Waiting

A year ago I met a woman while waiting for the laction room at work. She was a mid-career detailee from the Department of Defense, and in our brief conversation she changed the passage of time for me.  It’s a gift I hope I can share.

We were both moms of infants in the hustle and bustle of juggling busy careers and families.  Naturally, we talked about sleep deprivation, the various developmental mile stones of our little ones, and the relevant anxieties.  She shared that she was a single parent and this would likely be her only child because age and fertility issues probably meant she couldn’t have another. Her baby boy had some digestive issues so she was having to nurse him more than she’d expected at a year old resulting in frequent interruptions during the work day to accommodate pumping. Nights were long and the days were squeezed, her family lived far away, unable to help much, but with all of that she was still serene. Delighted. Savoring every bit of it.

I thought I understood her zen.  I had made a conscious decision years ago to try limit or eliminate my griping about the duties of parenting.  Yes, it was stressful sometimes, but I had in my four children all that I had hoped for and more.  I leaned on my mantra, don’t complain about your blessings.

What this woman was saying to me was similar, but it was better.  I still found myself wanting to rush through unpleasant moments, days, development phases.  It was a kind of complaint.  I can’t wait until she grows out of this whining.  How much longer before the school performance ends? When will you get to the point where you don’t wet the entire bathroom floor when you take a bath?

This stranger helped me to see all those moments differently.  I told her that I couldn’t wait until my baby could sleep for a seven hour stretch.  She told me that she used to say all the time that she couldn’t wait for this or that thing to happen, but her son helped her to realize that her language reinforced the act of rushing through life. She got rid of “I can’t wait” so that she could be still and take it all in. When tempted to wish away a moment she chose instead to “look forward to” where it would lead. Simple isn’t it?

I haven’t been the same since that revelation. It didn’t happen instantly, but the difference was profound. In moments of exasperation, her words came to mind like an unexpected summer breeze.  I stood still. In coming months when we celebrated family birthdays it didn’t feel so much like the time crept up on me. I could laugh a little when the girls made a habit out of sneaking off with a bowl of popcorn so they could dump it on the floor and eat it like pecking chickens. The clean up didn’t feel so arduous.  Frequent trips to the musty middle school lost-and-found to dig for my sons missing sweatshirts were fodder for teasing instead fuel for my fury.

When my hubby was traveling for work, I could be less bitter about having more on my plate because I was looking forward to how nice it would be when he was back home.  Just that little tweak to my thinking about time and place, and I was a little less burdened.  For that I am eternally grateful to the stranger in the nurse’s office. I look forward to seeing her again.

 

 

So you wanna meet the queen bee…

But do you know a queen when you see one?  She’s here looking all royal.  If you look closely enough you can see some of the eggs she recently laid.  She’s surrounded by worker bees and capped brood.

Queen Bee

Just a few days after taking that pic things got a little wild in the bee yard.  Found a bunch of supersedure cells and swarm cells, and went from two hives to 5!  Here are some of the pics:

Swarm cells Swarm cells and drone cells Supersedure cell with capped brood and honey

Supersedure cells look like peanuts, and swarm cells are often at the bottom of the frame.  They are both queen cells.  Worker bee cells are much smaller.  You see some in the pics.  Drone cells are just a bit more raised than worker bee cells, you can see some of those in the second pic.  That liquid is honey.  The nursing bees like to keep honey and pollen close by the brood for feeding purposes.  When I took these pics, being the newbie that I am, I didn’t realize I had all these queens in the making.  Basically the workers were preparing to flee the hive or felt something was wrong with the queen and needed to raise a new one, and I didn’t get that right away.  I think they actually did swarm not long after I checked, but I just missed it.  Anyway, I made splits with the queen cells and have five hives now.

Here’s something cool.  It takes about 16 days for a new queen to develop and hatch.  So the cells you see above became the queens and hatching queens you see below.  If you look closely you can see the queens making their way out in the first pic to the left.  There are a couple of queens making their way out of the cell.  They’ll duke it out once they are free; queens aren’t into sharing their domain.  May the best queen win! In the second pic is a new queen from one of the new hives.  She hatched this week.

Queens hatching All hail the new queen!

This is me feeling exhilirated and a little stunned at all the growth.  Wowzer!  See the the nuc boxes behind me (smaller hive boxes)?  Those weren’t there just over a week ago.  It just got real, super fast.

Chief Inspector

Newbies and the New Bees

The bees are home!  A few weeks ago we installed the nucs in their brand new hive boxes, and it seems we managed to not totally screw things up.  If you’ve never seen this kind of thing before, it might look like we are pros.  If you have seen it before, well, it’ll look like we tried our best.  So glad I had help from my hubby, buddy and my baby.  The difference between the theory and practice of beekeeping becomes pronounced when you are staring down a few thousand bees.  Team work makes the dream work.  Check it out!

Leveling

The making of a hive stand

The making of a hive stand turned out to be more involved than I expected. I took the bee keeping class, I read the books, and I talked to experienced apiarists. By most accounts the simplest hive stand I could make would be with a couple of 4x4s and some cinder blocks. Figured I’d plop them down and that would be it. Easy peasy. What I didn’t realize was that the need for level ground beneath the hive was more than a mere mention in the books and conversations I had; It was, in fact, critical to everything.

I didn’t have a level at home. Couldn’t find one in the garage so I went back to the hardware store and got me a nice handy serious-about-my-work level. As soon as I put it on the wood for a check and saw that it couldn’t be more UN-level I knew the easy stand idea was too good to be true. Discovered that a tiny bit of a slope is pretty significant, and learned that if the hive is tilted, the bees will build comb that way too! Makes sense to me.

So I hatched a plan, recruited hubby, searched YouTube, and then got to digging, and digging, and digging some more. Along the way I gained a new respect for leveling, real and metaphorically speaking.  Bottom line: balance is worth the effort and so much depends on it.