The smell of warm beeswax and honey, exuding from beehives on a summer afternoon, stirs my senses. I close my eyes and listen to the gentle hum of honeybees, trying to imagine the taste of the upcoming honey harvest. Floral or spicy, golden or amber, the sweet anticipation of a bouquet of honey is on my tongue.

I am new to beekeeping, this being the first year with my own hives to tend. Working with honeybees has brought me right down to earth. Nature and landscape take on new meaning when you walk a property looking to place a beehive to catch the morning sun. I look for maple, witch hazel, and willow trees, which provide early sources of pollen for bees to feed their young brood. Beekeepers need to observe the land, flora, and seasons, and contemplate their influences on honeybees.

Honeybees are gentle creatures, mesmerizing in their diligence, and admirable in their social structure. Each bee works for the good of the colony. The queen bee lays all the eggs in the hive, and lives for several years. Male drone bees mate with a new queen during her virgin flight, and are expelled from the hive before winter. Female worker bees, comprising most of the hive, evolve through specific roles during their lifetime, acting as nursemaids, comb builders, hive guards, royal attendants to the queen, and finally, foragers.

During a worker bee's life-span, only four to six weeks in the summer, she produces a mere 1/12 teaspoon of honey, yet her act of pollination is vital to the health of our planet, and it has an enormous impact on the US economy. Worker bees visit two million flowers per pound of honey they produce, collecting pollen and nectar. They pollinate 30 to 80 percent of our food supply, from apples to zucchini, cranberries to nuts. According to a Cornell University study conducted in 2000, honeybees pollinate agricultural crops valued at more than $14.6 billion per year. They also provide honey, beeswax, propolis, and bee venom for the growing practice of apitherapy, used in the treatment of MS and other illnesses. However, since the honeybee is now considered a threatened species, this gift of nature is in delicate balance.

Reports indicate that 90 percent of both domestic and feral honeybee colonies worldwide have perished in the past 17 years. The reasons for this decline in population include the invasion of parasitic varroa mites, loss of natural habitat, and air and water pollution, as well as the introduction of genetically modified organisms, pesticides, and herbicides.

Commercial beekeeping can also have a negative impact on the overall health of honeybees. Migratory beekeepers, traveling with large pallets of beehives for commercial pollination, have accelerated the spread of pests that plague the honeybee. Controlling these pests with chemicals, instead of using organic methods, has bred mites that are now immune to those controls. Some beekeepers also promote "depopulating" hives in autumn to increase honey profitability.

The declining honeybee population is already affecting commercial agriculture. Farmers renting bees for pollination find that the cost of renting hives has risen substantially due to scarcity. Last year, almond farmers in California imported bees from Australia to pollinate their crops. 

With the multiple threats now facing the honeybee, individual, organic beekeepers are vital to sustaining a healthy environment. As Einstein once remarked, "If all the honeybees on the planet disappeared, mankind would have four years left to live." With the current swell of "backyard" beekeeping, there is a sense that we can positively affect the planet through our simple actions as beekeepers. Beekeeping for love, not profit, is a nurture of nature that comes at a critical time.

During the past year, I have been working with naturalist beekeeper Chris Harp, who promotes an organic, holistic approach to beekeeping through his organization, HoneybeeLives, based in New Paltz, NY (www.honeybeelives.org; 845-255-6113). From hive design and maintenance to treatment of disease or infestation, Harp teaches a philosophy of nurturing honeybees and encouraging their natural instincts. I've learned to work with bees without a veil or gloves, using the sweet smoke from burning sumac berries to calm the girls as I go into a hive. The term Zen applies well to beekeeping, as you need to think and experience on a different plane. There's no fooling the bees: They can sense if you are afraid, angry—or even intoxicated.