This piece was written by Harold Vanicek, an ELCA pastor in Marble Falls, Texas in honor of World Honeybee Day, 2024.
My son and I started attending a local bee club in the fall of 2023. He loves insects and I love all things creation care. It is also a way we could do something together that we both loved, as he enters his senior year of high school. I’ve wanted to get into beekeeping ever since I read the book, “Bee people, and the bugs they love” by Frank Mortimer. In hearing Frank’s love story, I also found myself falling in love. So, after a few bee club meetings, we were ready to jump all in. We ordered bees, purchased the necessarily equipment, and I found a mentor who could walk with me through my first year of random questions. I partnered with the local Episcopal church, who hosts the local community garden for the food pantry, and had some extra acreage that was ideal for a bee yard.
What I have learned is that beekeeping very much nurtures my life and wellbeing. Keeping bees helps center my life in mystery, wonder, and awe. Each time I visit the hives, I come away with more questions than answers. Beekeeping is a life of curiosity where a new thing is always afoot. And like God, I don’t have to literally see or find the queen every visit, but through practice I have come to recognize the signs of her presence and activity as I inspect frames. Beekeeping is a master class in discipleship. It is a very humbling and scary thing to open a hive for the first time by yourself and see 10,000 buzzing bees moving around. Yet, after doing this with a mentor and other students a number of times, something intimidating has become life-giving in a way I didn’t realize was missing in my life. Beekeeping has reminded me that discipleship is more than being a student in a classroom with others…it’s about being out in the world alongside other living beings. Discipleship is about listening and being in conversation. Yes, I do talk with the bees while I inspect the hives. I apologize when I need to smoke a group of bees to move or calm them so I can put a frame back in. I ask their permission at my first honey harvest, and through observation I got a sense of what honey they needed and what honey they were willing to share. Beekeeping has taught me that I am not just a human in nature…but that we are all part of nature together. We are connected in ways we can see and touch and describe. Yet, we are also wonderfully connected in ways that are mysterious, resilient, fragile, and sacred.
For this National Honeybee Day, I give thanks to God for all the pollinators in our world…from those who pollinate flowers and fruits and vegetables, to those who pollinate the world with grace, forgiveness, awe, curiosity, creativity, belonging, hope, and love.