Kalispell beekeeper: Keeping abuzz about the natural methods

The honey bee is remarkable — for its impossible aerodynamics, its intricate social order, its uncanny navigational sense. But to Veronica Honthaas, the collective is even more intriguing. "You've got the bee," she said, pausing amid a discussion of the choreography each drone, each worker bee and the queen all follow in a colony's natural dance. "But the hive," she said, tapping a wooden box that will house a new brood of bees this year, "that's the real living organism." Honthaas is a 60-year-old organic beekeeper, traditional herbalist, reflexologist, potter, gardener, land steward and...