Hope from the bees
23/04/24 01:00
We’ve had an interesting Earth Day weekend. On Saturday, the Green Team from our church, of which I am a part hosted, together with the Multi Faith Network for Climate Justice, a Sacred Earth Fair. I staffed a table at the event that was designed to educate people about backyard pollinators. We had activities for children, including coloring pages and an opportunity to make a mason bee habitat to take home. We had pollinator friendly seed packets, honey sticks, and other information. To my surprise, a lot of adults came to our booth with questions about raising honey bees. I ended up donning my bee suit and demonstrating the Warre Hive boxes I have made. We were just one of 18 different booths. In addition, there were workshop sessions, a panel discussion, and opening and closing ceremonies.
Saturday was a busy day for me because I had ordered two new queen bees with workers to install in our apiary. They arrived and were available for pickup on Saturday morning. By the time I got them into their new hives, it was time for me to head to the church to set up for the fair.
On Sunday we had a special Earth Day service at church. I read a poem that I had composed. Our choir sang an anthem based on words by Chief Seattle. The sermon was presented by Rev. Brooks, Berndt, Minister of Environmental Justice in the national setting of the United Church of Christ.
Last night we were back at the church for an Earth Day Blessing Service featuring Indigenous leaders from Hawaii, the Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Tribe. Speakers at the event represented Judaism, Islam, Tao, Hinduism, Bahá’, and Christianity. The service was advertised as an hour and half event, but I knew in the first ten minutes that it would take at least two hours. There is a different pace to an event that features that many speakers. Quite a few speakers needed to say more than the organizers had planned for them to say. It was well worth the investment of time. Connecting with others over concern for the future of our planet and restoring active hope that puts faith into action was a meaningful process.
All too often when we hear about the climate crisis or other issues of environmental concern we are confronted with a sort of prediction about doom. We hear that temperatures on our planet could rise so that the polar ice caps melt, coastal areas are flooded, wildfires make the air unbreathable and the planet becomes uninhabitable by humans. Sometimes the predictions of scientists and scholars present a kind of doomsday scenario. In the light of all of this it was uplifting for me to attend a series of events that focused on hope and offered real world suggestions about actions and commitments that we can make to protect the environment and to promote resiliency among our neighbors as together we strive to overcome the injustices of the effects of climate change.
Throughout the weekend we have had many opportunities to come together with other concerned people to understand that care for our planet is a value that is shared with those of other faiths and from different wisdom traditions. As has often been the case, our indigenous neighbors continue to lead us to concern for the balance of life and care for the earth and its environmental systems.
Concern for the planet is one of the motivating reasons why I have become a tender of bees. I provide care for the colonies in our apiary and have invested time and energy into promoting healthy pollinators for the orchard and flowers on our son’s farm. Along the way, I have learned a lot from the bees I tend. I have decided that the traditional term, “beekeeper,” isn’t really accurate. I don’t keep anything. I do, however, harvest some of the honey that the bees produce. And I help to protect not only the honey bees, but other species of bees. It is estimated that 600 to 700 species of bees are native to our state. In addition to the honey bees in our hive, there are alkali bees, blue orchard bees, western bumble bees, western leafcutter bees, fairy bees, green sweat bees, nomad bees, and mason bees on the farm. I have seen as many as three different species of bees all on the same lavender plant. The various species of bees seem to get along with each other well. Moving honey bees onto the farm does not seem to have displaced any of the native pollinators who also help with the orchard, flowers and food plants grown there.
A colony of bees is filled with tens of thousands of individuals. The queen is constantly laying eggs into individual cells where they become larvae, pupate, and emerge as adult bees. The bees tend the eggs and larvae, forage for nectar and pollen, guard the hive, in an ongoing cycle. The lifespan of an individual bee can be as short as 15 days in the summer, or as long as 200 days in the winter. The queen lives two or three years on average, but can live more than seven years. When her life nears its end the colony produces a new queen and drones to mate with her. During her life she can lay over 2,000 eggs per day. That is more than her own body weight in eggs every day. All of those eggs are fertilized in a single period early in her life. Bees made in free flight and a queen surrounded by all of her drones is an amazing sight.
Recently I was given a poem that seems to be a good expression of the hope that I have acquired from working with bees:
THIS SPRING
by James A. Pearson
How can I love this spring
when it’s pulling me
through my life faster
than any time before it?
When five separate dooms
are promised this decade
and here I am, just trying
to watch a bumblebee cling
to its first purple flower.
I cannot save the world.
But look how it trying,
once again, to save me.
Saturday was a busy day for me because I had ordered two new queen bees with workers to install in our apiary. They arrived and were available for pickup on Saturday morning. By the time I got them into their new hives, it was time for me to head to the church to set up for the fair.
On Sunday we had a special Earth Day service at church. I read a poem that I had composed. Our choir sang an anthem based on words by Chief Seattle. The sermon was presented by Rev. Brooks, Berndt, Minister of Environmental Justice in the national setting of the United Church of Christ.
Last night we were back at the church for an Earth Day Blessing Service featuring Indigenous leaders from Hawaii, the Lummi Nation and the Nooksack Tribe. Speakers at the event represented Judaism, Islam, Tao, Hinduism, Bahá’, and Christianity. The service was advertised as an hour and half event, but I knew in the first ten minutes that it would take at least two hours. There is a different pace to an event that features that many speakers. Quite a few speakers needed to say more than the organizers had planned for them to say. It was well worth the investment of time. Connecting with others over concern for the future of our planet and restoring active hope that puts faith into action was a meaningful process.
All too often when we hear about the climate crisis or other issues of environmental concern we are confronted with a sort of prediction about doom. We hear that temperatures on our planet could rise so that the polar ice caps melt, coastal areas are flooded, wildfires make the air unbreathable and the planet becomes uninhabitable by humans. Sometimes the predictions of scientists and scholars present a kind of doomsday scenario. In the light of all of this it was uplifting for me to attend a series of events that focused on hope and offered real world suggestions about actions and commitments that we can make to protect the environment and to promote resiliency among our neighbors as together we strive to overcome the injustices of the effects of climate change.
Throughout the weekend we have had many opportunities to come together with other concerned people to understand that care for our planet is a value that is shared with those of other faiths and from different wisdom traditions. As has often been the case, our indigenous neighbors continue to lead us to concern for the balance of life and care for the earth and its environmental systems.
Concern for the planet is one of the motivating reasons why I have become a tender of bees. I provide care for the colonies in our apiary and have invested time and energy into promoting healthy pollinators for the orchard and flowers on our son’s farm. Along the way, I have learned a lot from the bees I tend. I have decided that the traditional term, “beekeeper,” isn’t really accurate. I don’t keep anything. I do, however, harvest some of the honey that the bees produce. And I help to protect not only the honey bees, but other species of bees. It is estimated that 600 to 700 species of bees are native to our state. In addition to the honey bees in our hive, there are alkali bees, blue orchard bees, western bumble bees, western leafcutter bees, fairy bees, green sweat bees, nomad bees, and mason bees on the farm. I have seen as many as three different species of bees all on the same lavender plant. The various species of bees seem to get along with each other well. Moving honey bees onto the farm does not seem to have displaced any of the native pollinators who also help with the orchard, flowers and food plants grown there.
A colony of bees is filled with tens of thousands of individuals. The queen is constantly laying eggs into individual cells where they become larvae, pupate, and emerge as adult bees. The bees tend the eggs and larvae, forage for nectar and pollen, guard the hive, in an ongoing cycle. The lifespan of an individual bee can be as short as 15 days in the summer, or as long as 200 days in the winter. The queen lives two or three years on average, but can live more than seven years. When her life nears its end the colony produces a new queen and drones to mate with her. During her life she can lay over 2,000 eggs per day. That is more than her own body weight in eggs every day. All of those eggs are fertilized in a single period early in her life. Bees made in free flight and a queen surrounded by all of her drones is an amazing sight.
Recently I was given a poem that seems to be a good expression of the hope that I have acquired from working with bees:
THIS SPRING
by James A. Pearson
How can I love this spring
when it’s pulling me
through my life faster
than any time before it?
When five separate dooms
are promised this decade
and here I am, just trying
to watch a bumblebee cling
to its first purple flower.
I cannot save the world.
But look how it trying,
once again, to save me.
