Meet Maine's most celebrated young beekeeper

from Martha teichner a look at a remarkable child with a very unlikely calling [Music] in Maine where Elizabeth Downs lives she became something of a sensation when she took a beekeeping at the age of six there was the novelty of it and the sight of a very small girl in a bee suit surrounded by all those bees but once you get past the how cute is that factor you realize the story here is about someone who is precocious in her passion and about how it takes a village to nurture her interest you can't be interested in gardening and not be interested in pollinators so the transition was a was a natural progression for her it all started here in the garden that covers practically every square inch of family friend Dave Oliver's yard in Old Town Maine Elizabeth had been his eager helper since she was three Oliver's next door neighbor Dave fiaco had beehives so she came down to my house and we put her in a a horribly oversized bee suit here's a picture of her in it we took her out pulled the top off a hive and from then forward she was just hooked so we got a swarm for her and we gifted it to her and you know Elizabeth these are your bees now so she took to taking care of her bees and you taught her how to do it well you know to the degree that I could she enrolled herself in a course at Penn State a beekeepers course it was uh online a college level course essentially a college level course at age eight is it fun um yeah it can be fun the stinging part's not very fun no I wouldn't imagine no but I like to do the hunting extracting and I like making the decisions now finally she's allowed to fire up the smoker herself until she was eight her mom said she was too young and did it for her smoke calms the bees down well I was pretty much like well I don't know anything about bees but if you want to learn we'll do it Rachel Downs is her daughter's assistant I've learned probably not as much but I've learned a lot doing it alongside of her what's your job in this and be Enterprise do what I'm told I mean it's literally the heavy lifting Michael Downs Elizabeth's dad doesn't mind when you see your kid light up about something that's the the big rewarding thing as a parent and Elizabeth lights up in the bee yard oh I see small eggs Elizabeth can hold her own with the nerdiest of B nerds who are mostly old enough to be her grandparents which is why the Penobscot county Beekeepers Association Dave fiaco president just uh look for your color-coded map made her their youth Outreach coordinator so I did a presentation at my school and Old Town Elementary School she was too young to be a member of the board something just to indulge a kid so would you want to build these bigger so you could put a third one in between or do you want to no if nobody's going to show Elizabeth in the younger generation how to do beekeeping that in 15 years there's not going to be anybody to do beekeeping and then what there's no food like the food chain depends ends on bees and then there's the honey Elizabeth extracts it from the frame she's pulled from her hives eventually a thick River of it flows lazily into a bucket what's it like when you see it coming out to me it looks like a liquid gold gold it's so beautiful and it tastes really good and it smells amazing I think you need a little more Elizabeth named her operation ease bees and solicits donations for her honey she gives most of the money away to charity and her church now 11 she says when she grows up she wants to be the state aberist Maine's official beekeeper she's convinced she's already heard her calling in the bee yard I really like bees and I think this is what I want to do for your whole life this is your life's work yeah being with the bees how do you feel I feel calm and I love the sound of their Buzz [Music]

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 76,294

Keywords: CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, news, beekeeping, Maine

Id: vQbsqV7IKbo

Length: 5min 14sec (314 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023