For Salon #18 we are delighted to have Matt Somerville from the UK as our special guest . He is a master carpenter and the founder of beekindhives. Matt has been a pioneer of arboreal apiculture and experimented with diverse hive designs. He has started to set up hundreds of log hives in the UK and is engaged in the conservation and protection of wild honeybees.

Our special guest is Dr. Frank Krumm from Switzerland. He is a scientific assistant WSL/SLF in Davos, a member of the Mountain Ecosystems group, a scientific advisor to freethebees.ch in this fascinating presentation he discusses tree-micro-habitats.

Our special guest for Salon #16 is Sabine Bergmann from Germany. She is an advocate for traditional and historical apiculture and promotes the rewilding of honeybees in Europe.

Sabine and her students have made over 300 log hives which have been placed in projects around Germany. The podcast covers how she got started and the schools, community and nature reserve projects she has worked on. We recommend a podcast player that support chapters to view the presentation images.

We are delighted to welcome Ivan Pigarev, the Executive Director of the Natural Beekeeping Association of Russia and author and director of the upcoming documentary “Point of Return". He is a pioneer within the Russian Zeidler community and promotes arboreal apiculture throughout Eastern Europe.

This fascinating interview looks into the roots of Russian arboreal apiculture and discusses what we can learn from it to develop a more sustainable and healthy future for beekeeping. 

This special salon launches the new web site https://freelivingbees.com/ - A new initiative by the Natural Beekeeping Trust 

With this website the trust seeks to showcase and encourage practices that restore and support the honey bee and its natural habitat and recognize the honey bee as an independent wild species.

Michael and Cheyanna interview trustee and fellow podcaster Jonathan Powell about the site and the story behind it.