Since September 2008 our Virgin Honey has not been available. Now, we have run out of stock of bee pollen. Our customers are shocked. They have always been able to buy honey from us at any time. Our ample stocks of honey & pollen have been cushioning them from the impact of our diminishing honey & polen harvests. Our honey stocks ran out last year, even if we have always been rationing our honey; trying to sell only one bottle to each customer. We had been telling each customer why we were rationing our honey. Now, we have run out of pollen. Now everybody is feeling why. We find that we have a lot of explaining to do. Like lanzones, mangoes or mangosteen, natural honey & bee pollen are seasonal. We used to harvest honey from late November to May. We used to harvest a lot. We have also been rationing honey, so all of our customers would be supplied with a few bottles each per year; enough for household needs. Our honey harvest season used to be predictable. We used to know exactly what to do; when the mangoes or coffee would bloom; where to bring our beehives; when to harvest their surplus honey. We even had mango, coffee, coconut, tamarind, mahogany, narra, avocado, wild vines and sunflower honey. We used to harvest bee pollen from May to December. We used to harvest a lot. Now we have had to stop harvesting bee pollen so that our bees will have more than enough proteins, minerals and trace elements to be able to breed and thrive again. In the 1990’s, the weather started to change. Weather was no longer predictable. It would rain when the coffee was blooming. Mangoes stopped blooming every year; they would bloom every other year, if at all. Coconuts would just yield a little nectar. Fruit trees that bore fruit each year did so every two to four years. Some scientists have said this is due to Global Warming. Other scientists say that human activity does not create Global Warming; that it is a natural phenomenon. Then why are bees disappearing all over the world? This phenomenon has been called Colony Collapse Disorder or CCD. Bees are disappearing without a trace. The very few stragglers that have been found have a fungus growing out of their mouths and are afflicted with the bee version of AIDS. Experts are still trying to link these to CCD. In fact, a plethora of theories abound: a weakening and shifiting of the earth’s magnetism & cellphones disrupt bees GPS’s; GMO’s kill them by indigestion and constipation; they are rapturing into the 5th density and evolving ahead of us to assure continuity of the species when humans follow, etc. Last year, there were no mangoes in Calatagan. There was a small mangosteen harvest in Davao. Camiguin had a little lanzones harvest. We had no honey harvest. For the first time in 33 years, we did not harvest any honey from our beehives. It has become more difficult to keep our honeybees. They are not multiplying as fast as they used to. Seasons are rearranging themselves unpredictably. The weather satellite picture for today shows clear skies over Luzon yet it has been raining for 24 hours. It has been rainy and overcast this month; the opposite of ideal conditions for flower bloom and nectar secretion. There are always flowers in bloom around our farms, but the nectar they are able to produce has been minimal. Our bees certainly convert their small harvest into honey – just enough for their needs. Honey is not yet in surplus. We are praying for better weather. We are praying St. Benedict’s prayer for honeybees. We are blessing our bees. We have migrated our beehives to other farms of friends in other provinces. We hope to harvest our first crop of honey when beekeeping conditions improve around our migratory bee yards. BUT, La Nina has persisted into May 2009. It has been raining for the past weeks, depressing natural blooms and nectar & pollen secretion. We are undaunted and determined to continue. We have thrown away all that we know about bees and beekeeping and have started to study and learn again from present conditions. Right now, we are finalizing plans to engineer a dramatic increase in our bee population complete with a new approach to queen breeding. A better bee must evolve. This involves massive importations of survivor bee stock from approved sources in other countries. We should be resting, relaxing and enjoying the fruits of five decades of unstinting labour. But, we have decided to commit our remaining time, energy and resources to our new “survivor” honeybee operation. We have put our retirement plans on "hold" indefinitely. We are using our stocks of old honey for our other products. This honey is sometimes thin or has started to ferment or has turned very dark with time. It is not fit for bottling. The good news is that we still have stocks of beeswax, propolis and royal jelly. So, we are still able to produce our other products. We will never change their formulations. Last year, we planted hundreds of kawayan tinik and rare native fruit trees. We are planting about 4 hectares to kapeng barako. We are planting hundreds of native hardwoods this year. While I write, we are about to finish construction of our windmill as our main source of water. We are installing solar panels and wind turbines. We are pulling out all the stops to plant additional herbs, wild flowers, flowering cover crops, aromatic grasses, wild vines, flowering plants and forest & fruit trees just to make our honeybees more comfortable here. No chemicals or pesticides; just beneficial bacteria, vermi-compost, commercial organic fertilizer, bio-enzymes and fertilizing mychorriza. We do all of this because we want to be part of the solution which puts us farther from being part of the problem. More than scientists who say otherwise, we feel the effects of Global Warming daily; it already has been upon us. We shall announce honey and pollen availability in our website www.ilogmaria.com Joel and Violaine Magsaysay ILOG MARIA HONEYBEE FARMS May 10, 2009 </div></div></div>