The Mark of a Queen

Saturday, nine hearty souls showed up in Swanzey, New Hampshire at the home of "Imagine That Honey" for bee-keeping class.  Jodi and Dean greeted everyone and arranged our vehicles across their lawn.  We trooped down to their basement/rec room and found seats.  Jodi handed those new to the class armloads of reading material; articles, catelogs and magazines.  Later that evening, I took a quick glance at this trove of information and was astonished to see that the cataloges included instructional articles regarding the equipment they were selling.  Hmm, what would Victoria's Secret write?

The class moved to the workshop which was literally buzzing.  Boxes made of thin wood and screens were lined up by the door and dense with bees.  We were going to install a queen and her court  into a newly constructed pine hive.  First, we walked out to the bee yard.  Jodi had done several installations the night before and the air was warm and placid with the hum of each colony setting up housekeeping.

At first we stood apprehensively around the outside of electric fence as Jodi and Dean strolled through the hives, talking about the procedure.  With the buzzing and Jodi's confidence,  I lost interest in the insects-with-stingers bumbling in the air around me.

While we all suited up, Dean headed back to the workshop for the bees and equipment.  There was a fascinating array of hats, veils, shirts and gloves.  We tucked our pant-legs into our socks and headed back to the bees.

For the 3 hours we worked with the bees, Dean never even wore gloves.  I only saw him gently brush one bee off his arm.  Jodi explained the construction of the hives; fielding questions and preparing it for the installation.  Dean lit the smoker and assisted.

First, Jodi removed the queen's cage.  She demonstrated how to pierce the end just enough that the three worker bees and the queen would start to eat their way out.  The small package was then placed in the hive.  Slowly and patiently, she and Dean pried off the wood and screen from one side of the small crate then Jodi literally dumped the rest of the bees into the hive.  Let me just say, there were a lot of bees.

Jodi introducing us to the Queen

Dumping the bees into their new home

Once the colony was comfortable and busy in the new hive, we took a short drive to another bee yard for Jodi to do a spring inspection.  This time we gathered inside the fence and got up close and personal with the bees.  Jodi was checking to see how the four hives had survived the winter.

A frame showing a recently hatched queen cell...I know, tough to decipher.

Key to this was finding the queen in each.  Once found, she was carefully removed and marked with a red dot for ease of identifying her during future checks.  One of the four hives was not very healthy.  The queen was very small and did not seem to be laying well.  The hive was visibly different from its healthier neighbor with a big fat queen.

Queen captured (very carefully!!) for marking

Releasing the Queen back into the hive

I was thrilled to be able to identify a queen on sight.  We asked a million questions about the differences and what could be done to help the ailing hive.  Jodi's one comment that stuck with me was something along the lines of, "We are merely the stewards to the bees.  They have their own society and orderly world.  When we try to take over and govern it we mess it up or the bees just leave."

Ikebana

One of my joys in spring is to drag out my Ikebana vases and pop in the first blooms.  The simplicity of the arrangement and graceful lines, are enough to fill my senses until the garden becomes an overgrown riot of color in a few months.

I am no expert in the art of Ikebana.  Many years ago for Mother's Day I received the slate vase and have added to my meager collection since.  Truth be told, if you have a "flower frog" you can make just about anything into an Ikebana vessel.

Various Sized Pin-style Frogs

A shallow dish or bowl will work, or use your imagination and try an old shoe!  Anything that will hold water.  I try to stick to two or three flowering elements, depending on the size and height.  The basic principle is to focus on areas of the plant such as the stems, as well as the blooms, with an eye toward creating a shape, line or form that is pleasing.  Minimalism is the key here.

In traditional Japanese Ikebana, the arrangement is based on a scalene triangle, (a triangle that has three unequal sides) of which the container is a key element.  That's a little technical for my skill level and inventory.

Historically, the art is attributed to a Buddhist priest approximately 500 years ago.  There are many local clubs and associations as well as national and international organizations such as the Ikebana International which was founded in 1956.

Bridges

After class on Saturday, I parked by the Cresson Covered Bridge in Swanzey, NH.  The bridge spans the Ashuelot River at a point that is perfect for kayaking.  "Why are some of our bridges covered?" you may ask, and you wouldn't be alone in wondering.

I paddled upstream, the current was fast enough to push me gently if I stopped, but not strong enough for a strenuous workout.  Along the banks, deer tracks as well as smaller footprints were displayed like graffiti in the mud.  At one point I flushed a wood duck in a small tributary.  I pull ashore, hoping she would be back so I could try for a photo.  Far off in the distance life went on as the sound of cars and trucks seeped in through the trees.

On my way back down to the bridge, a pair of Canada Geese waddled down to the shore, herding four fluffy yellow goslings.  They were not terribly concerned with me as they picked at the tender green shoots and stomped through the brush.

When I reached the bridge there as a small crowd of folks in the parking lot.  I climbed unceremoniously up the slippery banking, dragging my kayak.  Two gentlemen and a boy came to watch.  It was obvious this was a grandfather, father and son.  In the background stood the grandmother, mother, and four daughters.  The dad and grandfather smiled and asked if they could help me.  From there the conversation just took off.  The family had flown to New York for a graduation ceremony and were touring as much of New England as they could squeeze in.  They had walked the Freedom Trail in Boston and visited Plymouth Plantation.  The Covered Bridge tour was their favorite day so far.

I have ties to Arizona, their home state so we talked about the vast differences between the two places.  They asked the same question, "Why are the bridges covered?"  The simple answer is that it kept the wooden roadway from being slippery in wet weather and protected the structure from the elements.  The Monadnock Region is host to seven of the state's fifty-five remaining covered bridges.

On the way home, I marveled at this friendly family and their choice of vacation destination over Disney.  I bet they have visited all the great natural spots in their own state as well.

Just Bee Cause...

I'm about to mount a soapbox here, just warning you.

The last two days were immersion for me into the world of bees.  Friday I drove back up to Gilsum, New Hampshire to NH Honey Bee.  I returned my empty honey bottle from my most recent trip, bought 3 more jars and equipment for my bee-keeping class on Saturday.

This folks, is a serious fashion statement:

John, the owner of NH Honey Bee, was genuinely excited I would be taking the class and had come back with my empty jar.  He had nothing but compliments for the instructor, Jodi, and gave me a discount on my honey.  I wondered aloud to him, "You bee folks don't seem to see each other as competition, in fact, you seem to pass customers around freely."

John just laughed shyly and said, "There is plenty to go around for everyone."  Not the standard business banter I have known in corporate America.

He also mentioned he had lost 20 hives over the winter to bears.  Each mature hive produces 60 to 90 pounds of honey a year so at roughly $12 a pound, he is looking at an estimated loss of $1,800.  But I had to figure the math out for myself as he was more focused on the loss of his bees.

A bigger threat to the balance of nature than bears (and no, it isn't the honey they are after, that's the hot fudge on the larva they seek) is pesticides.  Think major companies here like Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland, Bayer in Germany and Sygenta of Switzerland.  Seeds are coated with the chemicals to protect the plants from "pests".  Europe voted to ban the substances earlier this year.

The treated seeds, of which corn is a major one, mature into plants that carry the chemical all the way up and through the flowers.  Bees collecting pollen or nectar from the treated plants suffer a neural disorder that disorients them so they can't return to their hive or they lose the instinct to leave the hive.  It is known as "Colony Collapse Disorder".   The really stupid twist to this is if no one pollinates the crops, there won't be any fruits, vegetables or flowers.

So when I think of John's comment about competition in business, I can't help but become enraged with  "Big Business/Government" for allowing this to happen in the name of profit.

Time to Think...

When was the last time we really thought about the effects of technology on children?  Take for example digital watches and clocks.  (Or, 30 years later, "smart devices")  How can a child really understand the concept of time when it involves no active thought processes?  There is no mystery or matter of accomplishment in learning to tell time.

Remember with me, if you will, your mother or father saying "When the big hand is on the 12..."  I coveted my brother's big clock puzzle.  It had removable, button-shaped numbers on its dinner plate-sized face and movable hands.  I wanted to know what the mystery of time was.  

Watching the hand make it's sweep taught us how long a minute was.   When trying to hold your breath for a minute, the slow crawl of time was easily decipherable.  The child gained a distinct sense of time.  I wonder if that is gone; if the instant-gratification-syndrome society seems to suffer today is somehow related to the loss of those concepts we grew up with.

My favorite childhood clock

An open letter to Heather and the rest of the world...

I watched the grace with which you moved through your morning today.  One wayward cow had escaped no less than 6 pastures and was finally corralled in a stall.  An otherwise calm horse kicked the blacksmith, requiring your immediate attention.  At that same moment, a new boarder trucked in from Ohio.   In fact, you had been up at 5am to meet the truck, but they were running late.  Instead of being harried you smiled and made it look simple.

I’ve observed your life evolve over the years, from a backyard barn to a professional boarding and training facility.  To an outsider it appears a perfect, tranquil life with horses.  The reality is the everyday stress of people constantly in your life and home, and a wedding looming in three days.  On rare moments, I do detect your distance.  Understandably, I see you withdraw and I respect that there must be other areas of your life that are weighing on your mind.  That is human.

Whether it is a tight deadline with impossible parameters, a car that breaks down when you are running late, or a child-care situation that falls through at the last moment.  Everyone deals with recalculating, re-navigating, re-charting and pushing on through the storm..

I do not practice any particular religion or faith, but I do have a favorite passage from Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now.  He is discussing the unnaturalness of negativity and how no other life form, except humans, experiences it.  The example he cites is two ducks swimming peacefully on a pond.  Suddenly a fight breaks out; perhaps one duck strayed into the other duck’s private space.  The fight lasts only a moment.   Then the ducks swim off in opposite directions, vigorously flapping their wings.  “…by flapping their wings they were releasing surplus energy, thus preventing it from becoming trapped in their body and turning into negativity.  This is natural wisdom, and it is easy for them because they do not have a mind that keeps the past alive unnecessarily and then builds an identity around it.” 

What if we all flapped our wings and walked away instead of harboring the negative incidents and allowing them to shape our day?

Ducks and Geese sharing a pond

Bees Knees

In my continuing research of beekeeping, and to prep for my class this coming Saturday, I have discovered many fascinating facts on the little critters.

Bees have three pairs of legs, each with six segments.  The front ones are used for cleaning their antennae.  The middle pair is for walking and packing loads of pollen.  The hind pair is specialized in the worker bee and contains the pollen sacks behind their "knees."  

The phrase, "bees knees” appears to have sprung from the Roaring 20s in America to denote something excellent.  The reference is to the sweet bounty they bring back to they hive.  

There are three types of bees in a hive.  The queen, whose job is to lay eggs and keep the hive populated.  She also emits pheromones that direct all the activities of the worker bees within the hive.  The worker bees are most numerous.  They do all the hive cleaning and repairs, care for the eggs, comb building,  pollen collecting and honey production.  The drones are the males who are tolerated and maintained solely for mating with a new queen.  They enjoy a life of leisure, only to die after the act of procreation.  

It is a highly developed society and the more I learn about it, I wonder why we don't recognize and incorporate aspects of the bees' social structure into our own society.  Not the dying after sex, perhaps, but the clear-cut stages of development and teamwork.  

As in all of nature, the hive survives through careful choreography and respect for each individual's contribution.

Coincidentally, around the same time I started looking into beekeeping, my daughter, Hannah, in Northern California was also exploring the hobby.  She works for a feed store that is the only local source for beekeeping equipment. Hanni received her two pounds of bees just 10 days ago and has a jump start on me with her hive already installed.

Hanni and her bees

Namaste

It's weird when you open your life to a new pool of people.  Think of going into a new school when you were just a kid.  The sea of faces and personalities that first presents itself to you seems vast, and immediately your mind tries to categorize them all.

The second time my class came together we were all more comfortable.  We recognized faces in the parking lot as we arrived, and greeting each other and the mission we are all on.

This connection to other people, who all have terribly full lives during the other 6 days, is a study in how I relate to the world differently than I ever have in the past.  I used to snort at yoga.  I did Pilates; we had not just mats, but machines to be mastered.

I used to hire someone to do all the yard work, so I could sit back and enjoy it during the few hours I was home.  Today, it doesn't look quite so manicured, but I can tell you every seedling that has popped out in my starter trays in the morning, and every new bud in the garden.   I slowly rake and reclaim from winter's damage and delight in the smells and textures.

So, if I can't afford Pilates five days a week or a yard crew, and I do my yoga faithfully to a worn and tired DVD, it is understandable that at some point the changes would affect other parts of my life.

I would eventually feel comfortable standing in front of someone I have known a total of six hours over two weeks and say, 'Namaste' at the end of the evening...  And really, really mean it.

I have climbed the tails in the Nepalese Himalaya and heard the greeting.  I even ventured to respond softly to those who passed me there as they offered the word to me.  Yet, it always felt like someone else's language.

Just as I sing the stupid Cub Scouts song every morning to the dogs and quietly say to myself as the sun sets, 'Thank you for this day,' I am reveling in the little things.

Embrace the change...

The Car...

The year is 1960.  I’m five years old.  My brother, Duncan, is seven and a half years old and has a year of first grade under his belt.  My sister, Susanne is two and a half: a rosy, happy toddler.  It’s mid-August in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

The car bumps along the dusty road leaving the beach.  In the back seat, Duncan and I are jostling against the stiff, itchy upholstery.  The ground in sand enhances the fabric’s abrasiveness and our deepening sun burns.  My mom, slender and blonde, steers the lumbering 1948 Plymouth Coupe through a long course of potholes and rocks.  Susanne is perched on the other end of the mountainous front seat.  She deftly avoids the “right hand child restraint,” administered frequently as mom endeavors to keep her upright on the seat. 

We are not rich or famous.  Dad commutes an hour to Boston five days a week and needs a reliable vehicle.  He and some friends pieced together the Plymouth for my mom and keep everything under the hood functioning.  The rest of the car is a wreck.  Most glaring is the fact that the floorboards are rotted to the point of making it dangerous for even a forty-pound child to step there.  This means launching ourselves from the running board to the seat.  It also leaves open the possibility for endless games.

On rainy days we pile newspapers over the holes in the floor to keep the water from splashing up in geysers when we hit a puddle.  On days like today, it means the Army Man Drag.  Battalions of Duncan’s molded, green plastic army men have given their lives to our game. 

The grocer delivers our meat wrapped in white paper and tied with thin red and white string.  This string is saved in a drawer in the kitchen and Duncan hoards scraps of it for the game.  We tie the string through the soldiers legs and lower them like a fishing line through the ragged openings.  My job is to scramble up the tall backrest to the shelf below the back window.  It is the perfect length for me to stretch out on my belly and watch the road behind.  Seldom does the soldier make it to bouncing along behind as we envision it should.  The string breaks, the army man bounces off in any direction, and we have to reload. 

Mom seldom pays much attention to what is going on over the wall created by the back of her seat.  If we are quiet, she assumes we are tired out from a day of sun and surf.

I must be doing a lot of hopping up and down as she glares into the expanse of rear-view mirror and utters some warning.  Susanne takes this opportunity to seek revenge for all the “child restraint” action.  She lightly tosses mom’s purse out the wide-open window. 

Said purse is a basket-y thing that is popular and chic with the moms.  It is lined with cheery gingham and has a perky ribbon.  Duncan and I are impressed when it flies by the window like a Wiffle ball.  It is several miles of dirt road before mom’s attention is drawn to the empty spot on the seat between she and Susanne. 

What then ensues is a hysterical woman, slamming on the brakes while pinning Susanne against the seat with one arm.  She executes a perfect forty-eight-point turn on the one and half lane road as it clogs with cars leaving the beach.  From there she drives erratically up and down the stretch of road, head out the window; the three of us waver between being terrified and giggling hysterically at the situation.  The basket eventually is found as the sun sinks over the last cars rumbling away from the beach. 

Mom is irritated, though relieved at finding her purse.  She pulls up our long driveway with itchy, red kids needing baths, sopping sandy towels to wash and dinner to be made.  Dad surveys the situation.  He has the good sense to see the tension, and the wisdom to only chuckle quietly as he helps us up the stairs to bathe. 

The very next weekend he and some friends install a new plywood floor in the Plymouth.  It is a band-aid on a peeling sore; it would not have prevented the purse tossing, but it certainly does curtail our games. 

The Requisite Mother's Day post...

In honor of the fast approaching Hallmark-card-holiday, Mother's Day, I would like to put my two cents in.  The Internet has been on fire with posts, stories, notes and blogs on the subject.  Some are poignant pleas for well-behaved children who grow up happy and self-sufficient.  There are lovely odes to the quirky presents that represent the most basic expressions of love.  I teared up over one of my favorite bloggers, Carrie Cariello's guest post on Autism Speaks' blog.  Another friend sent me this post titled "Dear Moms of Adopted Children."  It opened my mind, and heart, to challenges I never had to consider as a mother.

Everyone has an opinion about Mother's Day so here is mine. There is no stronger yet more fragile bond in this world.   No matter how you come to the role, it is a choice you make the first time with no idea what it will mean.  Think of jumping off a bridge and fully assuming the water will be deep and soft and you will swim elegantly.

From the child's eye view, mothers hold the key to all emotions.  They serve up ice cream buckets of happiness; or they shake you to your core with realizations of fear, anxiety and guilt.

Humility.  My mother toilet trained me, sat with me through illness and injury, cried with me over pets we lost.  There was nothing she didn't know about my body or soul.  When Alzheimer's weakened the bonds of her mind and spinal stenosis took away her body, I visited with my daughter, Lexie and we sat with her. She asked to be wheeled to the toilet.  I lifted her, arranged her; Lexie and I turned to give her some privacy.  She laughed softly and said, "Lexie, some day please laugh about having a conversation with me while I took a pee."

Acceptance.  A mother accepts and molds her life around who and what her child is.  If the child is different in a way that society is bound to place an extra burden on that child's life, a mother assumes the burden and teaches the child to navigate.  Conversely, I accept what society and life placed on my mother at the time she was struggling to define her role.

Lenience.  I am puzzled how helicopter parenting even came about in the short, twenty-five years since I became a mother.  Walking around the barn barefoot in summer is a health hazard in so many ways.  But somewhere between my telling you that, and you getting your foot stomped by a pony, is the lesson to be learned.  You won't die, and you won't do it again.  A mother's job is to determine her level of indulgence on a minute-by-minute basis.

Forgiveness.  Just as mothers forgive our wrongs as children, through motherhood, I find I can forgive my mother her injustices, real or imagined. 

Self-reliance.  I believe one of the hardest lessons of motherhood is the balance between clearing the path for the dawning of self-reliance and being accused of neglect.  I will sit on my hands while you struggle to reach a goal all by yourself, but it isn't because I want to.  Conversely, when my children left home, I had to relearn emotional self-reliance.  

Happy Mother's Day and Happy Birthday, Mom.

Barbara Woods Walsh
May 11, 1927 - January 16, 2010