MY FELON-FRIENDLY APIARY
BY PHILLIP LUNA IV
In Pendleton, Oregon, about 200 miles east of Portland, there is an apiary with nearly a dozen honeybee colonies. During peak season, this apiary houses close to 500,000 bees. Welcome to my felon-friendly apiary, located inside the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution.
The beehives are near a garden with rows of bee balm, lavender and a few dwarf honey crisp apple trees. But the perimeter of their sanctuary is surrounded by a 4-foot-tall, chain-link fence and the bees are under the watchful eye of an armed guard tower.
Beyond the 4-foot-tall fence is the aptly named dead zone — where the guard tower is allowed to shoot you without a warning – followed by a much taller fence wrapped in razor wire.
Once a student, I am now a facilitator, which is the third and final level of the program. Facilitators take on a three-year commitment of classroom instruction, mentoring and study in pursuit of a journeyman certification – the highest level of beekeeping a person can achieve while incarcerated. Four of us here have made it to the journeyman program. We mentor students and rotate teaching the class each week.
As a facilitator, I must convince my peers that I am qualified to educate them which means knowing the answers to questions I haven’t thought of yet.
Like most apiarist, we wear protective gear: thick white coats, logos and wide-brimmed hats with a mesh veil. The one major difference is our coats are stamped with a bright orange “Department of Corrections” emblem.
The students are often surprised by the level of trust the prison has with the beekeeping program. We are given a lighter, asked to start a fire for the smoker and handed a hive tool (a mini crowbar). The normalcy of the program contrasts with the looming guard tower and nearby dead zone.
The students ask a lot of questions, about queen pheromones, the stages of larvae and pupae, or even different strains of honeybees and their characteristics. “What type of bee is this?” “Is this a drone or a worker?” “How does the queen spread her pheromone?
In my students’ enthusiasm I forget that the 4-foot fence I often lean against is the only thing separating me from the dead zone and endless miles of razor wire. I forget the armed guard tower and the blinding orange emblem on the back of my bee suit. I forget the challenges of convincing my peers I am qualified to educate them.
For that moment I am just a beekeeper. | PL