Summer bees
Beekeepers are a little crazy. I’ve seen them standing over their hives, a tornado of bees swirling around them, a few puffs of smoke their only protection. I’ve seen them pulling frame after frame of comb out of a hive and gently inspecting each to check on brood and honey. That cloud of amber and black dots weaves angrily as the beekeeper disturbs the hive. Yes, beekeepers are a little crazy. I envied them.
I once dropped the hint to my wife about beekeeping and she quickly swatted the idea by reminding me that Jed, our fourth child, is allergic to insect stings. I remained casual in my approach, noncommittally nodding my head. I remembered the time she wanted chickens in our backyard. When I discounted the idea immediately, she had let it go.
If a family runs well, roles are interchangeable with each member willing to step up and accept that duty calls. Sometimes, we have to bring each other back to reality. But every parent should know how to nurture and challenge, to clean and to build, to take care of one’s duty regardless of whose turn it is or whose job it is. Roles are not meant to be set in stone, but fluid things in which mother, father, and children pick up the slack or further the good work done by others.
It was early summer a couple of years ago. I stood at the sink in my kitchen and looked out the window to the backyard. A single bee lighted on a flower in front of me. I made up my mind.
When my wife and oldest daughter left for a trip, I contacted a fellow teacher and recent former congressional candidate, Paul Spencer. Spencer would have made a great congressman, sheriff, governor, dogcatcher or whatever he decided to run for, but he’s a good teacher and his classroom needs him. In his spare time, Paul farms pecans and tends to his 30 bee hives.
Spencer lives in Scott amid orchards of pecan trees and long refulgent fields, and he told me he could spare a hive. I thought about Jed and his allergy. I thought about my wife and her noncommittal dismissal of the idea. I thought about those crazy beekeepers in their netted headdresses and white robes casting spells on colonies with smoke and secret words. I agreed.
Jed wanted to go with me to get the hive. “Jed, remember, you’re allergic to insect stings.”
“I won’t get stung.”
That was enough for me.
Paul waited for us as our Suburban navigated his gravel driveway. We sat with him on the large wraparound porch of the home he built himself and waited for the last golden glimmers of sunlight to signal the bees it was time to come home. Soon, he stood. “Ready, boys?” he asked like a general about to order an assault.
Spencer is an experienced beekeeper. He didn’t wear a veil or gloves or any other protection. His incantations directed the bees to go inside the hive so he could close it up. A few bees loitered outside the hive until a few puffs of smoke sent them scrambling in. Paul added an entrance reducer and then plugged the small hole with newspaper. A few strays buzzed around the hive as he picked it up and handed it to me with a wicked grin. “Good luck,” he said as he sauntered back to his porch smiling.
Jed and I loaded the hive in the back of the Suburban as the crickets started their nighttime music and the mosquitoes fought the local windstream just long enough to find us. Jed sat in the backseat with his eyes on the box holding about a city’s population-worth of bees.
The quiet of the ride home was interrupted by the rumble of a plane on approach to Clinton National Airport and a 12-year-old’s screams piercing the air. “The bees are out! The bees are out! I just got stung!” I screeched to the shoulder and turned the dome light on, my skin already crawling. Jed sat frozen, eyes wide.
It was only one bee.
It probably wouldn’t have stung him but, in the dim starlight, he thought the flutter on his leg was a mosquito and tried to swat it. It replied with a self-defense sting. We made plans never to tell Mom.
After half a bottle of Benadryl and the realization that Jed had no terrible side effects, we placed the hive in our backyard, pulled the newspaper plug, and ran like hell. The bees casually walked out on their little porch and contemplated the green of their new neighborhood. All was well.
I came to discover that bees have roles. The foragers search for pollen and nectar, the undertakers carry out the dead, and the cleaners make sure the brood cells are nice and tidy. The nurses care for the brood, and the builders create those wonderful hexagonal cells that constitute the comb. It takes a lot to keep a colony going. The same bees have multiple roles during their lifetimes.
That’s not much different than any well-run community. From families to neighborhoods to countries, we all slide into one role and then to the next as needed. We all nurture, protect, build, and start over again. That’s the way a community stays strong.
My wife returned from her trip and laughed when she saw the bees. She never said a word about Jed’s allergy or the smoke rising from my pot as I tended the hive. Instead, she just smiled. I understood the reason for her quiet acceptance and her teasing grin when I came home from work a few weeks later and heard an unfamiliar sound. In a blue tub prominently stationed in my living room sat six newly hatched chicks.