Fate Wove Me that Thread

I went to the bi-yearly Imker Association meeting the other night, after driving around in the pitch black on the wrong road, and arriving ten minutes late.

Confused and anxious about my bees...it seems like one folk has perished during our very, very, long and very cold and freezing winter...but I heard the other one with whom I especially bonded: humming, lending their voices to mine. I can’t describe how much affection I felt for them, hearing them still sing to me, being able to sing with them after not visiting with them during this long and chaotic winter. Rush of joy to the heart.

Going to the meeting is always kinda hard. There are about seventeen dudes aged from 68 to 86, and then Monica and me. I miss Grandfathers, but I can’t say I’m comfortable around them. It’s a bit scrapey too because my teacher has just gone ahead and done what he wants with “my” bees without instructing or asking me: applying chemicals and feeding them sugar fat. Both! Gah! I have not made myself clear, have not planted my foot down...because I am not clear and have been standing on toothpicks. Wanting his help, you know.

Interesting fact: when someone says something smart, or that everyone was already thinking, or to show appreciation—in other words, anytime we would usually clap—the Germans knock on the wooden tables. Nobody claps. I’m in a banquet hall in Beowulf, waiting for tankards to be passed. Let the mead flow!

Picture of Bienenkorb: This is the kind of beehive used here for centuries. You still see stands of them in the Heide, the area of moorland in northern Germany that was deforested and turned into heather fields during the 18th century. Problem was, combs were cut out of them every year, so the bees died. There were that many bees, then. They are made of bound grasses and smeared with cow dung. Scientists just found out exopsure to cow dung provides a protection in children against allergies: only 2% of farm kids have allergies, compared to the average of 8-10%.

It was great seeing Monica again. She is the beekeeper whose uncle willed her his equipment before she showed any interest in bees. She is the one who found a wild swarm in the bushes in her yard (truly!) one spring, captured them, and now says they are her by far strongest hive, absolutely healthy. She uses a pure white goosefeather to gently push bees off their combs. She is the real thing.

She and I are going to be available at a bee-related info hut sometime this spring for answering questions. That will be interesting, given my distinct shortage of answers in this area--still. The task was offered to the other members, who coughed and looked at their hands. The women offered to do it. I would like to expand it into a huge American-style bake sale of honey-baked goods and a printed recipe book, but I think it will stay the way it is.

No use changing anything too fast. Countryside Germany feels oppressed by this attitude, to me. It's like a Sleeping Beauty spell was cast on it after WWII. It's like swimming against rushing snowmelt to change things here, I swear. (And, do I want to?)

So you might have guessed. This here Blog is about beekeeping and shamanic art. Also, people who have arrived at a fair degree of creative beauty and truth in their work, expansive energy fused with love...visionary art, outsider art, with power and wonder mixed in all proportions. It’s like the Wig and Bible Store on Colfax Avenue in Denver. You might drive by and wonder: what the...? Trust me.