I haven't been posting much lately. Mostly because I've been working on some longer pieces. Actually revising and finishing pieces! (And sending them out to journals so editors can reject them.) But here's a first draft of something I'm calling "A Cliché" for now. Some of you might read the completed piece in Praxis next year.
I noticed the honeybee on the lip of our water barrel. Water had caught in the lid of the barrel, and the bee was resting on its edge, sipping water through its proboscis. This feeding tube was thicker than I’d ever imagined and red too. He balanced and drank for a long time. Two of his relatives had come to drink before him—but had perhaps stayed too long—sipped too much. Their furry little bodies lay at the bottom of the water. This bee didn’t seem to notice his kin had drowned.
That’s one thing you have to do when you start a hive: provide a water source. Bees collect water like they collect nectar and bring it back to the hive. I’d purchased a cement birdbath for the purpose; one with a lovely Celtic design at its pedestal base, but hardly ever saw bees drinking there. It seemed they preferred my water barrel instead, or sometimes I’ve seen them congregating on the damp garden soil after I’ve watered.
We’ve had three hives in the last three years. The first, a European breed, lasted through the winter, which is good, because the second year is when you can begin harvesting honey. They died going into the second winter from a mite infestation. We brought in more bees, a Russian strain this time, and started a new hive in a different part of the yard.
The old hive, a tomb of dead, moldering honeybees, and slowly crystallizing honey sat dormant, but soon attracted attention. I noticed a few rogue bees hovering around the outside of the hive one morning last May. I later learned these were scouts on the lookout for new quarters. Later that day, I returned from a trip to the garden center to a swarm of bees at the back of the house. Thousands of bees swirled in the air. A beard of bees clung to the side of the old hive. I ran into the house and made sure the windows were closed tight, then called our beekeeper friend.
“There’s a swarm of bees at the back of my house!”
“That’s fabulous!” he said. I was confused. I thought this news would cause him to panic too. Instead, he was delighted.
“Don’t worry, when they’re swarming, it’s like they’re drunk. They’re completely docile. They’ll calm down in about a half-hour.”
And they did. These new bees were pioneers. They had set off from a neighboring hive in search of new territory. What better place than an old hive, already set up for all their needs. They swept out the carcasses of the dead bees, and made it a home. It was insect ingeniousness that they could sniff out a new hive, and fly all the way to my house. Nature is so smart.
And so, for a summer, we had two hives. A Russian one, and who know where the squatters came from, each zooming around the neighborhood, keeping the plants pollinated and producing fruit. A bee’s territory has a radius of about three miles. I imagined my bees up on Mt. Tabor, then buzzing by the hive on their way over to Mt. Scott. I felt protective. I wanted them all to return home safely at the end of the day.
Honeybees need their entire first year’s honey as a food store over their first winter. It’s only after that they make more than they need, and you can begin to collect it. So we’ve only harvested honey once so far. I’m not sure if it truly tasted better, or if it was because I understood all of the work that went into it. Our beekeeper friend came over and suited up in a pair of white coveralls, tucked them into his boots, placed rubber bands around his sleeves, and shoved his hands into thick, protective gloves. He lit a few cedar chips on fire for the smoker, and pumped the bellows to produce a few puffs of gray smoke. Once the bees were sedated, he lifted the top off the hive, and inspected the supers—the layers of the hive above the brood chamber—for honey. He pulled out several frames dripping with amber sap, brushed any lingering bees away, and packed the honeycomb away in plastic bins.
He came back a week later with two quart jars of honey. I took a spoonful and placed it on my tongue. Flowers! I could taste flowers…millions of them! I’d always known honey was made from flower nectar, but it wasn’t until I actually observed the process, step by step, that I truly tasted the connection.
Visitors seem squeamish when we tell them we share our yard with 14,000 honey bees. But I’ve grown comfortable with them. I hardly notice they’re around unless it’s a warm day and they spill out into a cone to fan the hive. The bees exit through a small hole and shoot up and over the laurel hedge—up 12 or more feet and out of the yard.
About a year or so after getting the first bees, a man showed up at our front doorstep. He was from the Oregon Department of Wildlife. He wanted to know if we had a beekeeping permit. We didn’t. Luckily, he was an easygoing Portlander, so he told us we could file the paperwork within the next six months.
Part of getting the permit meant getting the approval of all our neighbors with a certain proximity—several homes across the street, houses on either side of us, houses behind us. We geared up to walk door to door, and I imagined encountering fear. Overly protective parents, frightened elderly people, zealous home owners afraid of bees in their rafters.
Most of the neighbors were excited to hear there was a bee hive in the neighborhood. The old lady across the street has once kept bees herself. One made looked forward to their effect on his fruit trees. Several people just wanted to help us “resist the man.” It turned out to be a great way to get to know our neighbors, including the man who greeted us, “Yes, I AM a medical marijuana cardholder, and NO, you can’t have any!” then invited us in.
Bees are dying, you know—pollution, mites, pesticides. They are dying in great masses. This means plants flower but produce little fruit. This means we could all be in very big trouble. And so I guess I feel like I’m doing a good thing for the world, regardless of what my neighbors think. I watch the bees resting motionless on the leaves of a tomatillo plant, drunk on nectar (and let me tell you—tomatillos must have some good nectar because the bees always seem to get stuck there. It’s like a college quad them morning after a huge frat party, littered with inebriated bodies.) and somehow feel connected to the whole world.
It’s a strange thing to care for a creature that either does not recognize your existence, or views you as a threat. I will not get the love back from a honeybee that I will get from my dog. We cannot share an emotional bond, so instead we will share a practical one and provide each other with something we need. Food. Shelter.
Respect is what I have for them, more than love, I guess. I’ve taken the time to learn about them. I know I must wear light clothing and keep my breathing even and calm when I must get near their hive. Centuries-worth of honey stealing by snuffling, snorting black bears has made honeybees quick to anger at the color black and the presence of exhaled carbon-dioxide. I notice them—notice when they get active in spring, notice to birds who hop close to feast on the dead bees that have been pushed from the hive, notice when the hive seems to be weakening from illness.
Birds and bees. It’s an age-old cliché. They’re the story of life. We humans are so far removed from it that we forget how true the cliché really is. New brood is born, and then they die, and in between they create life all over the earth. This is the only thing that stays the same.
