Massachusetts is home to more than 40,000 honey bee colonies. One of them is set in a small field outside Norfolk’s Pondville Correctional Center.
The bees live and work in three hives under the care of the Norfolk County Beekeepers Association. A group of men in custody have been learning how to care for them in a new program at the minimum-security prison.
One morning, Ben Fretschl, a 29-year-old serving time for a non-violent drug crime, zipped up his beekeeping suit and got to work. He needed to check the hives for pests that could harm the bees, like the varroa mite.
“It’s very grounding when you’re taking care of something else,” Fretschl said. “It takes your mind out of the situation that you could be in and really helps you grow.”
The Department of Correction piloted the beekeeping program in Norfolk first; now, officials plan to offer it again at Pondville as well as to the women at MCI-Framingham in the spring as part of a new re-entry initiative.
The hives are there now. Experienced keepers will maintain them for a few months to get the bees acclimated to the new space.
Department of Correction commissioner Shawn Jenkins said he hopes it will help folks be successful when they leave prison.
“Giving people the opportunity to engage in these types of programs and learn patience, focus, responsibility, teamwork, right? All stuff that’s transferable,” he said.
State data show education in prison — from academic learning to substance use programming to vocational training — can help reduce recidivism, or how likely incarcerated people are to re-offend.
Susan Goldwitz, longtime beekeeper and a volunteer with the Department of Correction, helped bring this program to the prison. She funded its first year and is also funding its expansion to Framingham. She said bees can teach important life lessons.
“ I found out that beekeeping was a program that dealt with the kind of hidden layers, the ineffable, the unexplainable and non-quantifiable layers that someone would also need to come back into society,” she said.
Goldwitz said one of the secrets to good beekeeping is controlling anxiety. Bees aren’t naturally aggressive, though they can be defensive. When keepers open the hive, bees could think they’re in danger. Some keepers also believe that bees can sense stress from humans through scent. All of this means bees could react to protect themselves and others.
“If you’re reactive and not gentle and calm, you could get stung, and when you’re in society, if you’re reactive and are violent before you need to be, something bad could happen as well,” Goldwitz said.
While this is the first hive at a Massachusetts prison, beekeeping programs in correctional facilities are not uncommon in the country and around the world. The Sustainability in Prisons Project is a partnership between The Evergreen State College and the Washington State Department of Corrections. They manage beekeeping programs in 10 Washington state prisons. They also consult with other state and international programs looking to set up hives in their own prisons.
Emily Passarelli, their program and outreach manager, said a big mission for these programs is to get inmates out in nature.
“It gives them a chance to kind of get away from what other politics or issues might be happening in their life in prison or maybe even outside of prison,” she said. “So it’s kind of like a little getaway, a way to calm down their nervous system.”
Edward Rock, the bee school director with the Norfolk County Beekeepers Association, said it’s especially important to care for bees right now. Their populations are dwindling as they face climate and other environmental challenges. Rock helped implement the 12-week program that Fretschl and the other men at Pondville completed this year. He said it was a modification of the association’s own beekeeping classes.
“Our goal is to not only train people on how to be a good beekeeper, but also how to be a sustainable beekeeper, how to be a beekeeper year after year after year,” he said.
Fretschl said he’s learned a lot about the lifecycle of bees. One of his favorite parts of beekeeping is standing in his suit, surrounded by thousands of the buzzing insects.
“A healthy colony could have upwards to 60,000 bees in their hive,” he said. “It’s quite amazing to see how many bees can be in such a small area.”
Honey harvesting season begins at the end of July. The plan is to harvest this year’s honey for the staff at Pondville to purchase. The profits will support wellness programs for inmates.
Fretschl has come a long way since he began learning about bees. He remembered how nervous he felt opening up the hive for the first time. Now he said he’s much more confident.
“If you trust in yourself and have the patience,” he said, “you can realize you can do more than what you can think.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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