"All About Bees" January 15, 7pm

The Friends of the Library will present a talk by bee enthusiast and bee-giver Kagen Weeks on Tuesday, January 15 at 7pm in the Library Lecture Hall. The Nashua man has founded and launched “Hive At Your Home”, a one-man business building and delivering homemade hives – and a couple thousand bees to go with them – around the state and region.

Kagen Weeks is fascinated by bees. He takes great interest in knowing the insects work as a collective and make decisions as a group. “I find it inspiring to see that in my own backyard — a few thousand individuals able to sort stuff out,” Weeks said. He grew up spending summers on the family farm in Pittsfield where his grandfather kept bees. His presentation at the library will touch upon the genetics and anatomy of honey bees, beekeeping tips and techniques, bee diseases, pollination, and local food systems.

He hopes to help others gain an appreciation for bees and educate the public on how to improve the health and habitat of the dwindling bee population through his “Hive At Your Home” project.  “I want to be able to bring the benefits of bees (pollination, honey, and more) to people in New Hampshire. Through his program, a hive can reside on other people’s property, but will be maintained by Weeks’s service. “Hive at Your Home” also offers opportunities for adopting or partially sponsoring hives at worthy public spaces. Weeks’ business builds on the idea that keeping hives natural and local is important to community gardens, growing centers, organic Community Supported Agriculture efforts and connections with the larger agricultural community.

“The plight of bees, I think, is wrapped up in the systems of agriculture we have in our society,” Weeks said. “The way to help the bees, part of that, is to give the bees systems that don’t apply those stresses.”  He is hoping to add 50 more public spaces this spring. "I want to provide basic skills for people so they can have their own bees. By making the hives simple and making the bees happier, I'm hoping that more people will become 'bee-havers" says Kagen Weeks, the “bee-giver”! Come to the library’s program and learn more about bee culture in support of agriculture.

This program, a part of the Friends of the Library’s Cultural Series, is free and open to the public. Please call the Library, 516-6050, for more information.