User:Invertzoo/Another subpage for drafting

MY NOTES: An informal list of possible references:


 * 2000 -- The Natural History of The Island of Nevis, by David Robinson and Jennifer Lowery, published by the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society Press with a grant from UNDP/GEF, July 31st 2000.

Quote: Page 69 "Book Contributors", "Quentin Henderson: Is affectionately called Beeman on Nevis. He has considerable experience in the study, raising and promotion of bee related products. He started the Nevis Bee Cooperative in the mid 1980s and it now exports bee products throughout the Caribbean. His origins are in Scotland, but [he] lived in Canada and the United States before coming to work for the Agriculture Department of the Nevis Island Administration."

Also of course, QH's own chapter on beekeeping.


 * 2001 -- Island Hopper, No 2 – 2001/2002, official guide to Winair's destinations. published by CaribSky. (an in-flight magazine) Pages 90–91, article entitled "Nevis:Honey bees / Le miel des abeílles".

Explanation: Features a half-page photo of "Beeman Quentin Henderson bottling honey at the Beehouse on Nevis / L'apiculteur Quentin Henderson mettant en bouteille le miel" as well as another photo of Henderson sitting on the steps of the Bee House, plus a photo of Nevis honey products sold by the Nevis BeeKeepers Cooperative, and a photo of, "Wild Nest of bees (apis mellifera [sic] found in an abandoned car on Nevis."

Quote: "Beekeeping has become an important cottage industry on Nevis, with about 5 tons of honey sold annually in recent years... all Nevis honey is pure and natural and not pasteurized during the extraction process."

KINDNESS
 * 24 May, XXXX -- In his weekly column "Comment" (24 May year?) for The Herald (Glasgow), a Scottish newspaper, author and columnist (Reverend) Ron Ferguson discussed Henderson in a column ("18 Comment") entitled, "These are the stuff of the good life".

Explanation: Ferguson recounts how he first met Henderson (an idealistic young man) in the early 1980s, when Ferguson was the deputy warden of Iona Abbey, and Henderson was the volunteer van-driver there. Many years later, Henderson sends him a Scotch bottle filled with Nevis honey, and Ferguson is very touched by what this represents.

Quote: "Ben and Marilyn told us how the spent part of each year on the island of Nevis where they had become friendly with a fellow answering to the name of "Bee Man". His real name was Quentin Henderson. Ah yes, Quentin... Roll Back the years. When I was deputy warden of Iona Abbey, back in the early 1980s the volunteer van-driver was one Quentin Henderson. He was an idealistic young man who wanted to do his bit to make the world a better place. He had done some beekeeping and now he wanted to use his skills in a third-world country. We were able to put him in touch with a funder who paid his fees for a professional course in Wales. Voluntary Service Overseas sent him out to Nevis."

Quote: "Establishing hives on a small island in the Caribbean was not easy. Quentin trained locals to keep bees and a small honey-feeling industry was established. A tall gangly character, Quentin soon had children running after his motor scooter shouting excitedly, "Bee Man! Bee Man!"

Quote: "having been briefed by me, David simply asked at the hotel reception 'where is Bee Man?' He was pointed in the direction of the beach, where he found Quentin Henderson selling honey to tourists."

Quote: The Scapa Whisky bottle. "A special Bee Man on a beach very far away from Orkney filled it up with his best nectar and arranged with his friends to transport it all the way to St. Magnus Cathedral manse in Kirkwall.

Quote: "That special offering was all the more appreciated because I knew something of the idealism and the vocational struggle which lay behind it."

Quote: "This week our doorbell went again. The man standing on the doorstep was no stranger, but the Bee Man of Nevis himself, back in Scotland for a wedding and now staying on because his aged father is terminally ill."


 * Another Comment column by Ron Ferguson, entitled "Something of the knight about him" Date???

Quote: "What happened was that an old pal of mine, Quentin Henderson, who keeps bees on the Caribbean Island of Nevis, wanted to get in touch with me."


 * ?2008 -- In the photo-essay book, "Nevis as We See Her", by Rosemary Willis Sullivan, ? 2008, there is a photo of Henderson on the second to last page, at the top right.


 * 2008 -- local photo-calendar "Magnificent Mokes of Nevis", the December photo is an image by Rosemary Willis Sullivan showing "Quentin "Beeman" Henderson" with his Austin, saying "Don't know if I can wait till 2009 for a ride....Only a Moke is worth that kind of waiting".

* 2005 -- "Living on an Arc: A Caribbean Memoir" by Brent Wilson, self-published via Lulu.com in 2005, contains in Chapter 5, pages 56 to 73, a humorous account of a day with Henderson, who is referred to by the pseudonym "Honeyman", instead of Beeman.

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START OF THE DRAFT
Quentin Henderson (also will be findable from John Quentin Henderson, from Beeman and from Nevis Beeman)

NOTE: There will probably be links *to* this article from the Wikipedia articles on the subjects of Beekeeper, Nevis, Anguilla, Montserrat, and maybe others as well or instead.

Quentin "Beeman" Henderson (born 06/12/1952 in Edinburgh, Scotland), is a recognized expert on the practical aspects of beekeeping using Apis mellifera, the western honey bee, especially within the tropical islands of the West Indies. In 1987, at the age of 35, as a qualified beekeeper and a VSO volunteer, Henderson travelled to the Caribbean island of Nevis, part of the Federation of Saint Christopher and Nevis, in order to establish and teach modern beekeeping. At that time there was no beekeeping on Nevis, and Henderson was able to create a beekeeping cooperative on the island.

For a few years after Hurricane Hugo (1988), Quentin and the Nevis Bee Cooperative, as well as restoring their own beekeeping, assisted the nearby island of Montserrat in re-establishing its beekeeping. After his VSO service was completed, Henderson was given a position [job title] in the Agricultural Department of NIA (the Nevis Island Administration). Nevis beekeeping, as it flourished, enabled the islanders to sell honey and beeswax candles to visitors and tourists. In 1993, Henderson was responsible for introducing and establishing honeybees on the island of Anguilla, where previously there were none; the pollination abilities of honeybees are valuable because they improve crop yields.

In 2012, Henderson retired from his NIA government job. He still resides in Gingerland on the island of Nevis, and is a citizen of the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis. He is affectionately known by his Nevis moniker, "Beeman". Henderson has been featured more than once in Nevis postage stamps.

Early life and character
Henderson was born in England, although his parents were Scottish. As a child, Henderson attended Dunhurst, the preparatory part of Bedales School. Henderson spent some time in the early 1970s as a volunteer for the Iona Community. Author and columnist (Reverend) Ron Ferguson, in his weekly column for the Herald, a Scottish newspaper, tells the story of how he first met Henderson (an idealistic young man who was determined to do his best to help the world). This took place when Ferguson was the deputy warden of Iona Abbey, and Henderson was the volunteer van-driver there.

Henderson subsequently attended Hadlow College of Agriculture in Kent. In 1977 he spent a summer working for a commercial beekeeper in Alberta, Canada, and in 1979 he took the Beekeeping Technical Course at Fairview College in Alberta, and then worked for beekeepers in New Zealand and Scotland. He did a post-graduate Diploma in Agriculture at the University of Wales in Cardiff, graduating in 1987.

On Nevis
In 1987, after graduating with his post-graduate diploma, Henderson went to Nevis as a VSO.

After Henderson had been working on Nevis for many years, he managed to send to Ron Ferguson (via friends) some Nevis honey sealed up in a Scapa whiskey bottle. Ferguson commented, "A special Bee Man on a beach very far away from Orkney filled it up with his best nectar and arranged with his friends to transport it all the way to St. Magnus Cathedral manse in Kirkwall...That special offering was all the more appreciated because I knew something of the idealism and the vocational struggle which lay behind it."

Nevis
Arriving on Nevis in 1987 as a VSO volunteer, Henderson introduced and established Langstroth hive (movable-frame beehive) beekeeping. Prior to 1987, honeybees were present on Nevis, but the bees lived almost exclusively in the wild, and honey was occasionally taken from wild nests. As Reverend William Smith noted in his 1745 book about Nevis:

"We have no bees that are hived, and still we meet with excellent Honey, made by the Wild Bees in the Woods..."

In the years prior to Henderson's arrival, honey was still being gathered rarely and sporadically by local men known as honey-cutters, who cut honeycomb out from wild nests of honeybees, a dangerous and destructive pursuit.

Henderson gradually trained the honey-cutters and others how to use modern Langstroth beehives, which allow harvesting honey and beeswax without damaging the colony of bees. Henderson started a beekeeping group, which met in, and worked out of, a building called the "Bee House".

In 1988, the international bee expert Eva Crane visited the island. In Crane's words, "In December 1988 when I went to Nevis..., the UK Voluntary Service Overseas had sent Quentin Henderson there to improve the beekeeping, and my function was to help and support him." Crane also commented, "Quentin, who was on the tarmac to meet me, had booked me a...room on the north side of Charlesto[w]n."

For almost 25 years, Henderson ran, and was an active member of, the beekeeping group on Nevis. It became feasible for the Nevisians to sell quite large amounts of honey and beeswax candles to visitors, as well as having honey available for their own use. Henderson was also frequently asked to remove unwanted wild honeybee nests from many different types of structures, from abandoned cars to old buildings, relocating the bees into artificial hives. He was also called upon to deal with wasps' nests in problematic locations.

In 1993, the Bee House (the physical center of beekeeping on Nevis) burned down, destroying much valuable equipment. After a lot of fund-raising, the Bee House was rebuilt and re-supplied with equipment.

In 2001, there was an article in the Island Hopper, the in-flight magazine of Winair, entitled "Nevis: Honey bees". The article was based on an interview with Henderson, and it included four photos: a half-page photo of "Beeman Quentin Henderson bottling honey at the Beehouse on Nevis / L'apiculteur Quentin Henderson mettant en bouteille le miel"; a photo of Henderson sitting on the steps of the Bee House; a photo of Nevis honey products sold by the Nevis Bee Keepers Cooperative; and a photo of "Wild Nest of bees...found in an abandoned car on Nevis." The article explained that,

"Beekeeping has become an important cottage industry on Nevis, with about 5 tons of honey sold annually in recent years... all Nevis honey is pure and natural and not pasteurized during the extraction process."

For many years (starting when?) Henderson was, and as of 2019 still is, an active member of the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society.

In 2012, Henderson retired from his government job.

Anguilla
Starting in 1993, Henderson was responsible for introducing honeybees to the Caribbean island of Anguilla. Prior to Henderson's efforts, there were no honeybees on that island. Over the course of about five years, Henderson was able to successfully establish the species on Anguilla. An account of this was published in Islander, the in-flight magazine of LIAT, a regional airline. The establishment of honeybees on an inhabited island where there are gardens and farms is important, as the widespread pollination provided by honeybees significantly improves crop yields.

Montserrat
During Hurricane Hugo (1989), both Nevis and Montserrat lost numerous hives of bees by drowning because the hives were knocked over by the extreme winds and exposed to heavy rain and flooding. The bee colonies on Monserrat were hit even harder than those on Nevis; out of 35 or 40 strong hives, only 8 weak hives were left. Montserrat beekeepers were forced to feeding the surviving bees sugar syrup to keep them alive, as there were no flowers, the island having been stripped bare of vegetation as a result of the hurricane winds. In order to be able to help Montserrat, Henderson and the other Nevis beekeepers carefully accumulated new colonies of bees, and on 18th July 1990, Henderson accompanied 10 nucleus-hives, flown to Montserrat, in order to help replace what had been lost.

Nevis postage stamps
In 1993, Henderson suggested to the Nevis Philatelic Bureau that they consider publishing a series of stamps on the theme of beekeeping, to help publicize this emerging local agribusiness. Henderson gave the Philatelic Bureau photographs that he had taken himself, showing aspects of beekeeping and honey production. On June 13th 1994, the bureau issued a sheet of five stamps (the "Bee Series"). Four of the stamps feature Henderson's photographs. The fifth stamp featured a photo of a meeting of beekeepers on Nevis in 1988. The image includes Henderson on the far left, and the internationally known bee expert Eva Crane on the far right.

In 2006, a Christmas stamp was issued with an image of a heavily disguised Henderson on the library steps in Charlestown, giving out small gifts to children as Father Christmas.

Name
On Nevis, Henderson is almost always known by his local moniker, "Beeman". "Beeman" is also how he is commonly known in several of the nearby Caribbean islands, and elsewhere in the world by people who have visited Nevis.

Henderson's birth name was John Quentin Henderson, however he always used the combination "Quentin Henderson", and in 200X, Henderson legally changed his name to Quentin John Henderson by deed poll.

Publications
Henderson has written some published material, including:


 * 1990 -- "Beekeeping, the Nevis Way", By J. Quentin Henderson, a 38-page book on beekeeping.


 * 1990 -- "Buzzing Around", Orbit: the Magazine of VSO, Autumn 1990, No 38, page 20, the back page, "Spotlight: Quentin Henderson has been VSO beekeeper on the Caribbean Island of Nevis for two years. Here he describes a typically varied day." This article includes a photo of Henderson and a local beekeeper. Quote: "It has been another great rewarding Nevis day."


 * 199X -- "A Taste of Honey: Quentin Henderson gives the buzz word on honey", a two-page article in Islander: the in-flight magazine of LIAT, a Caribbean regional airline, date?, page 22-24.

MIGHT USE: Quote: "November 1993 when two nucleus colonies of honey-bees from Nevis...introduced to Anguilla." MIGHT USE Quote: "bear-shaped containers and glass jars (with attractive labels) were introduced." Quote: "...a product that is so sweet and special to tiny Nevis." Quote: "Perhaps as much as half a ton is lifted off Nevis annually by LIAT aircraft as friends, relatives and tourist customers of Nevis Beekeeepers carry home gifts of honey!" Quote: "Local crops of fruit and vegetable will certainly benefit with improved pollination."


 * 2000 -- Chapter "Beekeeping in Nevis" by Quentin Henderson pages 45–47 in the book "The Natural History of Nevis", edited by Dave Robinson and Jenifer Lowery, published by the Nevis Historical and Conservation Society on July 31st 2000.

Other interests
Henderson's other interests include classic cars, car license plates, and hiking.

In 1995, a short piece entitled "Beeline for an Austin", based on an interview with Henderson, was published in Classic Cars magazine. The article explains,

"On the island of Nevis in the West Indies there is an old-car enthusiast and Farina Austin A40 owner, Quentin Henderson, whose job is that of beekeeping advisor to the local government. One day he had to remove and hive a colossal nest of wild bees in a tumbledown, overgrown property."

The piece includes a photo taken by Henderson of a derelict 10hp Austin "made towards the end of 1947". The car was discovered in the Nevis underbrush when Henderson was called to remove a nest of wild bees which yielded "30 lbs of delicious honey." The windscreen of the derelict Austin was intact and in perfect condition. A quote from Henderson that was used in the article generously explains, "If you think that anyone would like that windscreen I would be more than happy to carry it as hand luggage the next time I come to the UK."

In July 2018, a letter written by Henderson was published in Classic Car Weekly magazine. It was entitled, "A damn good thrashing", a quote from the fictional character Basil Fawlty, as played by John Cleese, in Fawlty Towers. The letter was accompanied by a photo of an abandoned Austin 1100.

In 1995, Henderson was mentioned in the book Car Numbers under USA 3: "Quentin Henderson, fellow autonumerologist and member of Europlate, currently beekeeping on Nevis in the West Indies...Quentin welcomes all enthusiasts who visit Nevis...".

Henderson has hiked in many parts of the world, including hiking half of the Appalachian Trail in 2012, and the other half in 2013.