Couple hope bee technique causes swarm

Adam Finkelstein and Kelly Rausch met because of bees. Now, about 15 years later, the chemical-free bees they breed together are creating a bit of a buzz.
In 1995, Finkelstein was a graduate student at Virginia Tech studying insects, specializing in honeybees, and working as a teaching assistant. Rausch, a biology student, was in one of his classes. By 1996, they were a couple.


Photo by Bill Green – Adam Finkelstein and Kelly Rausch wear protective clothing as they place special wintertime “food” in each of the honeybee hives on a farm near New Market. The couple raise unique queen bees as part of their business called VP Queen Bees.

Though they both have full-time day jobs — Rausch is a malaria vaccine developer at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, and Finkelstein is an IT professional near Baltimore — they have been running a business called VP Queen Bees out of their Frederick home since 2008. When they are not at their jobs, they breed queen bees and sell them to both commercial beekeepers and hobbyists.