It wasn’t that long ago when I bet you were saying to yourself, “When is she going to stop with all the Antarctica posts already?”
And there was a time where this blog talked endlessly about house projects. And then bread. And then goats.
And now I subject you to endless photos and updates about bees, bees, BEES!
The thing is… I can’t get the little striped miracles out of my thoughts.
You know how once you start thinking about something you see it everywhere? That’s what’s happening with me and the bees.
And then I go into the yard and I see them going about their day. I see one right now, outside the window, visiting the blueberry bushes (Elliot is so pleased!).
Everything’s coming up bees.
I could write a post every day about all the interesting things I’m learning about bees, but I’ll spare you that and offer you here instead a selection of the past couple weeks’ bee revelations….
- Some stunning macro photographs of bees by Sam Droege.
- A terrific article about poetry and bees from The New Yorker.
- The amazing beehive fence, that keeps African elephants from trampling small farms.
- Bee skeps!
- Beautiful blog posts from illustrator and fellow novice beekeeper Anna Koska. More here, and I love this one, and this one has a link to bee sounds.
- Surreally gorgeous, painterly photographs of Nepalese honey hunters.
- The word Hyblean, which means “honeyed, derived from a place name in ancient Sicily called Hybla, which was renowned for its honey.” And, of course, we like it for its similarity to a certain daughter’s name.
Finally, this week I read the The Bees, which is a novel about a hive (I know…), from the perspective of one little “sanitation worker” bee named Flora 717. And at the very end of that book, I learned of the traditional English custom of “telling the bees” — keeping the bees informed of significant household changes in the lives of their keepers (births, deaths, arrivals, departures).
I simply can’t stop thinking about that. Or wondering how much more there is to learn. This is going to take some time.
Meanwhile, I woke with a touch of a sore throat this morning, so I put an extra dollop of honey in my tea and thought of bees.
The hive is in full sun right now, before this afternoon’s storms arrive, so everyone’s awake and working. I should go out now, not to tell them a thing, but see what they have to tell me.
Grongar 