With $40,000 raised from the project and a $100,000 loan from California Farmland Trust, a nonprofit that works alongside the USDA, Redford purchased the apiary for $120,000. Redford created a GoFundMe page and titled the project Black Hives Matter. The apiary’s original owner decided to sell. “I was in search of work and a buddy of mine literally came across a Craigslist ad for a beekeeper and sent it to me,” said Redford, who jumped in to work with the bees on his first day and fell in love with them instantly. He started working with bees in 2017, when he moved to Nevada City. Most importantly, he said, “It was coming from the earth,” which started with cannabis and then became beekeeping. Coming to California really helped him realize that there were different ways to make money and support himself. Redford had never had a job where he felt, “Whoa, I really like this” or “This is going to work out for me forever,” until he started working in agriculture and farming. “It showed me that I could do things outside of societal norms.” “Working in cannabis supported me in this really beautiful way and brought a lot of beauty into my life,” he said. With this newfound knowledge and passion for sustainable agriculture, Redford was able to pursue a career in cannabis with a holistic approach and began to grow legally in California, where he otherwise would have been jailed in Florida. He earned a scholarship for Earth Activist Training, which is a perma-culture design course that teaches you a lot about sustainability and agriculture. It started when he began volunteering in gardens and attending free programs that taught him about agriculture and farming. While living in the Bay Area, Redford developed a new passion: perma-culture, otherwise known as sustainable agriculture. He was slightly shaken up but proceeded to talk through the pain. “They must be in a mood today,” he said, as he took a second to gather himself and then walked over to his car to use the mirror to pull the stinger out of his head. While explaining his love affair with bees - calling them “amazing, magical creatures” and then comparing them to supercomputers due to their complex operating systems and inherent intelligence - Cameron Redford suddenly was stung in the forehead by one of his many bees located nearby. There are 15 more locations like this - approximately 170 hives and more than 4 million bees - spread out across 200 miles of land, from Nevada City to the borders of Nevada. The hives are stashed away behind surrounding residences off a dirt road that leads down a path that would be invisible to an unsuspecting traveler, barely wide enough to drive a car through.Īnywhere from 15 to 20 beehives occupy an area of about 20-by-20 feet, surrounded by an electrical fence set up specifically to thwart bears.
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