Bee Listening
Honey Bee Diva is the soul, the template, and the essence of Spirit's imprint in the material world which creates the form of the physical honey bee.
I believe in Spirit; intelligent consciousness present in every form of matter.
I can't say I believe in Honey Bee Diva.
Honey Bee Diva exists whether I believe or not.
If I lose you by the end of this paragraph, that is okay.
Bee listening requires courting a connection to Honey Bee Diva.
My first encounter with the Bee Diva occurred in the late 1990's.
For two years I lived in a simple one room outbuilding heated by a woodstove, with no kitchen no indoor bathroom.
During this time of mourning, I chose to act based solely on internal impulses.
I ate when hungry, slept when sleepy, danced, moved, wrote poetry and painted.
During this time, a delightful iconic image penetrated my creative imagination.
I call this iconic image Angel Bee.
A series of eighteen small multimedia paintings of Angel Bees soon followed.
These paintings will one day become a collection of note cards and posters.
The paintings are dynamic, unique, playful images of a winged creature who communicates energetically with a human ear.
Making these little paintings carried my awareness into a place of deep listening to a new, exciting, unfamiliar yet inviting inner impulse.
Fifteen years later, this same quality of deep listening is evoked when I open my beehive.
When my hands are doing an action that is hurting a bee, the bee emits a screaming buzz which, to my ears, clearly says "ouch, you're hurting me.
" Guard bees have a specific buzz which accompanies an irritated foray into my bee veil, clearly communicating "watch it!" There is a sweet hum of contentment in which the colony communicates that all is well; when this humming is heard the bees are calm and smoking is unnecessary.
When they are hungry and cross, the colony has yet another unique sound which lets me know I need to offer supplemental food and be quick about it.
Enjoying this sort of communication with thousands of insects is interesting.
The result of listening to my bees? The healthy, over-wintered parent colony did not swarm.
Three weeks after taking action based on bee listening, I have two strong colonies and a Nuc, all with laying queens.
The one-year-old queen from the parent colony ended up in the nucleus hive, which is just perfect.
She is a supercedure queen from last fall and she did an amazing job keeping her colony in brood throughout the winter leading into a strong colony build up in early spring.
She will make an excellent breeding queen and she will be easy to work with confined in a happy nucleus hive for a few more weeks.
This is all very curious, and a bit magical, too -- which is fine.
I do hope I will continue to listen to my honey bees rather than imposing my will as a means to achieving any particular goal.
From when I first hived my bee package last May, the honey bees were fed only sugar syrup containing a nutritional supplement along with a blend of essential oils -- lemon balm, peppermint, tea tree, lavender.
These bees are blessed to live in a true green sanctuary -- acres and acres of pesticide-free foraging.
Of course, I hope the girls will make extra honey this spring.
The weather has been ideal for a generous honey flow.
We've had very little rain to retard foraging; the days have been neither too hot or too cold, so the bees are not having to work as hard maintaining the 93-94 degree internal hive temperature best for their developing brood.
What is the news from the colony this week? Unless they call and advise that I do otherwise, I will leave the bees alone except to set up a few small hive beetle traps, offer supplemental feeding because they are building out new comb, and I will wait another week before doing a Varroa sugar roll and sugar dusting so the new queens have a chance to settle in and find their egg laying stride.
If you have had the experience of hearing and/or listening to your honey bees, please leave a comment and share your story!
I believe in Spirit; intelligent consciousness present in every form of matter.
I can't say I believe in Honey Bee Diva.
Honey Bee Diva exists whether I believe or not.
If I lose you by the end of this paragraph, that is okay.
Bee listening requires courting a connection to Honey Bee Diva.
My first encounter with the Bee Diva occurred in the late 1990's.
For two years I lived in a simple one room outbuilding heated by a woodstove, with no kitchen no indoor bathroom.
During this time of mourning, I chose to act based solely on internal impulses.
I ate when hungry, slept when sleepy, danced, moved, wrote poetry and painted.
During this time, a delightful iconic image penetrated my creative imagination.
I call this iconic image Angel Bee.
A series of eighteen small multimedia paintings of Angel Bees soon followed.
These paintings will one day become a collection of note cards and posters.
The paintings are dynamic, unique, playful images of a winged creature who communicates energetically with a human ear.
Making these little paintings carried my awareness into a place of deep listening to a new, exciting, unfamiliar yet inviting inner impulse.
Fifteen years later, this same quality of deep listening is evoked when I open my beehive.
When my hands are doing an action that is hurting a bee, the bee emits a screaming buzz which, to my ears, clearly says "ouch, you're hurting me.
" Guard bees have a specific buzz which accompanies an irritated foray into my bee veil, clearly communicating "watch it!" There is a sweet hum of contentment in which the colony communicates that all is well; when this humming is heard the bees are calm and smoking is unnecessary.
When they are hungry and cross, the colony has yet another unique sound which lets me know I need to offer supplemental food and be quick about it.
Enjoying this sort of communication with thousands of insects is interesting.
The result of listening to my bees? The healthy, over-wintered parent colony did not swarm.
Three weeks after taking action based on bee listening, I have two strong colonies and a Nuc, all with laying queens.
The one-year-old queen from the parent colony ended up in the nucleus hive, which is just perfect.
She is a supercedure queen from last fall and she did an amazing job keeping her colony in brood throughout the winter leading into a strong colony build up in early spring.
She will make an excellent breeding queen and she will be easy to work with confined in a happy nucleus hive for a few more weeks.
This is all very curious, and a bit magical, too -- which is fine.
I do hope I will continue to listen to my honey bees rather than imposing my will as a means to achieving any particular goal.
From when I first hived my bee package last May, the honey bees were fed only sugar syrup containing a nutritional supplement along with a blend of essential oils -- lemon balm, peppermint, tea tree, lavender.
These bees are blessed to live in a true green sanctuary -- acres and acres of pesticide-free foraging.
Of course, I hope the girls will make extra honey this spring.
The weather has been ideal for a generous honey flow.
We've had very little rain to retard foraging; the days have been neither too hot or too cold, so the bees are not having to work as hard maintaining the 93-94 degree internal hive temperature best for their developing brood.
What is the news from the colony this week? Unless they call and advise that I do otherwise, I will leave the bees alone except to set up a few small hive beetle traps, offer supplemental feeding because they are building out new comb, and I will wait another week before doing a Varroa sugar roll and sugar dusting so the new queens have a chance to settle in and find their egg laying stride.
If you have had the experience of hearing and/or listening to your honey bees, please leave a comment and share your story!
Source...