The Old Beekeeper – The natural rhythms of the colony.

This blog will be a little different than my normal research focused topics.  No summarized reference materials. No data or numbers. And no long confusing terms needing a Google search to understand.  This one is simply my thoughts.

I hope it makes you think too…

Now I’m old enough to know you can’t “turn back the hands of time” because by trying to grasp the sand it simply slips through your fingers.  You simply waste the current moment trying to grasp the past.  So, what is it from the past that we so often long for?  What does the past symbolize for us or what did we have in the past that we seem to have lost today? I would suggest many people would call it “peace”.  Some might also suggest they miss a sense of nature, but it could be suggested that nature is simply the tool that helps bring that elusive peace.  If this is true then it also makes sense that when our country recently faced COVID that many turned to the outdoors, to gardening, and some to beekeeping as an extension of their gardening in an almost instinctive way to respond to the troubles.  Gardening with its slow pace, natural rhythms, and physical activity were a great help to many during that stressful time. It brought peace to the mind and connectedness to something other than our keyboards and TVs.  It got us outside and forced us to focus on and observe the amazing world around us.  Maybe we even learned something in the meantime.

Since then, have you continued to take time out of your day to sit peacefully and really observe or have you returned to societies breakneck pace and can’t seem to squeeze it in?  It almost seems to me that we’ve lost this simple and fundamental human ability to pause and learn through observing?  Or maybe it’s like a muscle that naturally wastes away if not used.  Maybe taking time to be present and learn by observing is a skill we need to relearn and like exercise purposely incorporate it into our lives a little every day until it become natural again.  I wonder what benefits we beekeepers might gain, maybe peace.

Consider stopping by your hives for a while today and wonder….

• When was the last time I sat and really watched my bees? How about today?
• Have I seen them head out in the morning to start their day or return in the evening? Hmm, maybe I could start my next Saturday morning this way with a cup of coffee?
• What are the colors of the pollen they’re bring back today? Aren’t they pretty. I wonder what plants that might be coming from?
• Is that wash boarding. What a funny dance,  I wonder why they’re doing that?
• What is that sweet scent on the air as I passed the hive? Could that be the fermentation of bee bread?  Wow, it smells like baked bread.
• Are those bees I see collecting pollen from my flower patch? Look how covered they are.  Almost like little cheese balls.
• How amazing the bees look this evening. Just like sparks rising from a fire as they fly up into the setting sun from their hive.

I must admit that these are the times that beekeeping brings me the most peace.  Times when my wife and I sit in our garden, talk about our day over a glass of wine and watch our hives. It seems the time I give back to the bees and sit with them are the moments I feel the most at ease and peaceful.  When I focus on them and simply let them teach me something new.

I hope you take time to sit, watch and learn.  They are amazing.