Bee in Harmonious Community

I am one of the lucky people on this planet to suffer from what is called “Serum Sickness”. When I am stung by a bee I do not have an allergic reaction, but rather a flu like one, resulting in a fever, aches and body pain, and general malaise for a number of days after being stung. Honestly, it’s awful, and every time it happens, I lament why I couldn’t just have a normal allergy like everyone else (though I am sure people who are allergic to bee stings would much rather have the flu; I don’t think you can die from serum sickness.) The last time this happened, I was in one of my favorite places in the world, standing knee deep in the river at Rocky Grass, beer in hand, bluegrass music coming from the shore, laughing my ass off with some of my very best friends. I set a hand down to steady on a rock, and there he was, a little bee taking a rest, perhaps drying his wings from the spray of the river, aaaaand crunch. Down my hand came, in his stinger went, and stuck he was to my hand. All I could do was shake my hand to get him off and he eventually dislodged, cascading into the current below, his final watery resting place. I cried, some because it hurt, but also because I had killed a bee. We all know that the bees are dying, and I had in my buzzed elation inadvertently caused the death of another one. I historically do not do well with animal deaths, even accidental ones or ones in movies. The grief felt at harming a bee, plus the knowledge that I had mere hours before my body went into some sort of ridiculous reaction, plus the company and setting had me feeling like this was some sort of sign from the universe. Like this bee had come and met me that day on the river to really drive his point home that I needed to be listening. It was imperative to pay attention to whatever was coming next, because the Bee gave his life to tell me something.

              Bees have fascinated humans for centuries. It is thought that early man had an advantage over other primates obtaining honey; use of a sharpened stone or a club would have made getting a hive out of a tree much easier than having to climb up there unprotected. This put us at an evolutionary advantage- honey is rich in nutrients and calories and some suspect it was one of the things that gave our brains the extra boost to grow and evolve. The first pictures we have of a man consuming honey are about six thousand years old (though some estimates put that number closer to eight thousand); cave paintings that come from present-day Spain show a man hanging off a cliff side trying to reach for a hive covered in bees. 1500 years later, in Egypt, would come the first painting of a beekeeper. And beekeeping would develop separately in several different parts of the world. China would adopt the practice around the same time, maintaining it as a central part of state run agriculture, and becoming a source for the golden liquid via trade. Central and South America populations would cultivate stingerless honey bees, ancestors to the several varieties of stingerless bees that exist today.

              In more modern times, the current hive box you see used in commercial and private hives was patented in 1852, with the advent of individual boards and boxes you could take out to remove honey without the danger of reaching your hand inside the hive. Honey production would reach its height in the US during the second World War at an estimated 15 million hives, when it was used in place of sugar, and beeswax was used for bomb production. And while those numbers have fallen by about half, with commercial bee farming maintaining most of the market, small scale bee farming is more popular than ever.

              Perhaps due to this long standing fascination, the bee has impressive and powerful symbolism and meaning throughout a variety of cultures. The San people of the Kalahari desert have a human creation story featuring a mantis impregnated by a bee with the seed of man. In Greek mythology the god Aristaeus, Zeus’s son, was the god of beekeeping and honey, though the image of the bee was closely associated with Potnia, a goddess of nature known as “Pure Mother Bee”. Finnish myth tells of the death and resurrection of the hero Lemminkainen, brought back to life by Mehilainen the Bee. Bee has long been regarded as a giver of life and beauty, captivating ancient and modern man alike the world over.

              Bee, according to my animal medicine book (Animal Power by Alyson Charles), was sent to remind me to pay attention. Something was coming my way that was going to elevate me, that was going to create community, that was going to challenge and rebirth me. But it was up to me to seize it, as this opportunity could float past me on the wind if I didn’t watch for it. And so, about a month after being stung, I drove up the mountain to go the opening of The Spirit Collective- the business that would eventually evolve into The Hive. I hadn’t seen Erin, our founder, in years, and was not even really sure why I was going, but something compelled me. And, while it seems cliché to say, one thing led to another and well…here we are. Almost nine months later and this space has taken on a life of it’s own. The vision that Erin has, the care that we have put into creating this for you, the energy that this space holds is unlike anything I could have expected. The opportunity to create community and hold space was exactly what Bee wanted me to pay attention to.

Genome sequencing in the 2010s brought us the knowledge that bees have social strata and ques as complicated as primates, but very little is known about their social cues or dynamics. As tends to be the case with most animals on this planet, the more we know, the more questions we have. Which, at least to me, means that there is an endless of abundance as to what we can learn from Bee. This space is created in this energy of the Bee, to craft a network of royal community, to celebrate the beauty and creativity of our own, to pollinate the world with a buzzing sacredness.