DPSCS harvests first honey from prison bee colony

TOWSON, MD — The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) celebrated another restorative justice and ecological milestone on August 27 when the Maryland Correctional Training Center harvested the first five gallons of honey obtained from a prison bee colony in the state.

The Hagerstown prison is home to 200,000 bees, tended by two correctional officers who are master beekeepers, along with two inmate beekeeper apprentices.

Honeybees—which pollinate about 40 percent of the food we eat—have been dying by the millions due to pesticides, parasites, poor nutrition, and lack of genetic diversity among other problems. DPSCS has been working with beekeepers and environmentalists in the landmark attempt to care for bee colonies on a prison compound.

“Our main goals are to train inmates to become beekeepers when they get out of prison, and to help increase the honey bee population, which has been devastated by disease and pesticides,” said Lt. Jeff Golden of MCTC, himself a master beekeeper.

The bee program is just the latest in a number of DPSCS restorative justice programs designed to help the environment. State prison inmates have also grown oyster spats, and built the protective cages that shelter them in waterways; planted more than a million trees in four years; and will soon clean rivers using the Department’s own boats.

“We’re proud to be a part of yet another environmentally important experiment that is also teaching inmates skills while letting them pay society back in unique and meaningful ways,” said Phil Morgan, warden of the Maryland Correctional Training Center.

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