Category Archives: Bees

Bees, Chronic Pain, Connection, garden, garden, Home sweet home, just me

Bee calm and garden on…

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Pink flower bee Copy (1)

It’s been my newest project and my reason for being offline so much lately. For the first time in my life I am building a garden. Day in and day out I dig and plant, hammer and staple, water and weed. There is something soothing and, well, down to earth about gardening.

I can feel my connection with the earth healing some deeply hungry part of me. In the garden I am capable and strong, I am able to work for hours and not make my headache worse. I don’t know if it’s not straining my eyes on a computer screen or just that gardening is as replenishing as it is exhausting but my spoons don’t seem to be at risk when I am in the sun and communing with all the bees and plants.

And boy do we have bees!! There is a house a few doors down with a hive and their happy little bees buzz around my Gerbera Daisies, Blueberries, Blackberries, Strawberries and Tomatoes. It’s possible that they love the herb garden even more. Best of all, the big blue fountain in my planter garden gets teeny buzzing visitors who fly over, settle on the rim, and delicately sip at the water in the bowl.

I can watch the bees for hours.

I put up a hammock under the tree and when I am not gardening or working I lie there smelling my spearmint, magnolias, and tomatoes while the bees buzz around me, resting from time to time on my knees. The sun is warm and the sound of the busy birds and insects is soothing.

I seem to be coming back to life with the plants, growing stronger and standing taller every day. The long lonely years of pain and hardship look as though they may actually be in the past. I work, I garden, I walk, I swim. I take the kids places. I am once again living an outside life. I am not confined, alone with my cat, to a dark and quiet room watching the world pass me by on a dimly lit computer screen wishing desperately that I could be free. I am no longer a useless partner, mother, daughter, or friend. I have things to offer the world again. I have people in my life who walk beside me and encourage me to do what I can while reminding me to not overdo it. They value and cherish my contributions even though they are not what they used to be. I am learning to do the same. I suppose I am being cultivated as much as my garden is.

I love how responsive plants are to my labors. A drooping plant will perk up within minutes of being watered, a seed poke through the earth within days of being planted. Every day I see the results of my labors blooming around me and I can’t help but bloom with them! I laugh and dance and sing again. I wake up early, even though I hurt, to take my medication so I can get to the garden faster.

I have more energy now too so I can cook and walk to the grocery store and clean. I make delicious food for my family again and get pleasure out of seeing them gobble it up. My kids are eating vegetable soups and meatloaf and guacamole again, thrilled I am back in the kitchen making it. Dan is touched each and every day I make his lunch for work, happy I have thought of him and taken the time to insure he has a gracious plenty of healthy, delicious food while he keeps the peace in the brutal heat. My parents enjoy the food I cook and my mother loves that she is not doing the cooking.

I am slowly learning that no matter what my professional future holds, whether I can litigate again or not, whether I can earn a decent living or not, I can contribute to the family in a meaningful way.

I can be a goddess of hearth and home if I cannot be the career woman I dreamed of being. I find joy and a profound sense of accomplishment in the tasks I once deemed menial. Now they are the example of improved health.

So my life is blooming again. I think it’s time to bee calm and garden on.

Activism, Bees

Honey for your honey…

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This year for Mother’s Day, do something a little different. Rescue some bees. You can get your mom some bee friendly flowers for her garden, donate to a bee worthy cause, or help her make bee friendly hives for her garden. Honey Bees have been vanishing from all over the U.S., and with them our way of life.

Carrot Cake, Apple Strudel, Blueberry Scones, Cherry Tarts, Pumpkin Pie, Guacamole, Broccoli Quiche, French Onion Soup, Butternut Squash with Cinnamon, Almond Butter. These delectable foods and desserts are an example of some of the foods that will disappear from our diet if we can’t keep the bees healthy and put a stop to Colony Collapse Disorder. These foods, Carrots, Apples, Blueberries, Cherries, Pumpkins and Squash, Avocados, Broccoli, Almonds, and Onions, simply won’t grow without the help of pollinating bees, specifically honey bees. In fact, $15 billion worth of U.S. crops are at risk because of the disappearance of bees.

Why are the bees disappearing? Beekeepers noticed odd behavior in bees and sounded the alarm when seemingly healthy bees began abandoning their hives in 2006. An estimated one third of all honey bees in the U.S. have disappeared. Poof. They have simply flown off.

Scientists attribute the vanishing bees to a number of different factors, including inadequate food supply, pesticide use, and a new virus. The inadequate food supply is due to human activity, building homes in previously open spaces, planting gardens that don’t provide bees the resources they need to survive, spraying pesticides specifically targeted at bees. We might like their honey, but most people don’t like having the bees buzzing about their backyard BBQ. Sadly, our dislike has parlayed itself into acts that damage Bee habitats, and therefore ourselves. Bees play a critical, and irreplaceable role in our food supply, and we should do what we can to help bring them back. But what can we do?

The National Resources Defense Council has a few ideas:

Bee Native: Use local and native plants in your yard and garden. These plants thrive easily and are well suited for local bee populations, providing pollen and nectar for bees to eat.

Bee Diverse:Plant lots of different kinds of plants in your yard. Plant diversity ensures that your garden attracts many different varieties of bees and gives them a range of flowering plants to choose from throughout the year. Make sure your yard plants vary in:
Color: Bees have good vision and are attracted to several different colors of flowers.
Shape: Different species of bees are better suited for different shapes of flowers. Give your bees some variety!
Flowering times: Having a sequence of plant species that flower throughout the year helps sustain the food supply and attract different species of bees.

Bee Pesticide Wary: There are many natural methods to control pests in your garden. Researchers believe pesticides are a contributing factor to Colony Collapse Disorder. Moreover, some insecticides are harmful to bees and wipe out flowers that provide bees with food. If you must, use targeted pesticides and spray at night — when bees aren’t active — on dry days.

Bee a Hive Builder: Building your own bee hive is easy and fun. Creating a wood nest is a good place to start — wood-nesting bees dont sting! Simply take a non-pressure treated block of wood and drill holes that are 3/32 inch to 5/16 inch in diameter and about 5 inches deep and wait for the bees to arrive.

For more ideas on helping the honeybee, you can visit HelptheHoneybees.com, this Haagen-Dazs supported website offers articles on the Bee Crises, links to ideas on how to help, and more. You can also visit and support the PennState Bee research and UCDavis’s research. To be more personally involved in the solution join The Hunt for Bees at The Great Sunflower Project. Check out the articles at The Daily Green for more ideas.

The N.Y. Times provided this map tracking the bee disappearances, along with some well written articles on the issue. Click on the map for a link to one of their articles.

The time to act is here, losing the bees will have a direct effect on your lifestyle. No more strawberries on a hot summer day, or piping hot slices of All American apple pie when it’s cold outside. We need the bees. Plant a bee garden, get a hive going, donate to organizations that are trying to make a difference, do something.

This year for Mother’s Day, help your mom be a source of change, and save a few bees.
What better way to celebrate Mom, than to save the world’s fruits and veggies?