Page 14 - Brandon Sun - Healthy Lifestyles

14 THE BRANDON SUN • HEALTH • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2019

Veterans with PTSD, anxiety turn to beekeeping

MANCHESTER, N.H.
— Gently lifting a wooden
frame containing dozens of
Italian honeybees, Vince Ylita-
lo seemed transfixed as he and
several other veterans inspected
the buzzing insects.
“This is really cool,” he said,
pointing to a bee with blobs of
orange pollen on its hind legs.
Ylitalo, who has battled
PTSD after serving nearly 40
years in the military including
two tours in Iraq, didn’t seem
bothered by the bees swarming
around his head or crawling all
over the entrance to their hive.
Instead, the 57-year-old logis-
tics expert said the several hours
spent working on the two hives
each week at the Manchester
VA Medical Center in New
Hampshire was a respite of sorts
from his anxiety and depression.
Known as an apiary, the hives U.S. Army veteran Wendi Zimmermann transfers a frame of bees to a new box, while checking them for disease and food
are located next to a lilac garden supply at the Veterans Affairs’ beehives in Manchester, N.H. (The Associated Press)
off a busy street.
“I’m in this program to help “It gives you a chance to to be carrying over not only for husband, Daniel, in 2018 after
me get out of the thought pro- shut down and not think about days but weeks afterward. What spotting a 1919 pamphlet writ-
cess of all those problems that the outside world. It shows me more could you ask for from ten by the government that ad-
I have,” said Ylitalo, who has there is a way to shut my brain treatment than something to vocated beekeeping for veterans
struggled since leaving the Army down to get other things ac- that degree?” returning from The First World
in 2017. “It helps me think of complished,” Zimmermann Similar stories have been War with shell shock. Bees4Vets
something completely different. said. “Before, my mind would be heard from beekeeping pro- trains 10 veterans a year to man-
... I’m just thinking about bees.” filled with thoughts constantly grams from Brockton, Mass., age some of its roughly 30 hives
Researchers are beginning to and I wasn’t accomplishing daily to Reno, Nev.. Those running at the agricultural experiment
study whether beekeeping has tasks.” the programs said there is plen- station at the University of Ne-
therapeutic benefits. For now, While some of the programs ty of anecdotal evidence that vada, Reno and resident’s back-
there is little hard data, but vet- are geared to giving soldiers the beekeeping is making a differ- yards in nearby Sparks.
erans in programs like the one in skills to become farmers and ence for those who spend time Inspired by concerns about
Manchester insist that it helps commercial beekeepers, others managing hives and harvesting high levels of suicide among
them focus, relax and become aim to address the challenges honey. Beekeeping gives them veterans, the program focuses on
more productive. The programs facing those returning home a sense of purpose, helps them those with PTSD or traumat-
are part of a small but growing from Afghanistan and Iraq with relax and allows them to block ic brain injuries from Nevada
effort by Veterans Affairs and brain injuries, post-traumatic out dark thoughts, they said. and northern California. It also
veteran groups to promote the stress disorder and other men- “Beekeeping affords us the has teamed up with a Univer-
training of soldiers in farming tal-health issues. The programs opportunity to really kind of sity of Nevada, Reno professor
and other agricultural careers. are careful to say that beekeep- engage in a different way with who studies PTSD to research
Standing near Ylitalo in her ing is just one of several benefits the natural world,” said Adam whether beekeeping is helping
white bee suit, Army veteran that could help a troubled vet- Ingrao, a fourth-generation sol- veterans in the program. If a
Wendi Zimmermann said bees eran. dier who runs Heroes to Hives majority shows improvement,
have helped her deal with the “The anecdotes we have through Michigan State Uni- the program plans to study why
anxiety she feels outside her heard are fantastic,” said Alicia versity Extension. “You’re not and how — and whether bee-
home — even though she ini- Semiatin, who heads the mental thinking about what happened keeping could be helping.
tially feared being stung. She health program in Manchester. in Afghanistan or Iraq. You’re “If there was anything we
and Ylitalo are among 12 vet- “Folks find that it is really some- thinking about what’s happen- could do to help one family,
erans that have taken part in thing that they benefit from at ing right here, right now.” one person, then it would be all
beekeeping since the program the time they are doing the bee- In Reno, Ginger Fenwick worth it,” Fenwick said.
started in May. keeping and the benefits seems started Bees4Vets with her » Continued on Page 15