About

I’m Phil Gaven, and I run a hive and honey store in Portland, Maine, called The Honey Exchange.

Nothing in my  background would ever lead you to believe I would keep bees.  I grew up in a household without any pets at all.  I have always lived either in the city or suburbs.  The town where I now live, while it allows for beehives, has one of the strictest ordinances in the nation to regulate beekeeping.

Yet, as it turns out, the suburbs (especially the little neighborhood in Maine where my bees live) are a wonderful oasis of biodiversity in an increasingly monoculture world.  This is the story of how an ordinary guy ended up with a curious pastime.