Honey is for bees

Last night, as I returned from a visit to my brother's a short walk away, I came across a Bumble bee lying on the road. It was getting late and I knew instinctively that this bee was either exhausted, damaged in some way or perhaps starving due to all the bad weather we had been having. So I picked him up and took him back to my place where I placed him in an upturned lid and gave him honey that a friend of mine had given me (and which I initially declined but more of that later) and water. I could see his tiny tongue lapping up the honey but his right middle leg was retracted and upon further investigation, I could see that it was missing the two end sections. It made its gait rather clumsy but nevertheless he lapped up the honey and actually stood on the small mound of honey that I had provided which in retrospect was far too much for such a small creature, getting very sticky in the process. 

I decided not to turn on the WiFi and have an evening without it so that the bee could recover and rest. When I went to bed, I put him in a flower pot containing some Red Sorrel that a friend of mine had given to me and put a little bit of honey on a small piece of cardboard so he had a food source. Then I balanced a tea spoon with a very small amount of water as something to drink and went to bed. I half suspected that because his movements were so slow and laborious that he might well die during the night. It was warm inside though so I left him to it. 

In the morning, I found that he was still very much alive and had probably also been sleeping. He started moving around the flower pot and I provided another tea spoon with a honey/water solution which he also lapped up. Then he started climbing the stalks of the sorrel, rather slowly at first but determinedly, from one leaf to another before he fell off onto the table with a quiet thud. I had heard his wings buzzing and was full of hope but it lasted only for a second. After a while, I allowed him to crawl onto my hand and there he stayed. The sun was coming up by now and so I ventured outside but it was still cold so we came inside again and, eventually, as the sun heated up, we went outside once more and he moved around my hand, somehow reluctant to move off. The morning urge to pee started growing in me so I felt I would have to abandon him somewhere safe otherwise I would explode! I held him up to the sun in my hand but still he clung on. At some point, as he manoeuvred around my hand, he fell to the ground but before he reached it, his little wings kicked in and he flew. He did a wide circle, climbing steadily into the air and the sun and I watched him go with a huge amount of joy and relief. He flew strongly into his future and disappeared. 

Bees have been in my consciousness for quite a while and I have had some magical encounters with these little alchemists, the true alchemists, over the years. Many years ago, I began a training with a bee shaman. I took the whole shamanic thing with a pinch of salt at first but one experience that I had showed me how little I knew and opened my eyes to a truth that I was missing. We had a exercise one day that involved staring into the eyes of another member of our clan (the name we were given as a group of students) in a big circle. The act of staring was to last two minutes each time. Doesn't sound a lot, does it? But actually two minutes can be a long time to gaze into another's eyes. It ushers up uncomfortable feelings and people giggle or try to avert their eyes to cover up this awkwardness. It's like an intrusion into another's very private space. However, when the two parties are committed and serious, you begin to see all sorts of strange shapeshifting going on. People can look very old, very young, mad, weird, beautiful. Men can look like women, and vive versa. All very strange and wonderful if a little bit unnerving. On this particular exercise, we didn't get to look into the eyes of every member of our clan as that would have taken much longer than planned. The point of the exercise was to build and gain trust between each other. The shaman had joined the circle as well and my last staring match was with him. I stared deep into his eyes and once again the shapeshifting started but just before the end of the exercise it seemed as if he revealed some deep inner secret because I was suddenly staring into the eyes of a bee. It was just a flash but no less shocking as it was incredibly real. It had a profound effect on me and brought a new found respect for him as my teacher.

A year later, we were both in the Kalahari desert on a shamanic pilgrimage to the San bushmen. We had travelled to the Tsodilo Hills, near the Okavango Delta, which is perhaps the most sacred place for the bushmen. Laurens Van Der Post wrote about this place in his book 'The Lost World of the Kalahari', describing the ancient rock art and, importantly, a particular episode which I can only vaguely recall. It involved writing a letter of supplication, asking for forgiveness, to allow the expedition to continue: it had been stalled - all the motors and equipment had stopped working as if by some sort of magic - and they had been plagued by hordes of angry bees. Once the letter had been written and delivered however, being buried in the ground, the bees left. On my journey, I also came across bees. It was the early morning of the first day we were there, having arrived the night before. I heard the loudest buzzing ever as if bees were climbing all over my tent. My teacher was there too and I felt this was something to do with him and that I would find him outside completely covered in swarms of bees yet when I ventured out of the tent, there was not a bee to be seen. They were high up in the upper canopies of the acacia trees under which we were camped and which were in full blossom. It was a beautiful moment to be in that place with so many of these magical little creatures in a sort of billowy heaven of soft blossom. 

Bees are magical creatures. They have been around on this earth for a very, very long time. In fact, there is a fossilised record of them from a place in Aberdeenshire that I went to on a shamanic pilgrimage which I'll talk about another time. Bees make a substance that is so deliciously sweet and healing that it's treasured and cultivated by us human beings not only for our pleasure but for our financial gain. A while ago, I came to understand something about bees and our relationship to them. Time and time again, I have been asked to sign petitions against the spraying of pesticides, neonicontinoids especially, that harm bees. The bees are having a hard time of it these days and are under huge attack, not just from chemicals but from mobile phone masts and WiFi and from the commercial exploitation of all their hard work: their honey, propolis, pollen and royal jelly ending up in our shops. It is no wonder they succumb to mites. It is no wonder there has been a decline in numbers and that we hear of colony collapse. We take their work in pollinating our blossoms and flowers for granted as if we can do what we like at their expense but we simply can't. This world is not ours no matter what the Bible says. We share it with many other creatures and beings. Just going to the shop to buy a jar of honey says so much about our unconscious actions. There is a saying that if the bees disappear from our world, then we will follow several years later. In some countries, pollination is now done by humans and I can imagine that there are plans afoot for robot bees. Actions like this seem to disregard our environmental degradation.

Other bee encounters followed over the years. I began to work with a local beekeeper in Somerset, who I had met at a country wedding and whose house and garden, much to the consternation of his wife, was completely given over to bee work. John was a Puckish character, in his late 60s or early 70s, his rosy, weather-beaten face always had a shy, slightly cheeky smile on it and he was generous to a fault. He had hives all over the place and I helped him on occasion and took many photographs of his activities which he had laminated and then shared with schoolchildren. He was of the traditional type of beekeeper, using square wooden hives which had a number of sections. We went in with full protection gear including gloves, suits and mesh hats. One of his tasks was to mark the Queen and also to take out any other Queens since a colony would become very unstable with two or more Queens about. He was also treating his bees against varroa mite, the scourge of bees. When you got to his place, the garage was absolutely full of old hives and wax frames in various states of disrepair, the air buzzing alarmingly with many bees. John said he had been stung many, many times but it didn't bother him too much. Though I could see why his wife was a bit vexed by the whole business! Sadly, I moved away and lost touch with him but the last thing I remember was that he was invited to Nepal of all places to spread his wisdom and work with the beekeepers there.

When I moved to Portugal, I bought some land up in the mountains which was covered in sweet chestnut trees and many other bee-friendly plants such as rosemary and lavender. The previous owners took all their bee hives with them but they left behind the one that still had bees in it up on the chestnut terraces. Weeks or maybe even months later, I went up to check on the bees. I approached the hive. All was silent. Not a single bee was in sight. I put my ear against the hive and listened. No sound at all. So I slowly removed the first section and looked inside. It was full of honey but completely empty of bees. Not knowing bee ways, I took out the frame that was heavy with honey and took it down to the caravan and put it in a plastic bag ready for extraction. A day later I was up at the hive again and this time it was totally different. Bees were buzzing everywhere, all over the hive, coming in and out of the entrance, in the air. Oh no, I thought, they've come back for their honey. I didn't have any protective gear with me but I knew that I had to return the honey frame. I was going to have to trust that they didn't sting me. I collected the frame and came back to the hive, took a breath and slowly removed the top section. The bees were all over the frames, moving about, but fortunately for me they didn't seem too bothered by my presence. I took the frame out of the bag and then very slowly slipped it back into position. Of course, when the bees sensed honey, they started covering the honey frame so it had to be done carefully and methodically. Once it was back in position, I lowered the section back on top, taking as much care as possible not to squash any bees which is nigh on impossible when they are crawling everywhere. At last, I finished and then left them to it. A day later, I couldn't resist coming back to check up on them. This time there seemed very little bee activity going on as I drew near the hive. In fact, nothing was going on. I pressed my ear against the hive once more. No hum inside. I took the top section off again. It was empty again of bees and, this time, honey. Mission accomplished! My dream of having my own hives was dashed.

I did think of having bees but although I went and bought the wax sheets that fit onto the frames, I went no further. A few years later, I was outside with my brother when we heard an almighty hum. Instinctively I knew it was a bee swarm. Looking up into the sky, you could see how they travelled - not in one straight direction but in every direction all at once, zipping about like neutrinos, and slowly moving in one general direction. I wondered about trying to capture the swarm into my hive but I had no idea how and although a local beekeeper called Harold could have done the job, the moment passed. The bees settled in what I called my woodshed, which was the cellar of my other house, a dark and cool place and actually a bit too dark and cool for bees but they seemed to like it and duly set about cementing the open old wooden door to the stone wall, effectively locking it in place. It was a beautiful sight to behold as they began to construct an enormous wavy wax comb. There was a frameless window and they flew in and out all the time and being summer, I had no real need to go in there. I left them to it. Time passed and autumn approached and the days got shorter and cooler. The place they had chosen didn't get much sun and was chilly. As the temperature dropped, I stapled some packing blankets to the door to stop the wind and then rigged up a frame upon which I put more blankets. I noticed that under the window and on the window ledge, there were quite a few dead bees. When it started raining, the rain would come through the floor above, so I put plastic sheets over the blanket frame. Everyday I would come to the little entrance I had made, put my ear to it and listen to the hum and when I heard it, I was glad to know that they were still alive. This went on all winter. I brought them a shallow dish of water mixed with honey but wasn’t sure how effective it was. To be honest, they were in a very bad location and many of them died. The wind, when it blew, could blow very strongly so I had to jam the door open to prevent their home breaking apart. It was extremely cold at times since we were on a north-facing slope (a very bad idea in Portugal in the mountains!). Eventually Spring arrived, the rains stopped, the days got warmer and I slowly dismantled the frame, the plastic sheetings and the blankets. There were still bees there! Their comb was still intact. I thought this is the time for them to move somewhere else, with their honey. A day later, my heart broke when upon coming into the woodshed, I found that some sort of animal had already been there the night before and had destroyed the comb, taking all the honey. There were no more bees. It seemed to have been all for nothing and I was desolate. There was no happy ending to this particular story. 

My whole experience with bees however has led me to an understanding. I used to buy loads of honey in Portugal where it is often available and very affordable in local markets. I was obsessed with the stuff and sought out all the best types - hard amber coloured, butterscotchy honey, heather honey and the dark, almost black, medicine of chestnut honey. My morning porridge, much to the amusement of my partner, was covered in huge dollops of this heavenly food - I had an extremely sweet tooth. But as the years passed so this understanding grew: here was I greedily gorging myself on a substance that I almost take as my right to consume even though I have done nothing to earn that right. The honey market is an unconscious one - as if it's something you tap off from some massive, unlimited underground reservoir. Whereas honey was once considered as a supreme gift of nature, although never freely given, it is now gathered, processed, sold, bought and consumed with hardly a thought about all the hard work that bees put into making it. We take and expect so much from them and then wonder why they succumb to disease, colony collapse or mites as we read about it on our devices using the stealthy and dark energies of WiFi and mobile communications as we eat our cornflakes, grown in fields sprayed with dangerous harmful chemicals. I made a decision not to buy honey again. In fact, I don't buy any bee products these days. The honey I fed the bee with was bought for me by my friend and I explained to her that I wouldn't take it but then had a moment of insight for moment like this. So I took it. I haven't started preaching about this yet but this is the first time I have written about it. I could write much more. All the new fangled hives that have been developed, such as the one where you can just turn a tap and the honey flows out! What? Anyway, I don't need to say more. Hopefully the seed is now sown and will take root. When I said goodbye to my little friend this morning, I told him that I was so glad to be of service to him as he had been in such great service to me all my life. So much gratitude.

Blessed Bee.