Curtis Mraz
Champlain Valley Honey

Curtis Mraz is a 4th generation beekeeper with Champlain Valley Apiaries in Middlebury. Curtis became active during the 2024 Legislative season with H. 706: an act relating to banning the use of neonicotinoid pesticides. H. 706 prohibits the sale or use of neonic coatings on corn, soybean, wheat, and cereal seeds by 2029; prohibits outdoor uses that risk significant harm to pollinators by 2025 (flowering crops, ornamental plants); and requires BMPs (best management practices) for permitted uses of neonics. Curtis testifed in support of H.706 during Small Farm Action Day.

Curtis shares his insights as a farmer activist in the audio clip below:

To read the edited highlights of Curtis’ interview, see below :

Please tell us who you are.
I'm Curtis Mraz, I'm a fourth generation beekeeper. I run Champlain Valley Apiaries which is based in Middlebury, Vermont, we started in 1931. I'm a beekeeper and a farmer. I studied Biology and Environmental Policy in school and I’m really passionate about agricultural education and fostering a diverse set of farmers for the next generation.

How'd you get into beekeeping?
My great-grandfather started the business. He was a Czech immigrant in Queens, and his neighbor had bees and he became interested and started helping out his neighbors. And this was all in Woodside Queens…before too long had moved to Vermont to work for a commercial operation and then purchased that commercial operation in the early 30s. And so I've always been around bees since I was old enough to walk and grew up in New Hampshire but my family would kind of send me out for the summers and live up here in Vermont, and work in the backyards ever since I was you know, 10 or so. So it's been a really important part of my life.

What's led you through this experience of beekeeping and what's led you to become engaged with policy directly?
Honeybees are really like a canary in the coal mine and we see so much about the world like through the lens of bees. You know, I think one hive contains over 50,000 organisms and it's a social insect that forages and harvests nectar and pollen and water and natural adhesives from you know, a three to five mile range. And considering we have 1000 of these colonies at 30 different locations throughout the Champlain Valley, we're really able to kind of get all these different biological snapshots of what's happening in the environment. And you know, one serious concern in the last two decades is the bees aren't doing well. And that often means that nothing is doing well in our natural environment and that we need to drastically shift something. And so the more we've looked into what's happening with the bees, the more we've realized that this is pesticide related and particularly related to neonicotinoids, which is a class of insecticides. And we need to do something to stop it. So that's where I’ve become politically engaged. I've been politically engaged with other issues, but this one is one that I'm particularly passionate about, because it's tied to my livelihood and my family's livelihood.