Bees & Bien
The honeybees have worked their way into our consciousness through tragedy. To find their story on the cover of Time Magazine (summer 2013), though long overdue, bodes well for their survival, if …. And, that is a big 'if'. We can start by banning nerve toxin pesticides like they have in the EU and elsewhere, but we also need to become conscious of the bees in our own yard and not only stop toxic spraying of any chemicals, but provide them with high nectar sources of nutrition. As a culture, we must also evaluate commercial beekeeping.
That article in Time came in the wake of the Spring pollination orgy in the California almond groves. The winter had been devastating to the bees, especially in the midwest where draught wiped out reliable sources of nectar for over wintering. A fraction of the needed honeybees showed up with their commercial beekeepers. True the price per hive to the beekeeper was higher than normal, if the hive was strong, but the price of low pollination became the grief of the almond farmers. Monocropping would not be possible without migratory beekeeping because there are no nectar producing plants anywhere near these farms to harbor bees year round - only almonds.
An astronomical number of bees have been sickened and killed through a constellation of unnatural impositions on the natural balance they need to survive. The voice of Rudolf Steiner echoes from 1923, when he gave a stern warning to a beekeeper enthused about the newly implemented artificial insemination of queen bees to improve colony productivity. His warning, projected 100 years into the future, was that the bees would not survive the industrialization of beekeeping. And, they aren't.
I am a natural backyard beekeeper who knows firsthand the vital service these sweet beings and all of their pollinating bee cousins perform on our behalf. And, I am well aware of the superconsciousness of the hive, the Bien, as it is called in the Biodynamic Beekeeping world. In that regard the honeybees are special, having a hive consciousness that supercedes human consciousness. All of the bees live in self-less service to the bien, the greater whole, and the bien lives at Archangelic consciousness — 5th dimension.
What I would like to do on this page is provide you with the story of the bees, their service, their magic and the constellation of reasons they are in decline. I have written articles about the bees for Waldorf School parents and for regional publications. You will find this linked to this page on the lower side menu bar along with links to great beekeeping websites and documentary films.
We have a Natural Beekeeping Guild in Mount Shasta, Which provides a forum to discuss natural beekeeping, to promote more beekeeping and to improve the bees chances of survival on Mount Shasta, where the weather and garden chemicals are their biggest challenges to survival. There is bountiful pristine wilderness here as well, and I figure those bees who do take off for various reasons might sense that they have a better chance surviving there as feral bees. We can't know precisely what is happening in the superorganism of the hive but we can do all that is humanly possible to protect their future.
If you want to help out in a non-beekeeping way, start talking about lawn and garden sprays with your neighbors and encourage everyone to plant the bees favorite flowers, a list of which can be found on the Melissa Garden site.
Bee-lessings,
Jessie