25 and features fruit crisps, tomato soup, vegetables with coconut milk over basmati rice and more. Check out the full menu on the Camphill Village Kimberton Hills blog.