Beekeeping While Black is an online platform founded by Karyn Bigelow in 2022 that is working to build a community of Black apiarists.
The platform connects Black beekeepers across different regions of the United States, and offers resources and services to support people throughout their beekeeping journey. As part of her work, Bigelow hosts virtual seminars that discuss topics including the economics of beekeeping and its mental health benefits. She also compiled the “Honey Book,” a directory of Black beekeepers, organized by state.
Additionally, Black novice beekeepers can receive access to a yearlong mentorship, allowing them to learn from experienced Black beekeepers in their area. The program permits up to 15 new members at a time and incorporates an online cohort model to allow Black apiarists to be in community with one another in the early stages of their beekeeping journeys.
Bigelow became interested in beekeeping at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hoping to learn about the practice, she joined the DC Beekeepers Association in Washington, D.C., whose membership was mostly comprised of white beekeepers, she describes.
Early on, Bigelow found herself with questions that other members of the association could not answer nor relate to. She uses hair as an example in which she realized her experience as a Black beekeeper was very different from her white counterparts, explaining that “if I use a smoker, now my hair smells like smoke, and I don’t know how to navigate that. Because as a Black woman, I don’t wash my hair daily.”
Other anxieties stemmed from questions about finding the right location to site and operate her beehive in. Bigelow says her choices in a city were between setting up in a public park or collaborating with a host family. This led her to ask: “What does that mean to go into someone’s property knowing that I don’t look anything like the family?”
Bigelow states that these questions were emerging at a time when stories of Black folks facing unfair profiling were being publicized.
“It was hard for me not to still think about where my blackness was intersecting with beekeeping,” Bigelow tells Food Tank, “because of what was happening in the headlines, it really made me wonder, in what spaces will I be most safe to show up and to be a beekeeper?”
Bigelow describes herself as very “fortunate” for being received positively by her local beekeeping association and by the hosts she partnered with. But she also recognizes that this warm welcome is not guaranteed for many Black beekeepers.
According to Bigelow, beekeeping is a “niche form of farming that is very dependent upon mentorship,” and that without it, the early learning stages can be incredibly isolating and discouraging. She believes beekeeping is learned through a process of trial and error, and it is common for many novices to encounter colony collapse when working with their first hives. But, she says, these collapses are “a lot less likely if you have the proper support and mentorship that comes along with having community.”
Community provides safe spaces and gives “people permission to feel like they’re not odd or abnormal for having this interest in bees, or pollinators in general,” Bigelow tells Food Tank.
The idea for Beekeeping While Black came as Bigelow sought to reaffirm her experience as a Black beekeeper. But with few Black beekeepers in the local area, she found that she needed to extend her reach. “If you can’t find it in person then find it online,” she says.
Social media has allowed for online community building of Black beekeepers but has also been instrumental in offering alternative routes to connect Black beekeepers who are within drivable distances.
In the next year, she and her two partners also plan to advance their goal of founding a nonprofit that will offer more opportunities for mentorship to Black individuals interested in beekeeping and will contribute to the development of a more expansive network of black apiarists.
When talking about her aspirations, Bigelow tells Food Tank, “I’m looking to go beyond Beekeeping while Black, I want the content to continue, but also to really go beyond social media, in order to be able to connect to Black beekeepers, to help expand education and also give more representation.”
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Photo courtesy of Karyn Bigelow
