A group of trespassers
invaded our home about a month ago.
Thankfully, these aggressors
had no particular interest in any of our material belongings. They were simply
looking for a place to crash. (And no, our uninvited guests weren’t out of town
family members: They actually got here the day before yesterday… and we invited
them!)
As it turns out, a swarm of
bees found our real estate an ideal choice for their new digs. And it is a fine
place, to be sure. “Sexy as crap,” my son says - although, I’ve never thought our
house to be particularly bee-worthy.
In any case, what we think
really doesn’t matter, because bees have a pretty one-pointed intelligence…“Save
The Queen!” And while they are amazing little engineers, their single-mindedness
sometimes gets in the way of their innate skills, because their first attempt at
a new honey factory was a raucous scrum under a small beam in front of the living
room plate glass window. (Great visual I’m told – I’d flown out of town just the
day before.)
After a week of ‘not
vacationing’ in Northern California, my hubby arrived home and reported that it
appeared the mob had taken flight to what must surely be more appropriate lodgings.
You know, a secluded place out of the wind where the blue-collar bees could get
their work done, and the queen could pump out newbies.
Wrong! Those resourceful
little buzzers had actually found a bee-sized crack between the house’s support
beam and the fascia board under the outside overhang. Busy, busy, busy! Buzz,
buzz, buzz! They worked that crack hard for what turned out to be over three
weeks. Oh dear!
Now – our family has had
quite enough of death, destruction and the aftermath this past month and a half
– and, being of the tree-hugging, nature-aware folk that we are, it was a
definite that we weren’t going to obliterate the apiary. However, none of us were willing to deal with
a gaping hole in our ceiling when the honeycomb grew too heavy, nor to
cohabitate with roaming bees when they took over the entire house. So - the
professional bee charmers were called in to save us all.
The growing hive |
Sadly, we had to trade the
inevitable hole in the ceiling, for an immediate hole in the roof. This
reclamation effort took a bit of time to coordinate, and cost a decent chunk of
change to remove what could have been a much larger architectural calamity.
And, fortunately, or unfortunately (depending upon your point of view), I
missed the entirety of this phase of excitement.
Currently, we no longer have
an infestation within the confines of our walls. Instead, we have a nice bee
box atop our living room overhang that allows the entire worker bee network to
much more successfully maintain their industry. And, soon our little canister
of pollinators literally will be put out to pasture to provide support for the
agricultural needs of our State.
So what exactly does this
newest rambling post have to do with anything?
Well, first of all, it gives
our family peace of mind knowing we did something positive for some of the
smallest, yet most important members of our global community. We could have
gassed them out, without a second thought, and moved on with our lives. That
would simply have contributed to hastening the demise of humanity. Or at least
for those of us who eat food.
Truth is, the ancient
Sanskrit phrase, “Lokah
Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” resonates deeper within our hearts these days.
Loosely translated, this
powerful adage means,
“May all beings in the world be happy and free, and may my thoughts and actions, in some way contribute to that happiness and that freedom for all.”
You see, when a heart gets broken
open - for whatever reason - astounding things happen. Just like the bee-sized
crack in our roofing allowed us to see into the dynamic, living organism that
is the hive; a crack in our heart allows the inner-Self to expand profoundly. It
allows our energy to be similarly free and motivated by love.
And may we all open up to recognize
we are happy and free.
Please Save
the Bees!
Here’s more info:
No comments:
Post a Comment