Hive mind: Why a Michigan Senate candidate keeps talking about beekeeping on the campaign trail

As she runs for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow is buzzing around a state known for making cars with an unique pitch: keep bees instead.

As she runs for a U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow is buzzing around a state known for making cars with a unique pitch: keep bees instead.

The rise of artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to a manufacturing-based economy, she often warns on podcasts and at public events. McMorrow also boasts about the work she and others have done to promote apprenticeship programs and encourage less obvious career paths.

She rhapsodizes about winemaking and beer brewing. And she’s particularly enthusiastic about beekeeping.

“You can go into a certified apprenticeship, and maybe you find out you’ve always wanted to be a beekeeper and you didn’t know it, and now you have a great career,” McMorrow said last month in a video chat with The Common Good, a nonpartisan advocacy group.

It’s an approach that McMorrow describes as hopeful and forward-looking — and an alternative to what she sees as a dangerously singular focus on the auto industry, the longtime lifeblood of Michigan’s economy.