Ramsey Wilson is a retired attorney and second-generation commercial beekeeper.  But the first generation isn't his parents but his daughter and godson.  

 

His passion for honey bees was sparked by his daughter, Rey, who caught the bug in college and graduate school, where she explored the use of virtual reality to teach elementary students about bees.  Rey now runs Homegrown Hives, a concierge beekeeping and education service. 

 

That spark of interest became a flame in 2022, when we offered to help our godson Nate expand his apiary at Sleepy Creek Honey.  We scaled aggressively — and unwisely — buying a tractor-trailer load of bees that were worn out from almonds.  We had done our due diligence, or thought so, including two trips to California during pollination season.

 

After the bees arrived here, we soon learned that amitraz didn’t work at all on the varroa mites in these colonies.  We now suspect that they were used to a steady, if not constant, diet of amitraz.  The foul experience made it easy to swear off amitraz.  No more synthetic miticides for our bees.

 

Moreover, the bees that arrived here were nasty mean.  Not all of them, but many, maybe a majority were obviously Africanized.  They were the kind of bees that attacked when we stepped out of the truck or followed us 100 yards into the forest.  

 

So, we requeened every colony and made splits early and late.  We spent so much money on queens that the producer reached out to us the next winter, eagerly hoping we'd come back for more.  No, those were the last production queens we ever bought.  Instead, we breed and rear our own queens, starting from the best of Nate’s stock that’s been here year round since 2017.  

 

Ramsey’s primary role since 2023 is designing and running the queen-breeding program.  He brings to the task an unreasonable habit of relentless investigation and inquisitiveness, refined over many years as a lawyer representing indigent prisoners serving long sentences for horrible crimes — “the worst of the worst,” in some cases, and lost causes in nearly all cases.  His job was to investigate whether the criminal justice system had seriously malfunctioned and his clients had been wrongfully convicted.  Doing this job well requires a willingness to risk repeated failure with lifelong consequences, because your clients almost always lose, leaving them with no hope of legal relief.  The only way to win is to assume nothing, question everything (especially experts), and continue investigating beyond where the police, prosecutor and defense stopped before.

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Renowned bee breeder Steve Taber encouraged many leading beekeepers to take a similar approach to their work.  

 

He "continually challenged us to question everything we 'know' about bees and beekeeping." - Randy Oliver

 

"Taber taught people how to think.  He was my mentor that way.  Every step of the way he would challenge your thinking.  [H]e made you go back and question everything you knew, test it on your own." - Marla Spivak

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So, that's what we do with our queen-breeding program:  assume nothing, question everything (including experts), and continue investigating beyond what's reasonable.  Our bees are better for it.