Swarming

 August 7, 2020

It’s past my bedtime, so tonight’s musings will be short. The day didn’t begin quite as I had expected, which just goes to prove, very few things in this life are certain. I trusted the little buggers to do what they’re supposed to, and they let me down. When I checked my beehives this morning, one of them was unusually busy. The bees that weren’t covering the entire front of the hive were flying all over the place in a buzzing frenzy. I knew what that meant, and it was completely unexpected. They were swarming.

Swarming happens when the hive gets crowded. They raise a new queen, then about half the colony absconds with the old queen, looking for a new domicile. I had checked them earlier in the week, and everything seemed OK, but obviously, they didn’t think so. It’s not always a bad thing. It means the colony is strong, but it’s still a loss of a few thousand bees. If they land in an accessible place like a low hanging branch, it’s a relatively simple matter to catch them and put them into a new hive. These however, decided to land on a branch of our cherry tree about thirty feet in the air. I put out an empty hive body, hoping they might decide it would be a good place to take up housekeeping, but so far, they’re still on the branch. If they don’t choose my hive within a couple days, who knows where they’ll end up? 

Bees can be somewhat predictable. Their instincts are programmed into them by God, which is why we are able to take advantage of them, collecting honey, beeswax, and pollen. But even as predictable as they are, they sometimes surprise us. 

We like life when it’s predictable, but every so often God throws in a curve ball to keep us on our toes and trusting him. It can be uncomfortable and inconvenient, but it’s a good thing, keeping us from getting complacent. I hope my bees come home, but if they don’t, I’ve learned a lesson, in bees and in life. It’s important to be able to read the signs of the times, and then to take appropriate action before life swarms on us. Once it begins, there’s no controlling it. The time to deal with a swarm is before it happens. The time to deal with a life crisis is before it happens. With bees, the signs are inside the hive. The life signs we need to learn to read are also inside. We need to be paying attention not just what is going on around us, but even more importantly, to what is happening inside us. It’s the only way to adequately prepare for a crisis.