Saving the Bees One Swarm at a Time

Globally-Minded Beekeeper, Cat Wilford-Fraley Rescues Bees And Supports Local Farms

Montara, CA July 1, 2011-- In addition to the global market collapse, the U.N has reported that the mysterious collapse of honey-bee hives is a global problem. A 2010 Congressional report explained that these little pollinators contribute over 14 billion in value to the economy and the complete reasons for hive collapse is still unknown. But one beekeeper is addressing this global crisis by taking action in her own backyard and community by rescuing the bees one hive at a time.

Catherine Fraley is a self-professed corporate dropout who has fallen in love with the community of small farms along the coast where she lives just south of San Francisco. Many of these lush farms have been run by the same families for multiple generations and were established around the fishing port towns of Half Moon Bay and Pescadero around the time of the gold rush.

Fraley has found a way to support the farmers through her beekeeping craft with a unique idea for helping the bees at the same time – she captures bee swarms and places them in hives on local organic farms. She calls this program “Swarms to Farms” and recalls the a-ha moment of connecting the dots: “I was at my first farmers’ market in early May, selling honey, when one of the organic farmers approached me to place hives on his farm to help pollinate the pumpkin crop. I suddenly understood the best way to use the bee swarms which I was collecting that spring.”

Fraley had already begun an active campaign for rescuing bee swarms by posting flyers throughout the coast side towns, asking to be notified about bee swarms, which she collects at no charge. “The bees in our coastal corridor had been disappearing over the last ten years, and since I learned how to capture bees when they swarmed, I realized that I was rescuing the bees from being destroyed. The problem is that bees have a housing crisis because there aren’t many hollow trees available to build hives. So the displaced bees have moved into the roofs and walls of people’s homes and buildings which means that exterminators are called to kill them.”

Fraley has also begun a local online platform to promote beekeeping called Coastal Bee and hopes to apply this model to other communities in the near future. Fraley concludes, “We all know that bees are an essential component for overall environment and economic health. This mission is such a win-win – I rescue the bees from extermination and give them new hives which are then placed as a free service to the farmers to help increase their crop yields. We hope that when the bees from those hives swarm, they can return to the wild to build up the feral bee population. Rescuing the bees has become my passion.”

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For more information please contact info@costalbee.com

For media information contact:
Lynn Scarborough
469 951-7051 or
lynn4media@gmail.com

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