r-eating: Oliver, happiness, bees

When I want to read something that lulls me back into hive-mind, some song of trees and deer and birds, it's to Mary Oliver that I always turn.  I had a period, starting in 2009, where I read a poem of hers every morning --  a special diet, probably the only kind of sustained meditation I'm capable of, sitting quietly with some words.  I'd set myself down in a special spot reserved only for this reading, perched on a yoga block in front of a window onto the garden and allow myself just one poem a morning.  In this way I made my way through several books of poems, first Why I Wake Early, then Dream Work, then Blue Iris. Oh, and House of Light.  I'd been wondering how to add poetry to my day, how to make my way through the books I'd bought.  It didn't seem right to just sit in a chair and plow through them, one after another, taking them in willy-nilly, pigging out on them.  I wanted, instead, that sensation of allowing myself just one a day, one little tasty truffle.

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"Civilization on Six Legs"

We attended a great lecture, "Civilization on Six Legs," at the Academy of Sciences last night, part of Litquake, San Francisco's Literary Festival.  I took notes, natch, which are a bit mysterious to me this morning, taken as they were in a planetarium plunged into total darkness for the presentation, lights on only at the end during the Q&A.  And this morning as I review those notes and what the two experts, Bee man Thomas Seeley and Ant-omologist Mark Moffett, had to say about collective wisdom and decision-making amongst these insects, I'm still inspired and zing-ed up by their passion for their subject matter.

Oh, sweet animal nerds, is there any category of people on this planet who are more delightful than you?  I mean, really, think about David Attenborough and his infectious animation when discussing snails or hedgehogs or snow leopards.  Or the scientists in the Black-footed ferret vs. Prairie Dog video that circulated last week (link below), choked up at witnessing something never seen before, two grown men on camera completely in love with what they'd just seen.  Or my Mammalogy teacher on Monday night, passionately arguing that the animal on the California state flag should not be the bear but no, the animal who is really responsible for the agricultural riches of this state, the one animal who deserves the recognition for California being the paradise it is -- the pocket gopher, lowly and despised, and yet at the very foundation of the healthy soil at the center of the state.

Seriously, I can't think of any group of people who demonstrate more joie de vivre than people who study animals for a living.

Of course the bees and ants guys were the same way.  Imagine spending 35 years of your life, as Thomas Seeley has, learning how bees operate, how a swarm arrives at a quorum, collectively choosing a new home based on a participative democratic process.  Fascinating stuff that demands so much devotion, years and years of deep, deep studentship.  And yet no loss of humor.  Oh, the delightful demonstration of a bee's waggle dance he performed using the projector remote!  So funny to refer to bees, in their role in flower reproduction, as flying penises, a hive in your garden as a dawn-to-dusk escort service.   

If the bee man was soft-spoken and laid-back, the ant guy was surely not.  He was ant, as bee man was bee.  Mark Moffett's new book, "Adventures Among Ants," illustrates how ants choose some of the very same behaviors as we humans, whether it's civilizations characterized by hunter-gathering, agriculture, militarism or slave-owning.  I was struck early on by his observation that the smaller a population is, the slower it can be.  Everything speeds up in species that are more populous. Species of ants that live in small groups, mud ants, for example, in their groups of 10-15, are slow, prey on snails.  Species of ants that live in groups of millions make quick motions, organize themselves fast.  Apparently, he said, there is a biological value to Type A behavior in large groups.  Nice!  Check out his blog if you want to know more about how ants, like us, have terrorists.

Truly this world we live in is remarkable.  Even the tiniest among us are organized, have purpose, have unknown ways we are able to puzzle out only after years of dedicated watching.  How great is that?

Bees find us again

"That buzzing noise means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing noise that I know of is because you're a bee... And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey."
- Winnie the Pooh

Yesterday we had the good fortune, karma, luck, whatever you want to call it, to catch our THIRD swarm of bees. I have been thinking about this non-stop since 12:30 pm yesterday when Joe first noticed the distinctive buzzing-noise and tracked it to a redwood tree in our neighbor's yard. How is it that before we started beekeeping, each of us, Joe and I, had seen only one swarm of bees ever in our lives, but as soon as we started learning beekeeping, bought our own bees, not one, not two, but three swarms have landed practically in our laps?

From bird-watching, snorkeling and diving, I've learned that the more you look, the more you see. It's crazy and gratifying how as soon as you start noticing, there is so much to notice, so much more than you noticed before. It keeps expanding! And surely now, because we're attuned to bees in a way we never were before, we're more likely to notice. But three swarms? OK, it's true that there is a big hive two doors over from us, under someone's deck, the confirmed source of the first two swarms we caught last year, and most likely the source of yesterday's. And right now, April, is a very likely time of year for swarms. But really, why always come over toward our place? And why always swarm when people are coming over for meals?

The first swarm arrived in our apple tree on Mother's Day 2009; we had all of three weeks' experience under our belts and were just wrapping up brunch in the garden with friends. A week later, another swarm landed in a tree next door, and Joe, his humerus freshly broken and casted, worked with our neighbor Dave to capture them while his parents and I waited for him to come home so we could eat. This time, a year and a week after we started our beekeeping adventure, Joe noticed the swarm just I was starting preparations to host my parents for lunch. He threw down his hat and the weed-wacker, grabbed the swarm-catching necessaries and was off, 100% engaged in the task, delighted. It was, so he says, the easiest catch yet. We went back last night to pick up the hive box, drive them here and set them up in their permanent spot in the yard.

It's wonderful to have more bees. We lost two of our three hives over the winter, one colony was weak and starved after stronger bees robbed their food stores; the other lost their queen late, too late to make another and they eventually died, too, leaving behind a hive full of honey. Our only remaining hive until yesterday was the first swarm we caught, the Mother's Day bees, so wild and sturdy, such tough survivors. And now we're up to two again, more wild-caught bees, likely to survive and prosper.

Of course I know it's just a combination of circumstances -- the location of the mother-hive, the season, perhaps the breeze -- that has brought us three colonies of bees since last year. It's not a reward for good behavior, it's not karma, but damn, it sure feels like something more than just luck. We're listening for the buzzing-noise, so naturally we're going to hear it, but that doesn't explain the Why Us we feel every time the buzzing-noise shows up. I am fully aware that it's not personal (even though part of me wishes it were), that it's instead that somehow we've managed to create, just maybe, a deliciously intoxicating pollen- and nectar-rich oasis aromatic with bee-ness. Whatever the reason, every time has felt like a charm, like a privilege and delight. Keep coming over - we can't get enough!

Bee-donkulous: lessons learned from bugs this year

We've been spending a lot of time in yoga lately talking about the coming close of this year, the opportunities presented by the start of the new year. What's your vision? Who do you want to be? Where have you been this year?

This has been a crazy year for us for sure, more ups and downs than I am prepared to list here (though that list is coming, you have my word), but today's cold honey harvest is really making me think a lot about some of the big lessons I learned from bees this year:

- keeping bees entails managing conditions. The bees will do what bees do naturally - all the beekeeper is really in charge of is ensuring that the conditions are right: that the hive is dry, sizable, cozy enough. The bees do the rest. Honey just happens. This is a lesson we learned a long time ago with compost - that with the right conditions, it's something that just happens. Honey is the same deal. Actually, everything is the same deal. In yoga, when you create the conditions - set up the pose, align yourself in it, feel it -- then grace happens, illumination.

- keeping bees requires getting comfortable with death. We discovered the death of our first hive this week, but long before that we learned that beekeeping involves a little death almost every time you open the hive. Every time we approach the hive, open it up to ensure conditions are good, our intention is to do as little harm as possible, but it's virtually impossible to work the bees without crushing a few unwittingly while moving frames in and out, back and forth. Losing an entire hive (the queen died late in the season, well past when the workers could make a new one) was hard. Opening what was previously a thriving (though not our strongest) hive and hearing quiet, the place empty, was rough. Not long after the queen gave up the ghost, the entire colony died. Boy, have we lived with death this year. Three cancer diagnoses in the last twelve months -- my sister, our Jasper, our Joe. Death is always there: how much grace can we muster when we face it? That's another lesson learned from bees.

- keeping bees means letting go of what you learned from a book or a lecture and really learning through doing. No amount of classroom preparation can really teach you what you need to know - the actual Doing, the experience itself, suiting up, stoking the smoker, repeatedly opening the hive and observing -- builds the life-experience that is the real learning. As our beekeeping teacher said one day while standing in a cloud of bees, "you have to let go of knowing."

- keeping bees involves making errors (sometimes fatal) and recovering. We managed conditions to the best of our amateur ability on Hive #1 - we checked them weekly during the summer, supplemented their food in June when it was clear their stores were empty, reduced the entrance when we were concerned they were not strong enough to withstand the incursions of yellow jackets and other robbers. We watched them and did everything we could think of to keep them strong. But clearly we made errors, mis-read the signs, didn't re-queen in late summer, and now they're dead. And we recover, pouring what we learned into our attentions to the two remaining hives.

- finally, keeping bees allows deep drinking of the nectar of life. The addition of bee hives to our garden has brought us so many gifts. We are still struck dumb by how beautiful they are, how remarkable their society, how perfect their comb, and how tasty the fruit of their labor. Living with bees we sit down more often, stop and watch them as they go about their busy bee-ness, marvel at their labor of love, their ecstatic rolling in pollen. And now with a late, unexpected honey harvest, we are savoring, in the dark of winter, the bright taste of sun and flowers.

I am grateful for so many things this year, but deeply, deeply grateful to these bees, the living, the dead, and those yet to come. Without them I would have missed so much beauty this year, beauty that is literally right in front of my face. With them, I see more and more clearly, on a diet of honey and delight.

New Hive: Demo and Reconstruction

Inner cover of new hive, loaded with bees and unruly comb!

Joe realized last night that the swarm we caught and hived on Sunday was building some pretty unruly comb in their new hive box. He discovered this by peeking in the entrance with a flash light. Instead of building in the frames that we’d placed in the hive, they built comb from the inner cover and the follower board almost all the way to the bottom of the hive box.

After consulting with our teacher, Alan, Joe got to work. We couldn’t wait; this had to be done today, much to my sorrow. So I stayed at work and missed the show. Joe suited up completely: veil, gloves, long sleeves and pants. These bees have been wild for two years that we know of, so working with them is different from working with the Italians we bought in a package 5 weeks ago. And there are simply way more of them.

To get started, Joe assembled all of the tools he would need – bee brush, hive tool, frames, rubber bands, and the smoker, stuffed with burning strips of burlap. When Joe smoked the bees, the volume of the hive instantly rose, and it was clear that they were agitated by the smoke.

First Joe had to lift the cover off. The bees had built comb not only in the empty part of the hive box but also between the tops of the frames and the inner cover, making the cover hard to remove, basically waxed shut by comb. Joe tipped the cover up to a 45 degree angle, and one of the big pieces of comb fell to the bottom of the hive box. The comb wasn’t just one sheet. They didn’t build it in parallel lines. They built a few rows one way and then the next 90 degrees to the first, sort of a Tetris construct. Joe was amazed at how many bees were there, and it was just like a swarm again hanging from the inside of the cover. The bees had actually begun to build comb in just one of the frames, but only about a three inch disk. There were thousands of bees on every frame, some of them hanging in chains, so it’s possible that some were beginning to build in the frames.

Joe didn’t really know how to remove the comb from the cover, so he just grabbed the comb up toward the top (i.e., at the cover) and it pretty much broke free from the wood. Once he got all of the comb off, he just laid it on top of the hive and on the cement and set the lid aside. The lid was covered with bees by the way. Joe then proceeded to rubber band the big pieces of comb into the frames as instructed by Alan.

It was pretty much like catching the swarm all over again, lots of bees in the air, bees crawling all over him. Anything that got honey on it, the bees would stay there.

Good thing for gloves. At least 5 bees stung Joe’s gloves, then took a couple steps away from their stinger and venom sack, and started fanning. This is in contrast to other bee stings we’ve observed, where the bee just falls over and slowly dies, its insides essentially pulled out when the stinger leaves its body.

Joe left in the five frames that we originally put in the hive box – never took them out since bees appeared to be busy in them. He checkerboarded in the 4 frames with the rubber-banded comb, and added the tenth empty frame.

Joe smoked the bees twice, once at the beginning and once in the middle. And by the way, one of the burlap sacks that we picked up from the coffee roastery is actually made of hemp and definitely smelled like weed.

We had put in a quart jar of sugar-water when we hived the bees on Sunday. They had drunk ¾ of it by this afternoon, fueling their tremendous comb output.

Joe did not see the queen, but did see eggs. Not many. Most of the comb is either not fully developed, shallow, or was full of honey and pollen.

Joe brought in a plate covered with broken pieces of comb, which has made for some great observation and tasting. The variety of colors of pollen is amazing: purple, orange, gold, greenish gold, blue like eye shadow, and yellow. Very interesting taste. I can’t say that either of us has ever eaten pollen like this. The honey is very thin and fruity, probably because it is really more nectar still than it is honey.