A few years ago we bought some beekeeping equipment with the proceeds of a yard sale we had before heading out to the east coast. We became interested in the keeping of bees after friends Jessica Dally and Tim Cullen introduced us to their two backyard hives in the city. The little bees are such amazing creatures - so efficient and hardworking, so elegant in their miraculous design and the structures they work with. I admire them more than I can say, even with so little knowledge yet, especially for their constant, studious and natural work ethic - always working and never complaining - fully in flow - like seeing Solomon's long pondered questions and conclusions of Ecclesiastes proved and set into motion! That they produce honey as a byproduct is almost a happy coincidence, if they did "nothing but" their amazing pollinating, exquisite building and admirable industriousness, they would be worth befriending in the form of beekeeping (or any other way possible!). Anyway...we intended to keep the bees on our little half acre in Point Roberts, but then moved away. I thought that in Maine we would set up hives and keep them...and then we decided to move! Well, we have returned home, and by hook or by crook, I will be attempting to keep some bees this spring and onwards. There's a beekeeper's group in Bellingham meeting once a month that we are going to join and we have some friends who have said they would happily take a hive in their garden while we are in transition and some others who probably would be interested as well, so they will have sunny safe places to spend their time, if we opt not to keep them in our shady rental area. It might make a decent area, though, and our landlord has said that she doesn't mind at all. So we'll see. The options are out there. :-)
This a short video of me putting together my first bee boxes!
As far as other options go...it has turned out that a couple newly introduced to us knows of a hive currently residing in a local person's chimney. Another friend is a former bee keeper with a bit of experience removing oddly located hives who is going to help me (rather, I am to "help" him) remove the hive from the chimney, if possible. So, we have been assembling our bee boxes a little earlier than expected in the unexpected anticipation of hopefully rescuing this hive. The woman who owns the house and chimney in question has been looking for someone to extract the hive so she can rent the property and I fear that the time to exterminate is coming if no one steps in to help. That I really can't stand the thought of, so I'm going to do my part, nerves aside, to help this little hive out. Hopefully they will survive the move. I'll be suited up appropriately and probably will be more a bystander than I'd like to be (though I have always learned a lot by being an attentive helper). My curiosity seems to trump my fear of a sting or several. :-) I have ordered a bee keepers veil and suit in the mail, though. Safety first! :-) We shall see. Certainly when the time comes, there will be another post. Hope these guys do alright. Seems we are people who will always learn best by jumping in feet first.
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In other news, we spent some time visiting a very kind friend who lives in an old farmhouse down by the water. It was so good to see her again! We swapped stories and enjoyed some apple crisp she made from her 100 year old orchard trees, planted by her grandfather. Aside from just being glad to visit, we have also discovered an area where we can help eachother out. She has some fence work repair that needs doing, and so perhaps we have ourselves a little job lined up. :-) This is appealing as our business is slow right now till the season starts up again and we are always itching for some physical work! Who knows, it may open up into some other things. Or not. We'll see where we go with it. We've been running well, too. Today we worked another eight minute segment into our run, which is a first for us. It's also been kind of interesting getting out to run regardless of the weather (obviously there may be limits to that at some point). It was rain and wind today (not surprising as we are in that season!). But you warm up quickly and it's so wonderful to be out of doors, even in marginal weather, that it's vital to us. And there's something exciting about being able to run in the winter out of doors. The wet, warmer and more humid nature of pacific northwest winters are a complete change from the cold dry air of Maine in the winter, and it allows us to run very comfortably. This is exciting! I find that especially with our being in a wait and see mode here with a fair amount of uncertainty about how exactly things will pan out that the ability to go running, and fall into a space where mind and body both are working in unison and being challenged is really helpful and gives me a lot of joy while it simultaneously disperses a great deal of funny energy.
Tomorrow we're off to Bellingham to run some chores and change over our license plates and do some visiting at remembered places...perhaps there will be some pics to follow in the next few days...if not, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!
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