I often don’t remember my dreams, but I have had a couple of dreams recently in which bees figured prominently. It doesn’t surprise me. I spend a bit of my waking time looking at bees. I am fascinated by their behavior at the entrances to their hives and I keep water nearby so that they don’t have to go far to get water on hot summer days. When I am filling up their water, I watch them coming and going. The airspace around the hives is far more crowded and complex than a major airport and yet there are to my knowledge no air to air collisions. A bee will occasionally bump into me as it flies to the hive, but it quickly makes adjustments and goes on with its work. If I am calm and still, the bees will adjust their flights so that they all fly around me on their way.

I have had to cultivate a sense of calm around the bees. I used to panic. If a bee landed on me, I would try to brush it away, but I’ve learned that not reacting to the bees is the best way to avoid being stung. I’ve been stung twice this summer and both times it was my fault. The first time, I was working the hive and there were a lot of bees swirling around because i had removed one of the boxes from their hive. I didn’t have my pants legs tied and one bee that had probably been knocked to the ground when I moved the hive boxes crawled up my leg. I reacted by trying to brush the bee out of my pants and ended up with a sting on my knee. The bee, of course, got the worst of it, having its stinger ripped out - a fatal event for a bee. I know because I later was able to remove the stinger from my skin as I applied some baking soda to the sore spot. The second time, I was just watching the bees and one flew into my beard. I wasn’t wearing my bee jacket and had no protective gear on. Instead of simply standing still and allowing the bee to free itself, I reached up with my hand and tried to brush it away and ended up with a sting on the edge of my jaw. This sting was more mild than the first, but it is still likely that the bee ended up giving its all in defense of the hive.

Most of the time, however, I can simply walk up to the hives and calmly observe without any need for a bee suit.

The bees are very busy right now. There are a lot of blossoms on the farm. The clover is blooming all over the place. The dahlias are in full bloom. There are sunflowers and poppies and dozens of other flowers on the farm. But autumn is coming. The lavender is done blooming for the most part. The strawberries have no more blossoms. The blueberries and raspberries have slowed fruit production. Soon it will be time to harvest honey and button up the hives in preparation for winter.

I’ve been thinking about the process of harvesting the honey for some time. My hives have two honey supers on them right now. My plan is to leave the bottom one as winter feed for the bees and take the top one to harvest honey for our family. That means I will need to remove the tops from the hives then lift off the top supers. Those boxes will be heavy with comb and honey and will need to be set on a board that can later be cleaned so that any honey dripping from the bottom is sealed and then I will put an excluder which allows bees to leave, but not return on the top. When the bees have returned to the main hive, I will take the boxes and harvest the honey. My plan is to remove the boxes from the hives in the evening when all of the bees are inside and not very active. I’ll move slowly and carefully so I do not disturb any bees that are moving between the boxes. In my imagination, I am able to successfully remove the boxes and return the tops to the hives without injuring any bees. In reality the process will likely be a bit less smooth. I’m a novice after all, and even though I am going over the procedure in my mind, things I have not predicted are sure to occur. I’ll be wearing my bee suit and I’ll have my smoker handy in case I need it, but I’m hopeful that the process can be gentle for the bees. After all, the survival of the colony through the winter is essential to next year’s honey crop.

It doesn’t surprise me that I have been dreaming of bees because I have been thinking about them a lot when I am awake. My brain often continues to work on challenges and problems when I am sleeping and often sleeping on a problem is a good way to begin to think creatively about solutions. However, I don’t really see the bees as a problem, just a challenge that lies in my future in a month or so when the time comes to work the hive.

In my dream, I am called to help someone remove a swarm of bees from where they have temporarily gathered in their search for a new home. The bees have become a problem for other people and I am called to be calm as I locate the queen and gently coax her into a container to relocate her into a hive box. If I were successful, the other bees would soon follow the queen’s location. The problem with my dream is that it is something I have never done in real life. I understand the procedure, but I’m pretty sure were I to need to address a swarm, I’d need by bee suit and smoker and would probably want to do so in the dead of night when the bees don’t have any light for navigation.

Hopefully there won’t be any swarms this year. I’m not eager to have that problem to face. But somehow my brain is working on preparing nonetheless.

I admit I’m easily amused, but the way my brain works continues to surprise and amaze me. It does illustrate some of the changes that are occurring in my life. I used to dream about people a lot. There were challenges with raising our children and challenges with serving complex congregations and I would be working on those challenges during the day and dreaming about them at night. I’m not dreaming about children or the church these days. I’m dreaming about bees. I don’t know if that is progress, but at least it is a sign of retirement. Since retirement has been its own challenge, I hope it is a sign that I’m making the adjustment.