Beekeeping and Meditation are good for your mental health

So why am I feeling so frazzled?

The week of World Bee Day (20 May) brought two touches of much-needed balm for this distressed beekeeper.

One friend/follower sent me a piece of research showing that keeping bees is good for the keeper’s mental well-being in times of crisis, such as Covid lockdowns (www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0005772X.2021.1988233).

Another sent an article suggesting that meditation helps to heal mental trauma (www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfilling-our-highest-possibility/202111/2-ways-meditation-heals).

Since those twin propositions are the pillars upon which this blog’s mighty edifice takes shape, I greeted these messages as welcome reassurance.

At the same time, I wondered how my two correspondents could have known how much they were needed here?

I was in a lather all week, restless at night and tetchy during the day. I kept worrying about the split that I had been planning in order to prevent one colony from swarming and, at the same time, to populate my Warre′ hive (see Zenbees for Mr Blissedout: zenandtheartofbeekeeping.substack.com/p/zenbees-for-mr-blissedout ). Had I left it too late? Would it work? On my last inspection of the hive on 19 May, I had found no queen cells containing larvae and royal jelly (which are certain signs of imminent swarming) but I did see several empty queen cells (which suggests that they’re giving thought to the possibility of packing their bags and hightailing out of Dodge).

(Queen cell with larva, royal jelly and attendant workers)

My plan for the split had been to find the queen and catch her in a device that I bought several summers ago and have never used. Then I would put her aside and shake the bees on several frames into the brood box of the Warre′. Then I would place the queen in the Warre′ to unite the new colony, close up and leave them to get on with furnishing their new home with honeycomb.

I had checked this plan with my bee buddy, Dennis, and he had cautiously said it ought to work. Without explicitly asking, I was half-hoping that he might come over and offer to help me with the exercise but, instead, he announced that he was off on holiday for more than a week.

Yikes! Was I going to have to undertake this whole venture on my own?  I, who had rarely even spotted a queen on the frames, let alone captured one in a cage? I who had never attempted a shook swarm? The prospect alone was enough to keep me awake at night.

As it turned out, however, Dennis’s plans to go away were disrupted and he found himself with time to spare to come over and give me a hand next Monday morning, the 27 May.

That gave me a chance to prepare. It felt like getting ready for a visit from the King. I painted the boxes of the Warre′ with green Cuprinol Ducksback for weatherproofing. I strimmed all round the hives and cut down saplings that were growing in front. I boiled up two litres of water in a saucepan with two kilos of granulated sugar to make a 1:1 syrup to feed the bees that we were going to move into the Warre′. I melted a few dabs of wax, painted it onto the top bars of the Warre′ and secured some brace comb there to give the bees a start with building their own comb in their new hive.

These preparations made an unspeakable mess in the kitchen which I tried to hide from my wife. The syrup had boiled over on the hob and blocked the burner which had to be dismantled and cleaned before it would fire up again. The melted wax I had washed out of its saucepan blocked the sink and had to be picked out piece by piece. The pastry brush with which I had painted the wax on the frames became completely clogged with cold wax and had to be thrown away. Worst of all, I had brought the boxes of the Warre′ into the kitchen to paint them on sheets of newspaper spread on the table but hadn’t accounted for the dots of paint that would flick off my brush onto the wall and the kitchen bins standing nearby. “What the hell have you been doing with green paint?” my wife demanded the moment she got home from work. “It’s everywhere.”

“You should have seen the place before I cleaned up,” I indignantly replied.

On the Monday morning before Dennis’s arrival, I woke full of dread, certain it would all go disastrously wrong. Thoughts of Francois Ravillac, assassin of the French king Henri IV, came to mind. Awakening on the day of his execution, knowing that he was about to be tortured in public in the Place de Greve, scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil before being drawn and quartered, then torn apart by four whipped horses, Ravaillac is said to have muttered to his guards, “This is going to be a difficult day.”  I knew how he felt.

Dennis was due at 11.00. I started getting ready before 10.30, suiting up and lighting the smoker. When I had put my glasses on the end of my nose and was ready to pull the veil over my head, I asked my younger daughter to make sure the zips were all safely closed, having recently endured the nightmare experience of leaving a gap at the neck through which some bees crawled to sting my ears and face. Then I went out to open our gates for Dennis’s car. He is always early.

He didn’t arrive. By 11.05, I was beginning to wonder if he was all right. I went back in the house to look at my messages and found a couple from before 10.30 saying that it was thundery and raining hard over his way and no weather to be messing with bees. He suggested we put it off until later in the week.

Having got all kitted-up, I decided to go and have a look at the bees. The super on top of the hive that I was going to split was full of honey and placid bees but the brood box below was boiling with fury at my intrusion. I barely had the chance to look at three frames and remove some brace comb before they were howling around me, determined to drive me away. One managed to sting me on the back of my left hand even though I was wearing nitrile liners under rubber gloves. That takes ferocious ill-intent. Within minutes, the hand was so swollen I could hardly pull off the gloves.

Without looking further in to the hive, I had seen queen cells in the making. I hurried back to the house to text the news to Dennis. He immediately replied with the suggestion that I should try turning the Warre′ into a bait hive in the hope that it might attract the prospective swarm. Good idea: leave it to Mother Nature.

Those preparation took the form of daubing some wax on the alighting board and entrance; dabbing some lemongrass oil on the top bars and raising that box on top of two brood boxes to give the swarm about 40 litres of space in which to take up occupancy. Some of those preparations took place in the kitchen but neither paint nor blood was spilled.

I went back up to the apiary to assemble the Warre′ as instructed and – would you believe it? – a guard bee from one of the existing hives took exception to my presence and tried to let me have it through my veil. I mean, come on: give me a break.

By this time, I was totally fed up with the lot of them and retreated to my garden room for some peaceful reading. The first texts that came up on the screen were those messages about how beekeeping and meditation are so good for your mental health and inner well-being.

Just what I needed.