BeeLife Apiculture: The Fundamentals & Bee Wisdom
Bee Life is redefining Apiculture. We are reclaiming this term for the bees by encouraging people to work with them in equal collaboration; no longer naming ourselves as beekeepers, for we are not the keepers of bees but rather Bee people. People who want to listen, learn and unite with these sweet-hearted, humble beings.
Bee Life is creating a container for people to communicate with Bees. We provide you with the faculties to go beyond your everyday consciousness. Time spent inpatient observation watching the bees work and meditating in the cocoon of their sound and scent. Here you will develop a deeper connection to your inner world and the wonderful way of the bee. As you dedicate yourself to times of silence and quiet surrender, you will come to understand the bee and the cosmic intelligence it anchors in this earthly realm. You will recognise the bees as a creature through which access is gained to a spiritual connection with all of nature expanding into the cosmos.
Over the centuries the human tribe has oppressed the spirit of nature in all its expressive forms as they mistakenly believed they had dominion over all living beings. The laws of the production line were inflicted upon nature and of course, the bees fell victim to this consumerist way of being.
In 1850 the American pastor, Lorenzo Langstroth, invented the framed hive. Thus, we came to associate honeybees with boxes placed on the ground, attended by people dressed in heavy armor and producing honey for the world’s markets. It incited the beginning of the bee’s downfall. In the wake of this invention the bee engineer, Edward O. Wilson, created a beekeeping model for the western world whereby bee colonies were caged in boxes like filing cabinets, taken apart at will, their wholeness shattered, sliced and used as spare parts to swap between hives. The bees wild ways were managed and calculated; degraded to slaves of the insect world.
Interestingly, the bee industry was the first part of our worldwide system of industrial agriculture to fall apart. Many reasons are cited for this, but perhaps the simple truth is we have forgotten how to listen attentively and care for living things. Ultimately, the bees are the canaries of the coal mines for us humans and how we treat our planet. What they tell us about climate change is beyond refute. That is why it is integral we listen, watch and remember how to converse with the bee once again. For they are here to guide us back into harmony with all there is.
Our BeeLife sanctuary is returning us to times when people knew the honeybee as a highly evolved being embodying qualities of wisdom and love that as humans we must reactivate within ourselves if we are to continue living on this planet. We want to recall the hive as a respected, revered, and well-loved member of the family. Perceiving each being, each hive, as a little universe, completely evolved and perfect like a star.
Contemplate, for example, the production of snow-white wax in the dark of the hive! The young bees who work this wonder must be supplied with copious amounts of nectar to perform the task of building the body for the whole since that is what the comb is, the body of the Bee. Once the comb builders reach the age of forager bees, they transform the glands needed for wax production into other specialist equipment suited to the tasks ahead, and so forth. Every single bee undergoes stages of metamorphosis in precise accordance with the needs of the wholeness, the hive. The hive is a continuum of metamorphosis and an ever-transforming wholeness that is potentially infinite reflecting the workings of our world and beyond. Watch in awe as the boundless form of the colony swarms; a phenomenon whereby the bees form a plasma in the air as they split into two colonies one of which will find a new home.
Then of course there is the cone fixed in space and time whilst the bees form the fluid part of the coherence. These separate and distinctly different parts unite to create an intelligently evolving whole that is part of a much greater whole; a continuity that encompasses all. For example, the surrounding flowers and the sun are intrinsic aspects of this greater whole. Without the sun there would be no nectar and no bees. The bees illustrate fluid-in-unity and with this comes flexibility, selflessness, emergence and of course unity in the colony and an overarching unity with the world.
If we watch the bee we will notice an intelligence governing them that takes the form of a hexagon; a pattern ubiquitous to nature. We find it in quartz crystals, snowflakes even the clay in soils. Both the sugar and the water in the bee nectar share this underlying hexagonal structure and what makes this structure so special is its ability to entwine and hold other substances. These substances are held between the hexagonal layers since every empty space must be filled. One such substance is light. Light is entwined in the beeswax and the bees’ nectar. Thus, we notice the cyclical and reciprocal essence of nature: sunlight produces the flowers from which the bees receive the nectar. This nectar is formed into wax and honey which is bound by light.
Through the bees, we come to see that light infuses everything and this light is love for they are different expressions of the same energy. A love creating and sustaining all that exists and the humble honey bee encapsulates this life-giving, life-governing force. They remind us how to create with love, with light; how to be in harmony with our surroundings, and that we are nature living within it.
The hexagonal pattern of the honeycomb is an ingeniously efficient structure since it utilises maximum cell volume with minimum material; no space is wasted. It is absolutely perfect for economising labour and wax. It is also perfectly precise; each angle is exactly 120 degrees.
Yet there is more to this 6 sided shape in the realm of the bee. Not only is their outer world governed by it but also their inner world. The bee’s eyes are made up of thousands of hexagonal lenses. The hexagon is encoded into their essence suggesting a hexagonal consciousness that is beyond our current human comprehension. Do they have the ability to perceive the fractals believed to construct our reality?
At BeeLife we are guardians to the bees but more importantly, we are their students. As guardians, we study plant lore and sow seeds to create bee food forests and gardens of paradise. Where the bees live, such places are holy, whole and sound. Places that harmonise our bodies, minds, and souls with a greater consciousness that is all-loving and all-knowing. A consciousness that we are already connected to but need to open our hearts and minds to once again.
Author: Tauri