The Hive Survive and Thrive
Bees Here Now
It's been a few days.
The bees have been busily cleaning the hive (dead bees, detritus from the inside, etcetera), and are now busily buzzing the neighborhood, discovering our wealth of maples, red buds and other early bloomers. Like them, I am so looking forward to full Spring and its promise of hope, and more blooms from our dandelions, tulip poplar, mint, coneflower, milkweed, and others. One species beauty is another’s food.
Roots
I decided to become a beekeeper when I went to unwind in our front yard garden of wildflowers and native plants, shortly after reading about the decline of bees and the consequences that decline is having on our food supply. As I unwound amid the greenery, I noticed the plethora of different species of insects, noting 100s of honeybees. I should become a beekeeper, I said to myself; another hive would counter the decline.
✦✦✦
"Should" is a loaded word. There's an implication of a large set of long-held values, and, in this application of specific values, my primary, long-held value was the selfish desire to see my species --my hive, as it were-- survive, and even thrive. As stupid as I and my fellow humans can sometimes be, I like us(which, coincidentally, includes me), individually and collectively, and I think we're worth it. So, I want the hive to survive, even thrive.
Never Was There Then
I cannot even pretend to know the value system(s) of Beeness. We humans can study their behavior, but we cannot know what they -individually and/or collectively-- think or believe. Ineffability, unexpectedly, confers respect. In order to proceed as a beekeeper, it also requires imagination. Respect and imagination can maintain balance. Tenuously. That tenuous balance often falls askew.
I, while feeding the honeybees -or otherwise using my imagination to determine their need(s)- may inadvertently kill a few bees. Forgive us our tresspasses. Bees, in following their prime value to see that the hive survives, even thrives (I imagine), try -and will eventually succeed (at which point I will do the bee dance as I recite my union sister Barb Ingall's poem Fuckityfuckfuckfuck (not sure if that's the title or the poem itself))- to sting me, even tho' I was feeding, not threatening, the hive so that it would survive and thrive. (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is why I learned to diagram sentences.) As we forgive those who tresspass against us.
And so, with a shared desire to see the hive survive and thrive, we respect each other. Or so I imagine.
[Fuckityfuckfuckfuck!]
It's been a few days.
The bees have been busily cleaning the hive (dead bees, detritus from the inside, etcetera), and are now busily buzzing the neighborhood, discovering our wealth of maples, red buds and other early bloomers. Like them, I am so looking forward to full Spring and its promise of hope, and more blooms from our dandelions, tulip poplar, mint, coneflower, milkweed, and others. One species beauty is another’s food.
✦✦✦
I've come to feel connected to the hive, but not in a fond way;
there is no love, mutual or otherwise. If anything is mutual,
it's the exclusivity of our value systems. It's an exchange of
respect.Roots
I decided to become a beekeeper when I went to unwind in our front yard garden of wildflowers and native plants, shortly after reading about the decline of bees and the consequences that decline is having on our food supply. As I unwound amid the greenery, I noticed the plethora of different species of insects, noting 100s of honeybees. I should become a beekeeper, I said to myself; another hive would counter the decline.
✦✦✦
"Should" is a loaded word. There's an implication of a large set of long-held values, and, in this application of specific values, my primary, long-held value was the selfish desire to see my species --my hive, as it were-- survive, and even thrive. As stupid as I and my fellow humans can sometimes be, I like us(which, coincidentally, includes me), individually and collectively, and I think we're worth it. So, I want the hive to survive, even thrive.
Never Was There Then
I cannot even pretend to know the value system(s) of Beeness. We humans can study their behavior, but we cannot know what they -individually and/or collectively-- think or believe. Ineffability, unexpectedly, confers respect. In order to proceed as a beekeeper, it also requires imagination. Respect and imagination can maintain balance. Tenuously. That tenuous balance often falls askew.
I, while feeding the honeybees -or otherwise using my imagination to determine their need(s)- may inadvertently kill a few bees. Forgive us our tresspasses. Bees, in following their prime value to see that the hive survives, even thrives (I imagine), try -and will eventually succeed (at which point I will do the bee dance as I recite my union sister Barb Ingall's poem Fuckityfuckfuckfuck (not sure if that's the title or the poem itself))- to sting me, even tho' I was feeding, not threatening, the hive so that it would survive and thrive. (EDITOR'S NOTE: This is why I learned to diagram sentences.) As we forgive those who tresspass against us.
And so, with a shared desire to see the hive survive and thrive, we respect each other. Or so I imagine.
[Fuckityfuckfuckfuck!]
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