A golden humming cloud of honeybees arrived unexpectedly one sunny June morning and moved into a knothole in the siding of the house. Three weeks later, Mr. E. helped these mysterious creatures into a comfy wooden box in his garden and began to live the lifelong dream of herding millions of stinging insects and collecting their sweet honey. Please enjoy the adventures of Mr. E's Mysterious Bees.





July 21, 2008

Bee Souls

I got interviewed a few weeks ago by a woman who is writing a book about urban beekeepers. I showed her my hives, showed her where they made a home in the wall of my house and answered her questions about the mechanics of beekeeping. We got to talking about communicating with insects and I told her about how I had invited the bees to come pollinate my vegetable garden last year and a week later 20,000 of them showed up and moved into my house. She sent me an email thanking me for my time and had one more question for me:

Do you think each individual bee has a soul? Or is there one soul per hive?

I loved that question. So gentle.

Here is my answer.

I think that everything has some kind of soul, but I don't know what it is, where it is or why we have one. I guess I believe that everything is connected and made out of the same stuff and that stuff keeps working its way through the universe in different forms. And I think it is possible to recognize these common elements in other beings or objects and to feel connected in that way. I also sometimes think that our physical life is a metaphor for something larger.

As far as the bees...they seem to act as a group with one mind and one purpose and many bodies to carry out that purpose. But the same could be said of humans if we looked at ourselves from a distance. I know that I am sad every time I accidentally squish one bee or cause it to sting me and die, a tiny life extinguished. suffering. pain. I prefer not to cause it. So that makes me think that i am reacting to the soul of the individual bee because I have sensed it there. I feel a very strong presence when one flies into my house or buzzes around me. Whether that is me anthropomorphizing the bee or actually feeling its soul, I do not know. I try not to be arrogant about other creatures and always assume they have their own destiny and life to lead so I try to respect it and make way for them.

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