The Furious Spinner

"Ask the wild bee what the druids knew." —Old saying

It's interesting that the saying is ask the "wild" bees. What constitutes a wild bee? Are the bees the beekeepers raise not wild? Are they like the bear in the zoo? Hmmmm.

Bees have been everywhere in my life lately. If you remember several years ago I wrote the Salmon Mysteries (I still need to rewrite that) which is about Demeter who has been called the bee mother. Her priestesses are the Melissae. (I'll quote myself here from a past post if you don't mind.) "The Melissae—from meli meaning honey—took care of the bees, gathered the honey, and made mead. Women would gather when the mead was ready and dance, drink, and drum. These same women may have been the legendary Maenads (meaning ‘she who is mad’) who were said to tear a man to bits if they caught one spying on them. Most scholars believe that part of the story is apocryphal. I say the Maenads and Melissae may have encouraged this ‘exaggeration’ as a way of getting some peace and solitude. Sometimes when people are afraid of you they leave you alone.”

They may have learned this lesson from the bees.

I wasn't going to talk about the bees much here, but I changed my mind for a couple of reasons. For one, I mentioned to Becky, the FS reader who was at the Gathering yesterday, that I'd been nervous at first when I was writing about the faery doctoring. I wasn't sure readers would follow me on this rather different path. She shook her head and said that she loved it. I've been getting lots of private mail from people who "love" it, too, which is why I’ve continued to write about this particular topic. Then later in the day I was talking to my friend Barb about this. I said I wondered if her husband thought that I had gone bonkers with all this faery talking. She laughed and said it probably pushed him to his boundaries. I said, "You've known me for years. I'm not a flake. I'm fairly grounded, and I look for proof. I don't know where all this is going, but it's interesting."

Of course, as soon as I said I'm not a flake, I heard Richard Nixon in my head claiming, "I'm not a crook," which, of course, he was.

So why not just go for it. I'll tell you a bit about the bees. Some of you have already read about this on the faery doctoring listserve, so forgive the duplication.

My friend Paul is a beekeeper. I've talked about him before (and my friend Barb who is married to him). At some point last week, one of them pointed out a large bush with huge trunks on their property, near the hives. They didn't know what kind of bush it was, but it had been there since Paul bought the property decades ago. I said, “Oh, that’s a faery bush.” It just looked like that kind of place, a faery place. You know what I mean. Hummingbirds nest in it, and it’s dark inside, as though an entire universe exists inside.

Paul and Barb went out of town, and they had invited me to visit the property while they were gone and asked if I could pick their cherries if they ripened. The second night I went over, I noticed a great deal of bee activity around the faery bush—which had no flowers. As I kept looking, I realized that (thousands?) of bees from his hives had swarmed to the faery bush (as though proving that it was indeed a faery bush). It was a huge swarm. Paul had checked the hives before he left and had been fairly certain they wouldn't swarm because he found no new queens. (He forgot about me.)



I watched the swarm from afar. I thought about going closer to see if I could talk with the bees, but I didn’t. I went home and got Mario, and we came back and watched. The next morning the bees were still there on the faery bush.



The next day when I was getting flower essences (on another property) bees kept bothering me. They were circling me, buzzing me, etc. So I did a quick meditation to see what was happening. Apparently I hadn’t given my due to the bees and the bee faeries. (Or whatever you want to call the Invisibles.) After all, flowers are the domain of the bees. I apologized and arranged for an exchange. The bees left immediately. It was really quite startling. Maggie and Jimmy witnessed it all, by the way. Ask them.

I had offered my Church of the Old Mermaids flower essences to my faery doctoring group, but I kept having communication problems. On both of my e-mail accounts mail to and from people about this subject kept getting lost and endlessly delayed. Again I journeyed to see what was going on. I still had not given my props to the bee queendom. Once I agreed to do so, the communication problems stopped (at least as far as I can tell). On the listserve I got more information about bees and the Celts. Andn someone on the listserve reminded me of that old adage, “Ask the bees what the druids know...”

Whatever was happening with me and bees, I decided to go with it. I’ve been studying the melissae and Demeter for so many years. Maybe it was time to actually hang out with the bees. I’ve been going outside and sitting by my lavender and sage bushes and just being with the bees. So far they keep me still. Still. Still. That’s a nice feeling after a month of me buzzing around like...a bee.

Friday I called Barb and Paul and said, “I have a strange request. I want to come and sit and listen to your bees.”

This morning I got a call from Barb. “Kim, the bees are swarming. Come now if you want to listen.”

I jumped off the couch (where I was resting with a sore throat), pulled on my capris (what we used to call pedal pushers), and ran outside as I was trying to push my feet into those $4 canvas shoes I’d bought on the coast. “You wanna listen to the bees?” I called to Mario as I ran out to the car. “No, I’ll stay here,” he said as he cleaned off the back porch.

Off I went. Less than five minutes later, I was at the house. I walked over to the cherry tree where Paul and Barb stood near a kind of cyclone of bees. She urged me closer. I made myself go closer, and I heard one of the most wonderful and soothing sounds I’ve ever heard in my life. It was this amazing hummmmmm. I felt instantly relaxed—although part of me was aware that I was wearing slacks that didn’t cover my legs (see, there was a reason I mentioned the capris) and I didn’t have any socks. A lot of skin for the bees to sting. But the vibration they were creating—the sound, the everything—was so profound, so amazingly beautiful that I just had to get closer. I was maybe two feet away from the swarm, and many of them flew around us, too. They flew in what appeared to be a spiral, but I don’t really know. There were so many of them. They were blond and golden. And that sound. I could have fallen to sleep to that humming.

Eventually the sound changed. The bees began calming down, the cyclone diminished. Paul said he had to wait for a while before he could move them to a hive. Was I afraid of the bees? he asked. If not, he'd take me over to his hives, although they might be a bit agitated because of the swarm. I said I didn’t think I was afraid. I mean no more than a reasonable person who wonders if she would die if they stung her. I went with them to the garage and they put the protective hat over me. They said not to breathe on the bees and to try and breathe through my nose. (Isn’t it great I can do that now?) I wore the gloves, too.

We walked over to the hives, coming up on them on the side. You’re not supposed to approach a hive from the front. Paul put some honey on his finger. Then he knelt down and put his finger in front of the hive, very slowly and carefully. A couple of bees came over and lapped up the honey. Then he stepped back. It was my turn. I took off the gloves. Then I put the honey on my finger. (The honey jar was on top of the hive.) I knelt right next to the hive where thousands of bees lived. I rested my forefinger on the ledge below the entrance to the hive and slowly moved it toward the bees. Bees flew around my hand; startled I moved back. Too quickly. It is such a reflex to move away from the bees. Paul and Barb reminded me to move slowly.

Every muscle in my body wanted to get up and run, run, run. But I wanted to be with the bees. So I tried again. My heart was racing. Adrenaline was pumping through me. I breathed and put my finger down. Two bees came and began lapping up the honey that was dripping off my finger. I was still. I was quiet. Some bees flew around my bare hand. Two bees lapped. I could see their antennae and eyes. I thought I even saw their tongues. After a couple of minutes, even though I was delighted beyond words, I had to move away. My body just had to move away.

Barb went next. She seemed to be able to stay there much longer. When she moved back again, she told me she felt the same way: It was so difficult not to run away when the bees were flying around. When she was finished, I tried again. The bees came again, although they had a lot of honey that had slopped off our fingers onto the ledge, so they weren't quite as interested in my finger. One in particular lapped at my finger. Ahhh bliss!

Then it was over. Paul had to go work with the swarmed bees. I watched as he put on his white beekeeping suit. Then he went over to the swarm and began cutting away some of the brush. (The swarm was near the ground, maybe on a spirea branch.) He eventually picked them up and put them into the hive. He also shook the spirea bush. When he stood up after that, you could see how agitated the bees were. And the sound was completely different. The sound was pissed off buzzing. Before, when they were all spiraling around the queen, it was soothing. Meditative.

It was a wonderful experience. When I left, I found a gift of honey in the car.

I’ll be sure to thank the bee queendom for this wonderful experience, for all these experiences. And I do intend to keep listening. Perhaps I’ll ask a thing or two...

Blessed bees.



P.S. I had the hardest time with this post. I thought I lost it. I couldn't get it to copy. The photos kept screwing up. I finally asked what was going on. I got the same message: I need to ask permission first! Wow. This is just a continual surprise to me. I guess we all like to be asked, visibles and invisibles. Common courtesy.

All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.