Beekeeping
be can therapeutic, at least for me, anyways. It’s sort of like a pill for my
mental health. It’s especially necessary with my job as an elementary school
teacher.
Working
with fifth and sixth graders all week takes a toll on a guy. It’s like being a
cowboy all day. I am constantly roping them all in and trying to find ways to
keep them under control and focused on the class. Then add in all the other
teacher duties such as extracurricular activities, planning for classes and
grading workbooks and tests. Teaching at a bilingual school in Honduras is no
easy matter. I often wonder how I keep my sanity.
Contemplating
the flames.
As
many beekeepers have probably experienced, bees are good for the soul. Just
sitting and communing with the bees usually helps me to relieve tension and
forget about all the other problems I have with work or with life in general. I
don’t really think about anything else except the coming and goings of the bees
I’m watching. After one becomes accustomed to being around bees, their buzzing
begins to sound sort of like music—soothing, relaxing.
Just
getting out of the house and heading to a bee yard can do the same. I feel
fortunate to have one of my apiaries near the river that crosses the valley
where I live. To get to the bee yard, I have to first go through a private park
just outside of town (enormous old mango trees line the road that winds through
it) until I reach the hammock bridge that crosses the river. The bees are
situated on the land of the farm on the other side of the bridge.
One
of the best times to go there is early in the morning, such as when I’m moving
recently trapped swarms to the apiary. I get up at the break of dawn to move
them, strapped to back of my scooter. It’s fairly easy work. Enjoyable.
When
I’m done it’s time for coffee. I take my thermos underneath the bridge to the
edge of the water. The temperature is still very agreeable, not the stifling
heat of the afternoons. Like the sound of bees, the sound of running water is
soothing. Having a cup of good Honduran coffee (strong, no sugar, a bit of
milk) lifts the spirits. No yelling kids, to lesson plans to make, no tests to
correct—just me and the bees and the river (and my coffee!).
Morning
coffee and the tranquility of the river—soothing for the mind.
Now,
can beekeeping be turned into a more formal tool if the beekeeper needs some
sort of formal therapy and have their heads analyzed? It’s possible.
Most
people probably know about Hermann Rorschach’s ink blot tests that psychiatrists
use to analyze what is going through a patients head (tell me what you see in
this picture). The same thing could probably be done for the beekeeper--but
using the flames of their smoker.
I
often invite people to come with me to work and play with the bees. This was
the case last year with Kevin from Canada, who was working with me at the
bilingual school in my town here in Honduras last year. I had him get the
smoker started. For Africanized bees, that means a big one—one that shoots out
flames as you get your smoker material burning well. As usual, I had my camera
taking photos.
Later
I posted the picture on Facebook that you see above and the comments started
about what people were seeing in the flames—just like the inkblots. It’s a
bird, it’s a shark, it’s a seahorse. Now look at these other two photos also.
Ink blot
tests for the beekeeper—look into the flames and tell me what you see.
So,
what do you see? What do those flames look like? Or more important, what does
it all mean about what you’re seeing in them??? Is everything normal up stairs
or not? Let me know.
--Tom
Version in Spanish (versión en Español) in my other
blog "Reflesiones Sobre Apicultura."
