Meet Our Hive
LEARNING FROM THE BEES
The History of
Learning from the Bees possesses a rich and living history, rooted in deep respect for one of humanity’s most ancient allies: the honeybee. It is our shared care and concern for bees that continually bring us together across cultures and disciplines, inviting all to listen, to learn, and to explore the many ways bees inspire a deeper kinship with the Earth, each other, and other nonhumans alike. Through diverse approaches to tending bees and living in co-creation with them, the conference honors the wisdom these extraordinary beings carry and the profound debt we owe them.
Founded by the Natural Beekeeping Trust, Learning from the Bees began in 2018 at Doorn, Netherlands, where 300 participants from nearly 30 countries convened in response to a shared calling. Inspired by the bees themselves, the gathering sought to protect and revere honeybees, and also learn from their social intelligence by coming together in the spirit of a “World Hive.” This vision continued with the Berlin edition in 2019, focused on the centuries-old craft of Zeidlerei (tree-beekeeping) and other nontraditional beekeeping practices, thus furthering the exchange between ancestral knowledge and contemporary inquiry.
After the pause of the pandemic, our community reunited in 2023 for a smaller gathering in Oxfordshire, UK, affirming Learning from the Bees as an enduring force for change towards a true Culture of the Bee. From this event arose new questions and intentions that now shape the fourth edition in 2026, held outside of Europe for the first time. As Learning from the Bees crosses the Atlantic, we invite you to join the living impulse of our community in sincerely perceiving the nature of the honeybee being and together—with courage and connection—to co-create an uplifting and transformative experience. Congregating once more as a “World Hive,” we plant seeds for a coordinated bee-centric network across the United States and the Americas, guided by our highest ideals and shared purpose, as we meet the challenges of the future.
Our Host
SPIKENARD FARM
HONEYBEE SANCTUARY
Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary is dedicated to supporting the health and vitality of honeybees, native pollinators, and the ecosystems they depend on. Located on 41 acres along the Little River in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Floyd, Virginia, Spikenard promotes sustainable and biodynamic beekeeping through education, immersive experiences, and ecological stewardship. Rooted in a heart‑centered approach that asks, “Who are the bees? How can we serve them?,” our sanctuary cultivates and nurtures a landscape rich with forage to support bees and wildlife, while inviting people into deeper connection with the land.
Since its founding in 2006, Spikenard has become a place of learning, reflection, and engagement. Through workshops, apprenticeships, educational programs, public open days, and community events, the sanctuary shares practices that honor reciprocity between humans and bees, and offers people of all backgrounds the opportunity to deepen their understanding of honeybees and their place in the web of life.
After attending the 2023 Learning from the Bees conference in the UK, Spikenard’s Executive Director, Alex Tuchman, was inspired by the spirit of that gathering and its vision for a “World Hive.” He joined with fellow collaborators to bring the conference across the Atlantic. We are honored to co-organize and host its fourth iteration in 2026, welcoming participants to both Floyd EcoVillage and our sanctuary grounds for a powerful convergence of honeybee wisdom and human inquiry.
OUR TEAM
Visual Communications Coordinator
Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary
EDWARD LEE
AUGUST
Lee is a visual communicator, photographer, and bee-tender whose work unfolds in relationship with conservation, pollinators, and devotion. For the past three years, Lee has served as the visual communications coordinator for Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary, a living community where pollinators are met first with love and listening. In this role, Lee tends the Sanctuary’s visual presence through photography, graphic design, and social storytelling. His work seeks to honor pollinators as teachers and kin, translating lived encounters into images that carry reverence, truth, and warmth. Lee began tending bees in 2020 and approaches beekeeping as a quiet practice of attention and humility. His creative work grows from time spent in stillness with pollinators, where relationship comes before representation and learning unfolds through love. For Learning from the Bees, Lee contributes website design, social media stewardship, and behind-the-scenes coordination. Lee is currently pursuing a B.F.A. in Graphic Design with a minor in Photography at Radford University.
Neelima Baird
Stella Natura® & Hive Host Coordinator
Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary
Neelima experienced a surprising life change during a search for land in 2019, when a wish to become “a person that the land itself would choose as a steward," was answered by an immediate and insistent call to serve bees (surprising because, as a “sensory” person, she thought she was afraid of them!). Seeking methods that respected bees’ sovereignty, related to them on an authentic spirit level, and employed natural means, she was led to Spikenard, where she completed the Spikenard Biodynamic Beekeeping Training (SBBT) in 2022. Neelima now serves Spikenard in many roles, including coordinator for the Stella Natura® Biodynamic Planting Calendar, as well as the Hive Host program that was her SBBT graduation project. She is a member of the Agriculture Section of the School of Spiritual Science and, with her family, is developing Yarrow Bridge, a forested sister honeybee sanctuary near Spikenard.
CHEYANNA
BONE
Founder, BeeWilder Song
Co-Host, Arboreal Apiculture Salon
Cheyanna is the founder of BeeWilder Song, a body of work devoted to cultivating respectful, relational ways of learning with honeybees. She has been studying and working with honeybees since 2010. She mentors students and communities in nature-centered ways of learning with bees, integrating biodynamic and rewilding apicultural practices. Cheyanna was a founding member of the nonprofit Apis Arborea, where she participated in research on free-living honeybee populations in the Galbreath Wildlands Preserve, mapping and monitoring wild colonies. She is a co-host of the Arboreal Apiculture Salon, teaches children about bees in local schools, and contributes to broader efforts supporting honeybee vitality and ecological resilience. Her work weaves hands-on bee stewardship with a lifelong study of land stewardship, healing arts, and Earth-based wisdom traditions. Cheyanna lives and works in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California.
Ines Katharina
Kinchen
Program Coordinator
Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary
Ines tends the bees, trees, and animals at Emerald Ark Biodynamic Bee Sanctuary in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. She also serves as program coordinator at Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary in Virginia. A mother, former Waldorf educator, and teacher of resonance harmonics, she integrates holistic health with sanctuary creation, Earth healing, and community renewal, offering this work through hands-on practice and by teaching workshops in biodynamics and regenerative stewardship.
Steve founded The Ambeessadors with the dual mission of connecting the bee community and spreading awareness of and appreciation for the importance of bees and pollinators through events, research, educational programs, art, activism, and more. He co-produced NYC Honey Week; co-founded BCN Honey Fest in Barcelona; was lead producer of the 2019 Learning from the Bees conference in Berlin; co-produced the online BEES, DREAMS & MEDICINE speakers series in collaboration with the College of the Mellisae; hosts formal honey tastings; grows an educational pollinators’ garden in Berlin, where he presently lives; and serves as project director of Honey Bee Watch, an international coalition tasked with better understanding how free-living honeybees survive, with the aim of lowering mortality rates among managed colonies, improving beekeeping’s sustainability, and protecting threatened wild populations around the world.
ALEX
TUCHMAN
Director, Spikenard Farm Honeybee Sanctuary
Alex is a beekeeper, educator, farmer, author, and student of nature. As the director of Spikenard, Alex carries a wide variety of responsibilities on the farm, with the bees, in the classroom, and in administration. Alex arrived at Spikenard in March of 2014, after three years as the farm manager of Loyola University Chicago’s Student Farm in Woodstock, Illinois, his home state. Alex co-leads the Agriculture Section of the School for Spiritual Science, is a consistent contributor to the biodynamic agricultural and natural beekeeping movements, and regularly teaches at conferences in the US, around the world, and online. Alex’s book, A Lively Hive, was published in 2021, outlining the basic biodynamic beekeeping methods that are practiced and taught at Spikenard. In 2024, Alex became editor of the Stella Natura® Biodynamic Planting Calendar.
