A Pool, A Storm, A Hive Visit, A Healing Meltdown

For this entry, I would like to begin with a story and, I promise, it will tie in with the subject of beekeeping eventually....

Several years ago, Erin and I attended a Special Olympics swim meet. One race involved children of various physical challenges swimming one lap in the pool. They were off to a grand start with fantastic splashing when, about halfway, a girl with Down's Syndrome stopped, raised her head above water, shouted "I'M NERVOUS!"--and then continued her swim. It has always struck me as one of the most endearing and honest moments I've ever witnessed. How many of us, inwardly, stop and yell, "I'm nervous!"? And what would it be like to recognize this in ourselves and feel safe in sharing it with others?

Let's fast forward to our hive visit yesterday morning. In retrospect, our tension and anxiety has been brewing like a storm a-coming since the visit where Erin was stung. It wasn't the sting that bothered us so much as all the wild comb, burr comb, brood, and bees we disturbed that day, all in the name of proper beekeeping management. We've told ourselves we did the best thing--that's what the books advise, and so on. But it hasn't truly felt "right" since then. Meanwhile, we are experiencing a bee population boom, which is wonderful, but also means working with the girls becomes a little more complicated. Our doubt and anxiety has silently increased. Yesterday's hive visit released the brewing storm of all these issues.

We had a few goals: move the front cement block underneath hive 1 forward several inches to allow for increased ventilation; check outermost frames to see if they were still empty--if so, move them inward one position; check on the progress of the newest (3rd) brood supers; and decide if we need to add honey supers yet.

Within the first five minutes of looking into Hive 1, I got stung while replacing a frame and nearly squashing (accidently) a bee. It was an intense pain in my thumb. I immediately used the hive tool to scrape off the stinger, Erin smoked the area, and I left the area for a minute to spray cold water on my thumb and softly curse. We put the gloves on when I returned. We were able to dig out the cement block and move it forward, even though the hive bodies are very noticeably heavier. But with everything else, we just felt like bumbling giants tearing apart the beehive, causing major mayhem and upheaval, and squashing countless bees trying to place each heavy, awkward super back in place. This was just awful for two nurturing types of people. We were upset and shaken.

We moved onto Hive 2, found burr comb (one piece resembled The Great Pyramid), tried to clean the tops of bee frames while separating the supers, squashed many more bees--and had a meltdown afterward. I won't go into details. If only we had been able to emulate the beautiful girl in the pool that day, to be sensitive enough to stop and say, "I'm nervous!"....I believe we would have saved ourselves (and possibly the bees) a lot of trouble. We would have placed our energies into finding helpful solutions rather than building anxiety and tension. But you know what? We won't be hard on ourselves. At least we finally DID reach the point of recognizing we were anxious and doubtful while trying to learn so much at once.

The strange thing is, all that we saw in the hives yesterday looked VERY good and VERY healthy! There were tons of new fuzzy baby bees, pink larvae, gorgeously drawn comb, and juicy nectar. We just aren't at all pleased with our current way of working with the bees--it feels more like working against them! We know bees getting squashed here and there is a fact of life, especially as the populations increase. But we are not happy in the role of systematically destroying things as we've been led to believe is necessary by the books and articles we've read. Are we really expected to check the whole broodnest for wild comb and burr comb, etc. every time? Once the broodnest is established, what is the real benefit of doing so every visit? Why would we even need to tear apart an established broodnest (unless we had a very specific reason) if everything else looks healthy and productive? Truly the books are often unclear and even conflicting in the information about hive upkeep so maybe there is another way.

We don't plan on becoming vigilante beekeepers, but we feel like it's time to make some adaptions (even just small ones), perhaps comparable to organic vs. conventional gardening. We are organic gardeners at heart, and have practiced this way with our friend Joan for five years now. For us, this is beyond matters of techniques and non-chemicals and such--it's a way of seeing the world, one that recognizes interconnection. I'm not sure what an "organic beekeeping" style would look like, or if there is much information to guide us, but we are determined to find a style which suits us much better and allows for a higher level of enjoyment and harmony. Viewed this way, the meltdown (athough uncomfortable at the time) has been healing, has become a very important turn in the road. It forced us to check in with ourselves, and we are very grateful and unified in working for the highest good of ourselves AND the bees.