The Bohol Bee Farm: Part Two—Vicky

It’s hard to not think of Vicky, a native Filipina, as a Queen Bee. For one thing, she lives in a house she designed herself—a spacious two story natural building in the shape of a hexagon. “The hexagon is a strong form,” she says, “It maximizes space.” Matt and I admire the way it feels rounded, yet has flat walls to hang paintings on or have book shelves. We climb up her spiral staircase and into the master bedroom. There is no fourth wall—she left the room completely open to the outside, though hung with beaded curtains. We step out onto the balcony to enjoy the view of the broad leafed tree tops and the ocean.

One of many spiral staircases

A smaller tree stretches from the garden below and up through the balcony floor, its base is surrounded by Styrofoam where is goes through the flooring, so it can continue growing. Vicky walks up to the tree and lifts a branch gently in her hand.

“I’m sorry, but this tree—isn’t it beautiful? See how it’s possible for us to live in harmony with our environment? Everyone asks us why it’s so green and healthy, why the leaves are so shiny. I think it’s because it’s happy. It feels the love we share with it.”

We sit down on a small couch and she looks around her, radiant in her loose cotton clothes and the colorful cloth handkerchief around her head. She sighs and smiles at me.

“You know, if you look at my life now, I could not have pictured this six years ago.”

One of the gardens

But the Bee Farm—the restaurant, the housing, the farm—didn’t just happen in the last six years. It was the result of many years of her adult life, starting back in 1980 when she lived in New York with her husband. He was older than her, and she fell in love while tending to him in the hospital. They married, and from 1980-1983 they lived together in New York while he worked for IBM. The company offered classes for the wives, and Vicky studied baking, cooking, and crafting. They drove along the roads and often saw honey stands, and countless vegetable and fruit stands as well.

The outside of one of the lodgings

“We are somehow prepared spiritually by our past,” she says. “Those things were so small to me then, but without them I may not have had the same success with the Bee Farm.”

Her first husband died in 1988 and Vicky moved to Hawaii with her two children to live with her parents. She worked for several years in various odd jobs, including a stint at a nursing home for several years. For various reasons, she finally decided to move back to Bohol, the island she’d grown up on. Her parents weren’t excited about the idea.

“People think about the Philippines and they think there is no future here.”

Bits of whimsy

After spending sometime in Tagbilaran, the main city in Bohol, she moved out to Panglao Island and bought a parcel of land around 12,000 sq. meters.

“Don’t think I had all sorts of money,” she laughs. “It was cheap back then—I bought it for something like 5 pesos.”

She had a neighbor build a tree house which she lived in for 3 months, and she grew a small organic garden. “I didn’t even have a bathroom,” she said, “Or maybe I should say I had a really big bathroom!”

A succulent garden

She began growing her own organic vegetables and selling them locally. I asked her if they were organic. “You know,” she said, “I learned that word ‘organic’ in the States, but we’ve been farming like that for years.”

One thing led to another. She met several other farmers in the community and a friend suggested that she grow bees.

She stops here, and smiles again. “I love insects. Do you love insects?” She laughs aloud—a light, surprised laugh. “As humans we find millions of ways to kill them, but what makes us better than them?” She pauses, places a finger on her lip. “I think that if we can respect little crawling things, then we probably wouldn’t have war.”

A romantic patio

“You know,” she says, awhile later, “We always try to find ways to end poverty when the answer’s right there—it requires a change of mind. People have to adjust the way they think. Farmers borrow fertilizer to start farming. They invest all this money, but what if there’s no rain this year? How do they pay the person back? All that money is wasted. I make my own fertilizer with composting. This ground here was 20% soil and 80% rock. And I made a farm out of it. I always tell people, if I can make a farm out of this, you can make a farm or garden in your own home.”

The farm grew over the years. She continued to grow vegetables, but started her bee colonies as well, but just as a hobby. She had bought the land in 1991, and by 1996 she began building her home and some of the other facilities. By 1998 she had her mostly organic restaurant. She had started out making oatmeal cookies, but soon her experiments led to recipes she’d learned in the states, and ones she adapted to match her own style. Her beekeeping expanded as well.
“In 2000 I purchased 40 hives, at one point I had 170—but it was just too much. What I learned was that you can only have so many bees in one area. Some beekeepers will feed sugar water to their hive, but I don’t believe in that. It’s unnatural. Instead, we spread our bee colonies all over Bohol. There just aren’t enough flowers on Panglao. Now we have about 70 colonies, plus we sell honey from local farmers as well.”

Another hexagonal house

One of their biggest buyers is the Chinese community in Manila—they add ½ a teaspoon of honey to their drinking water.

“It makes the water lighter,” Vicky says, then grins. “I tried it--it works!”

The Bee Farm has created jobs for locals. Though she started with a staff of 3 about four years ago, she now employs 78. Many of the staff do work study programs, attending college during the week and working on the weekend. She pays local children and women to make raffia crafts for wine bottles, they have a Bible study and a meeting every Saturday to evaluate the farm as well. She offers room and board to every worker there so they don’t have to spend time commuting from the city.

Some of the staff in the garden

She’s also trying to support local products. “Raffia is one of our local products, so I love using it in our crafts. Filipinos so often think that anything we make or grow is not good. It’s so hard for us to get our native fruits in the supermarkets. I tell people we have to start appreciating our local products before anyone else will. You know the corn coffee we make here? That was the native Filipino coffee before Nescafe came. Now, if you drink corn coffee you’re seen as poor. It’s all a state of mind.”

Some woven crafts using natural materials

She talks for a bit about her approach to the Bee Farm, “Filipinos are so negative. At the Bee Farm, we never say no—we always try here. When I criticize them I tell them not to take it personally. We always say the Bee Farm is evolving. It is continually getting better.”

“People often ask me, ‘What keeps you going?’ I wake up at 3am every day. But when you are enthusiastic, when it’s your passion and you live in a place like this, don’t you ask yourself: What can I do today? What can I give? It humbles you.

“I’m doing what I love to do. I feel that I have arrived.”

One part of the outdoor restaurant

Near the end of our conversation, the three of us sit in the darkness. Matt and I are completely inspired by this amazing entrepreneur and what she’s doing for her land and people. There’s a momentary pause.

Matt clears his throat.

“I have a question for you Vicky: who is your hero?”

She stops and thinks for awhile. “Mm…that is a hard question!” She pauses awhile longer, looking away. “You know—there is no hero that I bow to. The hero is…it’s your imagination. It’s the inside that has no limit. Then you must practice that every day.”