Connections: June 2024 - 2

Workshop creates a buzz at MAHHC
Helping employees bee positive
MAHHC employees
enjoying a beekeeping
workshop led by Pete
Rauert, MD, (far right)
and Sam Gregan
(in baseball cap)
Did you know?
A honey bee can travel as far as two
miles from its hive to collect pollen
and nectar, and then find its way
back navigating by the sun and a
memory of landmarks.
Bees keep warm in
the winter by clustering
together, with the warm bees
in the middle continuously rotating
to the outside to give each bee a
chance to move to the middle.
They've both been beekeepers for years,
each with many hives that produce
hundreds of pounds of honey in their
mid-summer harvests. There's so much
honey, it's sold at the hospital, where
Rauert works as an anesthesiologist and
Gragen is a maintenance/HVAC technician.
Seeing all those jars of honey is what
inspired Mima Roberts, manager of the
Wellness Program at MAHHC, to have
Gragen and Rauert lead a beekeeping
workshop. They set up a viewing station
with a honeycomb full of bees to allow
participants to watch a whole other
civilization at work.
Aside from observing the bees, the
Those are the kinds of facts about
honey bees that keep Mt. Ascutney
Hospital and Health Center (MAHHC)
employees Pete Rauert, MD, and
Sam Gragen so intrigued by them.
participants heard about what life is like in
the hive, the charms and the challenges of
beekeeping, and the equipment needed.
" It was a truly enriching and educational
session for everyone, " says Roberts.
Another fact about the surprisingly
complex life of bees: They don't just make
honey from the pollen and nectar they
collect; they also make the enriched royal
jelly to create queen bees, the resin-like
propolis to build their hives and an
easy-to-mold wax (beeswax) for the combs.
Also, bees have moods. " When it's
warm out and there's a lot of feed for them,
they're in a good mood, " Gragen says.
" But when it's cooler or raining, or maybe
they're missing a queen, their temperament
changes. " That's when protective netting
and a bit of smoke comes in handy.
Despite those precautions, beekeepers
still get stung. But Gragen says that, to him,
it's worth every welt. " Once you get a hive,
it's an adventure. " For Rauert, watching
and caring for his bees is " incredibly
relaxing, a working meditation. They are
amazing creatures. "
Connections: June 2024

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