Beekeeping program at Faribault prison teaches inmates job skills, confidence
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On the grounds of the Faribault Correctional Facility, inmate Tyler O’Brien stood in front of four multi-colored bee hive boxes on a hot August day, readying his bee veil. He was about to treat the hives for mites.
“I'm a little frightened by bees. And I'd like to overcome it,” he said. “Well, I have overcome it because I'm around thousands of bees and I haven't got stung yet.”
Good thing: There are about half-a-million bees in these colonies. O’Brien is one of seven inmates who tend to them in a biweekly ritual that includes a beekeeping class where they learn about bee behavior, how to keep them healthy, and how to harvest honey.
O'Brien said the bees have helped him, too, during his incarceration.
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“I like to stimulate my mind. I like to learn things,” he said. “It's nice getting to learn something new.”
The class is facilitated by Jenny Warner, who works at the University of Minnesota Bee Lab.
She became a bee evangelist more than two decades ago when she interned at the Bee Lab as an undergraduate.
“They're beautiful. They make you really focus. I feel like I've grown a love of understanding them and working with them,” she said.
Warner’s job is to teach the public about bees. The Faribault prison program is a relatively new assignment for her, starting in 2018.
Warner said she thinks the bees may help heal some of the trauma her students brought with them to prison.
“We all have humanity, and animals really bring out our humanity. And I just believe there's a lot of room for healing in the world,” she said.
Tending to the hive
One goal of the program is teaching inmates a new skill that they can take with them after prison.
When the group noticed a cluster of bees on the side of one of the hives recently, Warner explained to them that the bees were hot and were trying to cool themselves off.
“We call that wash boarding. And it's a way they're cooling down the hive,” she said. “I don't see it that often. So that's why I'm pointing it out.”
Next, the classmates carefully lifted each tray of the first hive and set them on the ground until they reached the bottom two trays.
That's where the bees reproduce, and the team needed to make sure the area is not infested with mites that could decimate the colony.
After collecting a small number of bees in a solution that killed them instantly, the group poured the bees through a double sieve to separate them from the mites. There were at least four mites — enough to justify treating every hive.
“If you look really close, you can actually see their legs and their little mouthparts,” said inmate Mike McIntosh.
McIntosh was so interested in the bee program that he requested — and was awarded — a transfer from the Saint Cloud prison in 2019 so he could participate.
"What I want to do when I get out is start my own hives, but I want to sell the honey, and then donate that money to the food shelf,” said McIntosh, who is scheduled for release in November of 2025. “Honey doesn't fill bellies, but the proceeds can."
Teaching calm, confidence
Bees also have a way of teaching confidence and calm the inmates will need outside the prison, said Captain Martin Dahlen, who oversees the beekeeping program.
“It's going to teach you to be gentle. And to be calm, which relates very well to the rest of life, you start banging things around, you start being careless, you're going to get stung because they get very defensive,” he said.
Dahlen said he loves seeing the inmates' curiosity when they're working with the bees.
“Knowledge and learning and being excited. And getting involved with something that's completely different from what they're used to,” he said. “It opens up a side of them in a conversation that they haven't had in decades.”
Mike McIntosh said he welcomes that conversation during his incarceration.
“Before I was kind of lost in life, you know, I just kind of traveled here, traveled there. I had no real purpose,” he said. “Now with this, I can actually do something and make a difference.”
