"She dances – through her movements she shares information about the direction, distance, and quality of her preferred site. Followers of the dance will then visit the site to evaluate it themselves, and if they are convinced, they return to the swarm and dance for that site. Once the number of sites has been whittled down and enough bees agree, the swarm will fly en masse to their new place and begin settling in. As swarming demonstrates, rhythms of communication and coordination of timing are key to colony survival."
Observing. I am told over and over again that it is the key to beekeeping. Knowing when to intervene, or not. A lot of beekeeping is about timing it seems – discerning and becoming part of a shared rhythm. The best time, I have been taught, is a clear, warm, not too windy day. Then I still have to discern if the time is right. Watching, listening, smelling. Are the bees up for a visit? Are they calm and happy? Hungry, queenless, diseased? Bees signal with their flight patterns and buzzing; quick, erratic, high, loud warnings. Sluggishness would be troubling, silence devastating. Is the hive entrance busy with bees carrying heavy loads? Is there a sour smell, or that wondrous scent of warm wax, propolis, and honey? With a sense of bees’ movements and mood, things can proceed. I light a smoker in case the bees get grumpy and I need to delay attack, then pull a veil over my head. Watching, listening, smelling, I move closer. I try not to disrupt the workings of the colony too much. Opening the hive takes focus – on what is happening, on the state of the colony, on pollen and honey stores, on interacting with bees. Masses of fuzzy bodies wiggling and waggling, being born and giving care, returning with pollen and nectar, going about their lives. I become rapt, almost immersed in another world. For a moment. And more. Watching, listening, smelling. But there are practical issues when keeping bees, and that means getting on with it. Drawing on previous experience, using diverse resources but especially previous interactions with beekeepers and bees, I continue to learn the ‘art of noticing’ (Tsing, 2015). The colony tells me whether it is time not just to visit, but to intervene.
Telling times: More-than-human temporalities in beekeeping, Catherine Phillips, School of Geography, University of Melbourne, Australia
This paper gestures to how different senses of time and temporality become conveyed, coordinated, and contested. Such temporal accounts inform practices and the pivotal era in which we live in ways often unrecognised.
“If you're in tune with your bees, you connect with this seasonal cycle of things. It's very subtle. You wouldn't necessarily notice otherwise. So, you're really aware of your environment. There's just a lovely seasonal cycle of beekeeping, like swarming in the spring and building boxes and harvesting the honey in the autumn and then wintering down. It kind of marks the season when it's those times of the year. I think that's one of the greatest gifts of beekeeping.”
The sensory and affective impact of beekeeping can be overwhelming – fascination, fear, love, anxiety, desire are all part of the transformative encounters that can happen through visiting with bees.
Becoming ‘in tune’ may mean slowing or expedience. Coordinating multiple temporalities and remaining open to what is needed in any one moment is part of beekeeping well.