matthieu on Nostr: I started keeping bees last year. Our family wanted to expand our humble piece of ...

I started keeping bees last year. Our family wanted to expand our humble piece of lands reach into more sustainability, we use honey frequently as a sweetener/for medicinal use, and it’s another connection to supporting and connecting with nature.

Coming from someone who had zero experience with it to now managing multiple hives, it’s been a wild ride. For most people, in most countries, when you hear buzzing - you move away, you run, you swat, but you definitely don’t keep calm and stay on track.

I tend to get quite caught up in my anxiety bouts and it just puts me in a tense and cranky place.

Bees have forced me to face a lot of this in a different way. Bees feel your energy (read here the over simplification of smelling hormones, etc etc etc) and will respond accordingly. This is why you see the calm as cucumber folks tending bees in a teeshirt and shorts. While this is not me yet, it really does force me to slow down, think through my plan all the way through and keep my breathing and headspace clear and focused on the positive. I talk out loud while I gather my supplies before I make my final approach, and whisper softly that I am here to help while I’m working in the hives.

We’ve collected about 30lbs of honey and a substantial amount of beeswax that we’re making lip balms out of. It’s been a wonderful new venture.

I could end it here and the response would be overwhelmingly “That’s so sweet, connecting with nature is so important and it’s wonderful that it also helps your mental health!”…

But that’s not all of it and it’d be dishonest to avoid it for sake of optics or brevity.

Yesterday, we had to collect the remaining deep and super from a hive that didn’t make it (leaving 1 healthy hive). I took our eldest little one (6y/o) with me to watch/learn. We got all our things together, I got my jacket and gloves on - then we walked out with a wagon, only stopping briefly to reaffirm the plan.

Collecting the two boxes wasn’t a problem. We cleaned up some of the bees off of the lids, picked up the foam boards we’d used to winterize them and wrapped the boxes up in a sheet (to keep the other hive from robbing the now exposed honey).

While I was wrapping up, I decided I’d grab the sugar board off of the live hive. As soon as I lifted the lid and it stuck to the sugar board, I KNEW I’d messed up.

Bees swarmed me, going after my face (thank the beekeeper gods for masks), wrists (stupid airy design on the gloves did not work) and my ankles. I had to speed walk away, calling the oldest kiddo to come with and go home. She went home and I walked a good 1/4 mile down the road from our house before I got all the bees off of me/they flew away.

Ended up with 7 stings on my ankle. My socks were tucked over my jeans but they were hiked up enough that I had a few inches of just sock. Had a pretty strong histamine response in my ankle (lots of swelling - looked like edema) and all my joints ached like mad for a good 20 hours. The ankle swelling still hasn’t gone down yet.
My brain works well when it can analyze and find meaning in the drudgery and the pain. Yesterday was a big lesson day for me.

I didn’t bring my smoke with me - didn’t plan on touching the live hive. I didn’t think about what to do if the lid stuck to the sugar board. I didn’t think about usually wearing headphones to minimize the buzz and not having them on because I had a kid with me. It was warmer and sunnier than I normally prefer when working with them as they’re more active.

I pulled an audible. An audible on some of the most structured, process driven little things on this beautiful earth.

Stupid.

So what did I learn?

Stay with the process when the situation beseeches a process. I shouldn’t have tried to work on the live hive yesterday. I know better. Sticking to the plan has worked excellently and it’s because I respected the bees and their nature. It’d be easy to get upset and shy away from working with them. But they did what they were supposed to - I didn’t.

I also was given a great opportunity to demonstrate not quitting to my kids. When I started getting stung, I had put the lid down and left everything out there. So I had to go back out there. I sat with my kids and chatted with them while I changed into boots and took some deep breathes. It is ultimately a good thing that they saw me get hurt, recognize that it was caused by a poor choice, and follow through with what still needed to be done.

Thank you for reading my painful lesson in sticking to the plan and learning how to handle dumb choices. I look forward to continuing to learn about tending bees and engaging them and the nature around me in a fruitful and holistic way.

An addendum - the kiddo that came with me was absolutely fine. They were concerned about me but walked up to my wife as I am “gracefully” speed walking, swatting at bees all over me and tell her:

“Dada is getting stung by bees,
but I *insert here the confident look that only little kids can summon* have a full bodysuit on so I’m okay”.

🙏🏽💜
#grownostr #nostr #beemateur