Here Comes the Sun

Lavender - a bee favorite

(photo by John Daly)

After a plunge back into the stormy depths of winter, the sun has re-emerged and so have the bees! I'm so happy to see the ladies out and about today. They seem busier than ever, reinvigorated by solar warmth and fresh nectar flow. I found this little lady (see below) crawling around the base of the hive and gave her a new surface to explore.

I live in the Sierra Foothills of California, where we are experiencing a particularly late spring. True, mountain weather is unpredictable, but usually by mid-May the grasses begin to hint of summer gold and river swimming appears somewhere on the distant horizon. This year, I will be surprised to see a safe and swimmer-friendly Yuba River before July. The rain has made everything green, green, green, sending an oddly nostalgic feeling of the Englsih Summer Country across my skin. Watching the weather out my back door, as well as the weather across the globe, has helped to illustrated on a physical level that we truly are living in a time of planetary change.

Good morning to me!

I am so glad the bees are coming back to help guide us through this time of uncertainty and opportunity. I know the buzz is all about Colony Collapse and the disappearance of the bees, as it should be, but I think bees are showing up in the mass human psyche for another reason as well. Bee are teaching us a lesson of stewardship, collective consciousness and love. Bees have been dying off at an alarming rate without much explanation or understanding. Scientists and beekeepers alike have jumped to the forefront to discover the cause and the remedy. Their conclusions are as diverse and varied as each honey source, but there are some very convincing arguments that the basic "back to nature" and "listen to the bees" methods are what we and these solar beings are in need of.

Commercial beekeeping is detrimental to the honeybee. The sudden decline in bee hives over the last ten years threatens not only the honeybee, but also 80% of our food source . The little creatures are showing us they can not withstand monocrop culture and pollination. Commercial practices are harsh and taxing on the species, but have become the accepted method for most modern beekeepers, both commercial and backyard. Bees are being carted across the country on semi-trucks, incessantly disturbed through home/hive inspection, forced to accept foreign artificially inseminated queens, forced to build off uniform pre-made plastic comb, made to live without drones (since drones are not profitable) and weakened through over-use of antibiotics and sugar feed.

Some may say I am a neglectful beekeeper for refusing to feed my bees sugar water, but I believe in the rebounding strength of the species. I know what sugar does to my body, why weaken the bee through a sugar diet as well? I listen to my bees and ask them to tell me what they need. Perhaps they wont make it through the winter without antibiotics, sugar or regular hive inspection, but then again, they have already drawn out 11 panels of comb and are near bursting at the seems. I did not feed them when I first caught them, and they are abundantly reproducing, happy and strong.

Honeycomb seen through the window of my hive.

During the last warm spell they finished 3 combs in just 7 days.

It is a true joy to join the explosion of backyard and urban beekeepers across the globe who are choosing to live with bees again. From city rooftops to country gardens bees are humming through our days. What better teacher for Unity, Love and Community than the superorganism known as the honeybee hive? Just look at them!

Who knew a Honeybee had a heart over it's heart?

This is through the glass window viewer. It has a cover to keep in the dark.

When you open it it lets in a lot of light, so I don't open it too often.

Honeybees are completely dependent on one another. Each bee, through various life stages, performs a role. Each bee is needed. The comb becomes their tissue, the hivebox, their skeleton. One can not survive alone, and thus they are truly one being, many cells coming together to create a whole:

1) Queen - Goddess, mother and life source of the hive. She who chooses gender and brood size. She who serves and is served by her hive. There is never a moment that the bees in the hive do not know where the queen is. As the queen moves around the comb, she brushes up against other bees, passing on her scent. These bees in turn, brush up against other bees and within in minutes the entire hive knows not only the location of the queen, but also her health and well-being. She is a teacher of Divine Source, always giving, always protected, always loved.

2) Drones - Necessary for procreation with other queens from other hives. Drones do this amazing thing in the spring and early summer: they congregate. On warm days they fly out to some mysterious aerial location and congregate with other drones from all the nearby hives. They fly around in the sun waiting for a queen to fly by. When a queen bee flies through the congregation the drones take after her like a tiny comet. The queen mates with multiple drones in one afternoon, and after 1 -4 flights she permanently returns to the hive to lay and fertilize eggs for the rest of her life. Some drone congregation sites have been documented with returning drones for the last 200 years. There are many guesses as to why they choose these sites, but the one I resonate with, is the theory that drones congregate around hotspots in the earth's magnetic field.

Returning bee with pollen collected in little sacs on her legs.

3) Female Bee - Popularly known as the Worker Bee, the female has a multitude of tasks. Throughout her lifespan she will build comb, make bee bread, defend the hive, forage for pollen, forage for nectar, nurse the young, make propolis and make honey. Yes, she works hard, but it is not work as we see it, slaving away day in day out. She is a sister of joyful service to her body, her community. After taking classes with Michael Thiele at the Melissa Garden Honeybee Sanctuary, I am more aware than ever, that our language around bees much change. I will write of Michael Thiele and the Melissa Garden in a later blog, but for now, allow me to follow suit by choosing the label "female bee" over "worker bee". In the words of Michael Thiele, “Living with bees is such an opportunity to study our mind and our heart. Once we start down that path, we’ll discover the language we use is such a problem, such a limitation.”

Entrance to the Melissa Garden

Today I sat inches from the hive entrance and took photographs. (Well, just to the left really). The bees buzzed all around me, landing on my hand or head occasionally, but never stinging. For a moment, I took a break from the viewfinder and turned my face out to the bees coming home with pollen or new information to share. Each bee that approached the hive flew directly up to my face, within an inch, giving me a face to face flurry of wings before continuing inside. Perhaps they were assessing whether or not I was a threat. Perhaps that is the proper and scientific way to decipher their actions. But then again, bees can recognize the face of their "keeper". Maybe, just maybe, today, they were simply coming up to say hello.

Oh, how my heart does sing.

Happy Beltane!

In honor of May Day

It seems the bees have arrived just in time for Beltane! The blooming of spring has been celebrated across the centuries, blessing the fertility of the earth, new love and union. Last year, among a dear group of friends, I was chosen for May Queen. In our clan tradition, the May King and Queen represent the Divine Feminine and Masculine embodied in Union. What the Queen and King experience together and individually throughout the year, is potently reflected back on those who were present at Beltane.
This year has been one of the most fertile years of my life, flowing into new beginnings with my career, my spiritual path, beekeeping, my love life and my physical being. As I prepare to pass the torch to the new Queen, I am in delighted awe at the mystery of life's gifts and challenges.
Last Saturday, I collected not one, but two swarms. I gave the swarm on the lower branch to my dear friend Mistery, who has been actively building hives and pursuing bee wisdom with me. After speaking with a Sonoma-based beekeeper, we have discovered that the two swarms were most likely from the same original hive. They are sister swarms! The swarm from the upper branch mostly likely contains the original queen, while the swarm from the lower branch contains a virgin queen.
As the end of my year as May Queen comes to a close, I bring the hive's original Queen Bee to a new home. Soon, like me, she will likely be superseded by a new queen, and life will continue on, full and vital. As above, so below. What happens within, is reflected with out.

It reminds me, once again, that nothing is life is by accident. If we choose to see through our wisdom eyes, there is so very much the universe will reveal to us.

It has been an honor to hold this role and I am ready to pass on and find out what new gifts lay ahead.

Catching the Heart Swarm

This is the footage of my first swarm. It was a cold, rainy Saturday in April, a day when bees typically would not swarm. Honeybees usually wait for a few warm days in a row (above 65) before they swarm. It is the bee's natural form of reproduction. When the colony feels healthy and large enough, they start building queen cells. Once a new queen is born and established (through feeding her royal jelly), the old queen takes about half the existing hive and flies optimistically into the warm spring air. They usually land on a nearby tree branch or post and wait while scout bees search the environs for a suitable home.

This is the time when bees are most docile and least likely to sting, especially if you talk to them and let them know your intentions. They can sense fear, unease and negative intent and will react defensively. However, if you approach them with love and respect, the whole event can be fairly effortless.
Someday I plan to do this without gloves or maybe even a veil.

Take a look at my first try!

Where is the Queen?

Hello everyone. I am so very grateful to the bees of Jacquie's farm for allowing me to invite them into a new home. This blog is titled Honeybee Mama because I found out I was pregnant during the building of my very first hive. A week and a half ago I was hospitalized and lost the baby at 11 weeks. It was devastating, but also an incredible rite of passage into the realm of Trust and Unconditional Love. There is a beautiful and long story around the synchronicity of bees, babies and myself, but it will have to be told in future posts. Suffice to say, on Wednesday my partner and I buried my placenta underneath my empty topbar hive box called "The Cradle", due to its inviting shape. Three days later, on what would have been the three month marker of my pregnancy, I receive a call: two swarms had landed in an apple tree out at a local organic farm.
In the ancient Shamanic bee tradition of England, (read Shamanic Way of the Bee by Simon Buxton) the Queen Bee is called The Queen of Synchronicity. In the overwhelming grief of losing my baby, I have been blessed with the awareness of Divine Timing in all things. Nothing around bees and I has ever happened by accident. I am posting this in deep gratitude for the incredible wisdom and love of the species.


The swarm is in the shape of a heart!

I will get pregnant again, so the Honeybee Mama name stays. I can't imagine anything more healing and whole than a big pregnant belly, a sunny day and a hive of bees talking and humming to the little being growing inside.

This video is a close-up of the swarm pre-capture (or should I say before I offered them a new home). In it you will hear the voices of two beautiful little girls who bravely climbed up the ladder to meet the bees. Children are our teachers time and again. When fostered among nature, they develop such a deep kinship to the Earth Kingdoms. What a gift that we can learn through children and bees to let go of fear and experience trust.

And all for love,

Ariella