bees

Me at the tender age of 14 alongside Mr. Marty.

The Spring Break of my Sophmore year of high school was spent in Shepherdsville, Kentucky with my very favorite science teacher from middle school and her husband. They'd moved back to her family's farm and begun many farm related activities, including bee keeping.  I loved everything about my week at the farm from getting to sit in the tractor to seeing that a post-holer is a real yard tool (shout out to Firefly- "It's a post-holer. It makes holes for posts.").

Nothing about that week stands out to me as much as getting to don a bee suit and follow Mr. Marty down to the hives. I got to smoke the hives and look inside at the now somewhat sluggish bees try to get as much honey as possible outside their presumed burning hive. I'd seen a trailer for a made-for-TV movie about killer bees, so I was ready to be kinda scared as they flew around me and landed on my arms, but I wasn't. The suit keeps you fully protected, so there is no fear, only an inside look at their home and busy life.

One of the things I do in the course of my week is help to lead the Outdoor Adventuring class on Wednesday afternoons with a partner organization. We've been spending time paddling canoes around a lagoon out in the country and learning about whatever bugs, frogs, and plants we see. This past Wednesday was spent doing one of my most favorite and the most magical activities: bee keeping.

Me at the tender age of 23 alongside my students and our teachers.

Mr.  Joe has been bee keeping for ages and is impervious to anything negative from bees, so he doesn't even wear a full suit. Mr Tom is the one in the full suit like the rest of us. These are his bees. Some of the students had no desire to be anywhere near the bees, so they went off to paddle and frolic with another staff. Two brave, young souls and I decided to meet the bees.  We needed to give the bees a sugar/protein cake to help them get through the winter. Mr. Tom told us that we would be absolutely fine as long as we didn't do anything to make the bees angry, like sudden, quick movements or killing them. I was a little worried about one of my students because she only makes movements suddenly and she only makes loud sounds.

Once the lid came off the hive, she was captured in the beauty and intricacy of the hive. It was night and day. She was entranced. Nothing broke her focus in the fifteen minutes we were with the bees. Isn't that incredible? God knew what he was doing when he created such tiny creatures that have this incredible ability to capture our minds and attention.

Bees are so cool.