truth in beekeeping

It would be funny if it weren't so tragic. No, that isn't right.

The tragedy is precisely why it is funny.

There am I, in a wide open paddock at night, full moon rising wearing a bee suit. I am not, however, sensitively listening to the hum of the hives, wrapped up in pleasure and love.

No, I am wearing yellow rubber gloves and my conscience is bleeding and my cheeks wet.

There is the stink of diesel and the dull grumble of a truck and a hi/low arm swinging a homemade metal fork through the air. I am standing in the darkness, far enough away to be safe from the unpredictable path of the dumb object, waiting for it to land near a pallet of 4 hives. I have put tin covers over the opening of the hives on all the 14 pallets to keep them contained within, although it only partially works, and bees spill out over the boxes.

This homemade metal fork is attached to the hi/low by a dirty old part of a ratchet strap that specifically says on it's tag 'not for lifting'. There is a hook closure on the strap, but it doesn't stay closed. "She'll be right" is a popular saying in this country. It's meaning is somewhere near "close enough".

That's the prevailing attitude in this honeybee transporting operation.

The Kiwis josh about the Germans and their sense of doing things by the book.

Must be that German heritage whispering in my ear that this is a fucking accident waiting to happen.

When the loud, robotic hi/low arm crashes it's ratchet strapped, homemade metal fork onto the grass, perhaps knocking into a hive and pushing a box askew, I walk over to man-handle it's prongs under a pallet of hives. I pull the strap tight to the end of the fork's arm until the hi/low lifts it tight, then I quickly get out of the way. The arm lifts the pallet up, groaning under the weight, and the pallet haphazardly swings the hives through the air, sometimes bumping against hives still on the ground, sometimes not. Chris is waiting on the back of the truck as the swinging pallet of hives makes it's way to him. I don't take the time to estimate the weight of this pallet. But there are 4 hives on it, each with 2 or three boxes probably weighing 60 pounds per box.

Chris catches the swaying pallet and steadies it into place on the truck bed and when the fork drops, he wrestles the prongs out from the pallet and the arm swings back my way again.

This whole process takes about 10 or 15 minutes. Loading 14 pallets then means I am standing there smelling diesel and ducking and then waiting for a couple hours.

When everything is loaded, we ratchet strap down the whole load, and when the straps tighten, they pull hive boxes apart from each other so all the hives on top of the load now have a couple inches of gap between boxes where the bees come pouring out of.
The young man running this operation for the owner, wants me to come help tighten straps. But I am too short to get my arms up that high and the boys have to come by and re-tighten after me. So, I then become the one who rolls up the straps after the boys tighten them down.

Thing is, boys easily forget that they are not the only living things in the world and are rough and quick with the straps so that when I come by to roll them up, the bees are upset and stinging.

I do the only thing I can do in that moment which is to walk away and let the boys do their thing. They get a little frustrated with me, but I am working hard protecting them from my wrath and cannot respond.

There I am, in a bee suit, sitting on a log watching them struggle out of their suits in front of the truck headlights.

When the boy sits next to me, smoking his cigarette wanting to know why something is wrong with this method, I tell him. Just a little.

And no, he cannot take it.

The boys flank me on the log.

I have to leave them.

The worst part is, after all this, the job has just begun.

We have to squeeze into an old truck w plastic seats and drive for 8 hours on bumpy, windy mountain roads until morning, when we unload the pallets in the same terrible fashion in a field of cows or sheep.

If this were what I believed to be beekeeping, I would have quit a long time ago. There is no love, no sensitivity, no grace.

This is the truth.

There are some who do things for love, but many more who do them for other reasons.

I love the bees. I love to hear their hum change with their mood, I love the furry bodies. I love the iridescent wings and the names 'hymenoptera' and 'melissa'. I love the propolis and the pollen and the honey. I love the drones' big eyes and the queens' big abdomen. I love the massacre and the mating drama. I love the fidgety virgins and the emerging babies. I love the queen piping and deep drone hum.

I love to see a perfect pattern of brood, not just for what it will profit me, but for the beauty itself.

I love sucking the royal jelly from queen cell. I love a row of queen cells. I love the breeze from a thousand fanning wings.

I even love the sting.

My motives are not always pure. Especially when it comes to my own species. I am usually seeking to manipulate them for my own pleasure or gain. I often feel terrible about it.

But for the honeybees it's all love.

I have been around beekeepers who feel the same. They'll go without honey so their bees will not starve over winter, they'll take their time in the hive and worry about them when it's cold or dry or hot.

They are forever trying to make things better for the bees, easier, trying to mimic nature.

It's not always roses, and I'll be careful not to romanticize.
But while I may not always agree with all the methods, there is a comradery among us and it's the love of these creatures.

But here, in this operation, I have not gotten this sense. I have assumed it, and acted as though it were the truth. But I have been confronted with it's lack.

The visual of a swinging pallet of hives crashing into a tree epitomizes the carelessness.

I have learned much here these first two months of kiwi beekeeping. I won't stereotype.

I have a new appreciation for things I took for granted.

And I can see opportunity here.

I open my eyes in the morning for love.

My eyelashes are paintbrushes dipped in love and blinking, I color you.