Box 1 Beekeepers reflect on their experience in their apiary

You are the master of your time; you live according to nature, like bees. You don't have to go somewhere behind the workbench at seven o'clock in the morning, in the dark, like in the middle of the night, and then it's dark again when you come home. This is abnormal. For me, it's living in the right cycle, according to the sun, let's say,—in the summer, when it's a long day, you're like a bee doing a long day. At eight in the morning, you go with a lunch sandwich and come back from the forest at nine in the evening. You are with nature, you are always in the fresh air, it is a luxury. [–-] Sometimes I sit there on a stump, I hear a cuckoo calling, a bee buzzing, the sun is shining—life is the best job in the world. (Estonian, male, 56 years old)

For me, the biggest therapy in working with bees is that, imagine you go to the apiary in the spring when the weather is calm, when the liverwort is blooming, and the air is full of fragrance around you. [–-] The flowers are blooming—you just kind of sit there and think…this is fantastic, all the buzz…what a beautiful thing to just be and watch the flowers and the bees fly—it's like an enjoyment in itself. All this together creates such a beautiful milieu—all your senses capture it—your eyes look, your ears hear this hum, your nose smells all these scents, with your hands you enjoy all the activities you do in the apiary…you think, if only people knew how beautiful it is here! (Estonian, male, 60 years old)