Bees

"It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know of wonder and humility."
 - Rachel Carson


     I keep bees. Last spring I started with two hives. Sadly, they did not make it through the winter. I guess I didn't keep the bees very well...

 


     This year, I am determined, will be different.  I am taking a beginner beekeeper course; I joined my local beekeeper's association; I registered my hives with the PA Department of Agriculture; I re-read all my books; I've met and talked with a lot of veteran beekeepers. And I'm keeping my fingers crossed, hoping beyond hope that this time the hives will survive. Strangely, I don't really care if I ever get one drop of honey for myself. I just love watching them. And I love what they have to teach me.
     For instance - the Queen might be egg laying royalty, but she doesn't manage the hive. She pretty much does what she is directed to do by her Worker bees. They feed her, groom her, cart away her waste. In exchange, she lays eggs. And lays eggs. And lays eggs. And it is the Workers who tell her where and which type of egg, Drone or Worker, to lay. They even decide when her reign is up and the time to crown a new Queen.

     Yet without the Queen, there would be no Workers. Without the Drones, there would be no Workers. Without the Workers, there would be no food for the Hive. At times, it is confusing -- the Hive is its own entity, and each Hive develops its own personality. Yet the Hive is made up of nearly 60,000 individual bees.
     Michael Joshin Thiele in his essay “Queen of the Sun” sums up this phenomenon well when he writes, "The oneness of the bee colony reveals the interconnectedness of the world, and of ourselves with the world... The old German word bien is an attempt to describe this oneness and define it as one being. The bien is one being in countless bodies. The colony is thus both a society of thousands of individuals as well as one super-organism."
     My Trekkie friends will fondly remember the sci-fi depiction of bien as seen through the Borg.  If my memory serves me, the Borg were a pretty scary lot in their eerie inter-connectedness as well as their desire to assimilate other species.  I find it intriguing that through this cultural media venue, the idea of a bien society was seen as abnormal and undesirable when compared to the deeply held belief in individual personal rights.
     Okay - I've come a long way from bee hives to individualism vs. collectivism.  But I have learned something from the bees -- it can't be one or the other.  It must be both.  And if the Hive is to survive the winter months, the summer bees (which live approximately 7-8 weeks) must work diligently to fill the hive with honey stores and raise strong healthy brood.  That brood will develop into the winter bees, and in their tight cold weather cluster, those winter bees will produce the 98 degree temps that will preserve their Queen and the subsequent brood she will lay in late winter.  These end-of-the-summer bees will carry the Hive into the early spring nectar flow when the brood born during the winter months will take over the care of the Hive and Queen.  And then the cycle will start again all over...
     So the questions flow thusly:  What part are we to play in our own world?  Are we to hold tightly with both hands to our individual human rights?  Or do we willingly loosen our hold for the benefit of the entire community?  Does the preservation of future generations compel us to adjudicate our current course of action?  What part does sustainability play in our every day lives?  And if we are to live out the supreme command to love others as we love ourselves, how will that affect our ho-hum every day decisions?
    Just asking.  And keeping my eyes on the bees...

Life is the flower for which love is the honey.   ~ Victor Hugo