Learning from Wild Honeybees

This first-ever overnight immersion invites a small group into the living interior of Galbreath Wildlands Preserve, one of Northern California’s most ecologically intact landscapes and a long-term field site for wild honeybee research. Over two days and two nights, we will move slowly and attentively through forest, ridge, and watershed, learning from free-living honeybees and immersing ourselves in the places where they actually live.

Guided by the Apis Arborea team, participants will hike on and off trail to visit a range of the preserve’s nearly 80 known bee trees. Along the way, we will learn to read the land as a relational field shaped by diverse pollinators, wildlife, plants, water, and time. This weekend centers direct encounters with wild honeybee nests embedded in indigenous ecologies that have been co-evolving across deep time, revealing variations and conditions that are rarely visible from managed contexts.

The immersion emphasizes learning from the species themselves, supported by field-based teaching from Apis Arborea. Through observation, silence, shared inquiry, and ecological context, we explore how wild honeybees are shaped by forest dynamics, genetic resilience, and seasonal rhythms, and how their ways of inhabiting place can inform a more ethical human participation in living systems.

We will make camp in one of the preserve’s campgrounds. Night brings a different kind of learning. Listening to the forest after dark and sensing temperature shifts, moisture, sound, and stillness, we deepen our attunement to the broader community of life that holds honeybees in relationship.

This immersion is physically engaging and contemplative. Expect sustained hiking, uneven terrain, off-trail navigation, and a willingness to be changed by place. What emerges is not only knowledge about honeybees, but an embodied understanding of how wild beings organize, adapt, and belong, and what it might mean for humans to remember how to do the same.

Throughout the weekend, the Apis Arborea team will share stories from many days in the field at Galbreath each year since 2021, along with insights drawn from ongoing observation and research. We will also explore how lessons from the wild flow back into Apis Arborea’s work, including TreeNest design, regenerative programming, and a broader practice of conservation rooted in respect rather than control.

This gathering is for those drawn to learning in situ, at the pace of the land, in respectful proximity to lives unfolding beyond human direction.

Registration note: This is a backcountry-style weekend overnight immersion with basic amenities. Participants bring all personal camping gear and all food for the weekend. The campground provides a toilet and drinking water. Upon registration, we will send a detailed packing list and additional logistics.

Some scholarships are available. For inquiries please email us at [email protected].