After three days of rain, I just checked on my hives and found the bottom boards covered in ants. I have been keeping bees for two years and am still learning. So I rush to my laptop to check out what Beekeeping101 says about ants in the hive. Then it is down a rabbit hole of online beekeeper forums, and I feel like I am the worst person in the world for allowing this to happen to my hives. At the last inspection, all three of my hives seemed to be doing great. I added the honey supers, and then a few days later, one of the hives swarmed, and I didn't have another box ready to catch it. The last two weeks have been quite anxiety-driven with these hives.
I took up beekeeping in 2021 after doing an online course, buying a hive and some bee suits, and then ordering a colony from a local beekeeper. The first time I opened the box of new bees, I felt awkward and exhilarated at the same time. These bees and their mode of communication were as alien to me as someone from Mars. They were pretty angry, too. Imagine some guy taking half of your have, putting a new queen in, and once you've accepted her, put in a Nuc box with 50,000 of your sisters to some unknown location. Bee husbandry is violent. This wasn't a rescue. I bought them for a hobby or my garden. I wanted better fruit set and more of it. In that desire came a deep caring for bees. My gardening changed. I wanted to make them happy. But, of course, I know happiness can not be measured and certainly not in another species.
In the first six months of beekeeping, I did weekly hive inspections. During inspections, beekeepers check the overall health of the hive. Queen spotting is usually the most crucial aspect of hive inspections for beginners. First, I had to see that queen to feel safe. Now I check that new eggs are laid in the last day or two. That's sufficient to make sure the queen is doing her job. Her only job.
We are also checking for signs of disease, the varroa destructor mite, wax moths, and other predators. There are so many predators that can destroy a hive in a matter of hours or days. Where I live, hornets and wasps are a constant worry. I once had a hornet hive right outside my bedroom window. Unbeknownst to me. I only figured it out by the number of dead hornets I'd find on my windowsill, and occasionally, when I'd turn off the light, a few would sneak into my room and buzz around. They aren't particularly aggressive towards humans. Despite having a hornet's nest at arm's length, one has never stung me. As a gardener, I grew to appreciate them. Grasshoppers are a menace. I have seen grown-ass hornets pick up grasshoppers that are probably half their body weight and fly off into the sunset. The golden hour is their preferred time of day to hunt. And they do come after bees and their hives.
One evening while watering my garden, I noticed a hornet hovering above my hive. It was about the same time of day most of the forager bees were coming back from their last flowers for the day—time to settle down. Bees have roles. They take their roles seriously and can die in those roles. For worker bees, it is based on age. They stand guard to ensure the bees entering the hive are their sisters and protect the hives from other opportunist insects. Hornets can and will take over an entire hive and feast on the larva and bees for weeks after overthrowing it. So preventing a hornet invasion is essential. I took a break from my watering to watch a violent scene unfold before my eyes. This hornet hovered for a few minutes and then, like a hawk, swept down into the hive entrance when the traffic lulled for a few seconds. It landed on the perch just outside the entrance, and it must have regretted that amateur move in a millisecond. I saw a swarm of guard bees overtake this giant and decapitate it within three or four seconds, a masterpiece of choreography and teamwork. I ran back to the house like a little kid screaming, "Oh my god, you'll never believe what I just saw."
It was then these bees became less of a job for me caring for them. I admired them. There is so much to learn from bees.
I recently learned you could stay in a room attached to beehives at Agriturismo Rosso Lampone near Olevano Romani in Lazio. It is believed that breathing in the air from a beehive fortifies the immune system. Guests can book a few hours to days to stay in the cabins breathing in the bee-enhanced aromatherapy. While I have never stayed there, I know how intoxicating the smell of hives can be. It's not just the aroma of the sweet honey. It's the bee pollen, the undetected bee pheromones, esters from the propolis, and beeswax on a warm spring day; it smells of transformation and metamorphosis. In the warm spring and summer months, I often take a chair next to the hive and meditate for a few minutes each day. The aromas are spellbinding, warm, and medicinal. The honey bees are perfect evolution and distribution of labor. From undertaker to guard to nurse. If you live in Rome, you can experience this paradise within a short 45 minutes drive. Their restaurant is delicious, and there is ample hiking around.
And it's not just the aromas of a hive that benefit mental health. In Slovenia, apitherapy has long included the sound of beehives to enrich us. According to the HUSO website, the "buzzing of bees ranges from 10 - 1000 Hz, depending on whether the hive has a queen, whether the bees are calm or are feeling threatened, and even the species of bee will produce different sound frequencies. Bumblebees have an average buzz frequency of 270 Hz, resonating with a C-sharp on a piano (just above middle C). The frequencies that bees emit resonate with organic tissues that promote healing. In humans, the brain also can entrain to these sounds for an overall calming effect."
A hive is a perfect macro and microcosm that mimics the universe. Through my inspections and quiet summer evening observations, I've learned that a hive is not an undemocratic monarchy as our bee myths would have us believe. Instead, the queen works for the female worker bees, and if they aren't happy, they'll make a new one and kill her and her sons, the drones.
I love a bumble…
The honeybees we keep are a domesticated species. They are relatively docile. They communicate through pheromones and sound. The sound of a swarm in a tree differs significantly from that of a content hive. A swarm is trying to decide as a group where they will all go and make a new hive. What we often hear from hives is bees fanning and doing temperature control. They take their biological imperative seriously. Reproduction is the sign of a healthy queen and hive, and protecting the brood and ensuring the brood and queen have a food source are imperative to survival. The average non-wintering bee lives six to eight weeks, and most die while foraging. They work themselves to death for the good of the hive, which has its own identity and can keep going exponentially. And that is the purpose. They live for the good of their hive. Human beings also evolved to be social and altruistic for the community's survival. Bees give so much to their community and local ecosystem.
Apparently, beekeepers live longer than any other profession. While I am not a professional, when I suit up and open a hive, once the initial terror of being in front of 50,000 bees leaves me, I am in flow. I am less resistant to being present. I don't want to hurt or kill the bees—the moves I make matter in the present. I slow down my breathing and enter their world for a moment. Inhale the bees, exhale my minute existence. It feels very similar when I try to understand the universe. We are farts in the world. We spend so much time on things that don't matter once you're dead. Nobody is going to remember this article I wrote about bees or whether I accomplished something `important.` Nobody will remember me, but hopefully, these hives will continue once I am gone, pollinating flowers, improving vineyard health, and contributing to biodiversity.
wonderful & detailed with etiology ! Very ‘personal’ as well. we’re currently midtown Toronto & close observers of truly diverse ‘urban nature’ ! Along with Anne’s wonderful & wildish backyard, we are constantly urban pedestrians & walkers.. This was a ‘poor bee year’ in our view.. but oddly the best Monarch caterpillar year ever.. though our is milkweed still recovering, the neighbourhoods flourished with milkweed. Few large bumblebees or honeybees though, very light on starving wasps, some smaller hornets & we know some are up under the eaves as there’s sentinels up there. I thought it was a very soft Cicada summer.. I notice this as a film maker explicitly as one cannot record dialogue for film or video with cicadas in song up there. We can exchange notes re bee stings ! I’m far beyond expert level at several things re Media as well as being stung. I earned such talents the hard way.. EEEOWW ! if ‘the medium is the message’ so too is the busy bee.. & especially the Stinging Bee ! I love the little beasties.. & they love to land on me to explore.. or ‘read me’ - must send you the tale from our farm when I was 13 or so.. late August or very early September - we had 50 - 70 hives annually via a commercial beekeeper - will send later & a recent shot or two of our friends the bees hard at it or taking a break sitting on me ! Great fun ! 🦎🏴☠️🐝