I can hear my breath as I attempt to pull the hood over my head. I close the front of my bee-keeper’s suit, zipping a painful amount of hair into the teeth. Anxious to be suited up, I yank my hair out and swear. I look over at Paul who has the older suit, to be sure that none of his skin is visible. Like a new groom, he lifts the netting over my head, kindly tucking in what stray hairs I have left. Assured that we are fully uniformed, we walk purposefully, rather like astronauts stepping into space, toward our basil-green beehives.
In my right hand I carry the smoker, used to calm down agitated honeybees. We laugh about taking a hit ourselves. In my canvas tote I carry my hive tool, brush, notebook, extra fuel and matches for the smoker. When we reach the five strand electric fence which we have, amazingly, remembered to shut off, we arrive at the back of the hives as directed in my bee-keeping book. Apparently if you approach the hive from the front it is seen as aggression toward the Queen so we bow low, step over the bottom wire and stand behind the hives. From that vantage point, without even lifting the lid, we can hear the busy hum of bee-work being done. A good sign.
Paul releases the ratchet tie-downs from one hive as I fumble around with the other. I can’t do it with a canoe and I clearly can’t do it with bees. I turn quietly toward him, make an aggravated face, visible through my netting, and he steps over to help. He knows that I will be the one lifting the frames, covered with thousands of bees, out of the hives so he is happy to help with this first step.
I gently remove the lid exposing the top board and the sugar water that I have been feeding them. Once inside I awkwardly try to work my hive tool carefully so as not to squish anybody while freeing a frame. Once loose I use both of my giant gloved hands to pull one frame out. The volume in the hive intensifies and I understand why Paul has moved back and to the left, watching quietly. I set the bottom of the frame against the edge of the hive and begin to examine the comb.
An inspection should take about ten minutes: more than that and you risk bugging the occupants. I try to remember what brood cells should look like. Some of these are capped (covered) some not. There are drips of honey which I take as another good sign. I watch the workers move over the pulled-out comb and I look for the Queen who has the biggest bootie of them all. I don’t find her so I carefully set that frame back and lift out another. There are eight frames in each of our hives and, after making sure things look sort of like the book, I lift only about half in each hive to inspect them, never finding her elusive Majesty. When the bees begin to make more noise, move quicker and ping off my head-net I request that Paul give a puff of the smoker. It isn’t the smoke that soothes them, it is actually that the smoke acts as a distraction, they feel there is danger to the hive and ignore me and my cloddy gloves in favor of protection.
As I am standing there watching thousands of bees doing their thing I realize two things; first, the hive is run entirely by women, making it a matriarchal society and here I, a woman, am taking the lead on this endeavor. Kinship. Second, I’m very clear about the fact that I really know almost nothing about bee-keeping. Entombed in my astronaut/bee suit pulling frames out of the hives I am basically looking only for things that match what I have been reading about or learned in classes.
What is interesting is how okay that is for me. I realize that I don’t need to know everything about everything or to be comfortable all of the time. I want to try things that scare me, make me vulnerable, and return me to being a beginner. It is in that place that I crack and become open.
Keeping bees requires me to fight flight and learn how to communicate calm energy to an unfamiliar species. There has got to be something good, useful and transferable in that skill.
Oh, and the honey… taking tea to a new level. If I ever figure out how to extract it.
So far one of my favorite entries – the earnest attempt to become aligned with an entirely new species and no playbook other than what you’ve read or watched or ? I felt “in there” (maybe “out there” is more apt) with you, in this den of matriarchs all in service to their queen. (Did you ever see her?)….
As with so many things- I feel like we are always learning together.
Thank you for reading and writing!