About Boomtreebees
Boomtreebees
Michiel Verspuij
Michiel Verspuij
Our mission is to help with the conservation and rewilding of the native honeybee through habitat creation and development. We make log hives that mimic the natural habitat for honeybees in the Irish countryside. At Boomtreebees education is a priority. We teach about the importance of the honeybee in our environment and what we can do to secure their future.
Michiel Verspuij
Michiel Verspuij
Michiel Verspuij
Growing up in my hometown Wellseind, a little place along the river Maas in the Netherlands, I was always out in nature. From a young age I was fascinated with the environment around me, particularly trees. I was intrigued by how adaptable they are, their different shapes and structure and how useful they are to both wildlife and humans.
Growing up in my hometown Wellseind, a little place along the river Maas in the Netherlands, I was always out in nature. From a young age I was fascinated with the environment around me, particularly trees. I was intrigued by how adaptable they are, their different shapes and structure and how useful they are to both wildlife and humans. This led me to go on to study Forestry and Landscape Management in Velp, Gelderland, NL. After completing my studies I came to Ireland in 2001 where I started a forestry contracting business in Galway. Throughout these years I became increasingly aware that things needed to change. Hedgerows were disappearing and biodiversity on farms was diminishing because of the intensification of farming practices. At this point I changed career and went into organic vegetable/ fruit farming. Here it became clear to me how vital bees were for the pollination of crops. With that in mind I started a beekeeping course to understand the life cycle of honeybees and learn how to keep them sustainably. Due to the passing of a friend, who was a beekeeper I inherited 2 colonies of bees. It soon became apparent that the hives the bees were in weren't ideal for the bees to live a healthy life. I began to research and found that there were more natural ways of beekeeping which in turn led me to explore how bees live in the wild. Given the increasing loss of wild habitats I looked at ways to mimic their natural nesting sites in cavities in trees.
