In recognition of Valentine’s Day, I offer you two options of advice regarding love and bees: either introduce your honey to the bees, or don’t. The bond between bee and keeper is strong, and there is no finer discriminator of “the one” than Apis Mellifera:
“An apocryphal ‘telling the bees’ tale appeared in the November 1938 edition of the magazine Atlantic Monthly concerning the wedding of a young lass in the Lake District to a stranger to those parts. Although the bride’s family had accepted their new son-in-law as an honourable man, the bees judged his character differently, and when he was taken to be introduced to the bees in accordance with the requirements of the ritual, they stung him to death. It appears that bees had just cause to doubt the bridegroom’s veracity according to the evidence revealed during the investigation into his demise. It transpired that the bridegroom was a bigamist, who had changed his name to avoid identification and was seeking a new young bride with a dowry.” *
I usually employ bees for determining a potential, viable mate. I ask them to open a hive with me. Not to see if they get stung to death by the bees, but to see if they are willing to be brave and curious, allured into the unknown through an act of daring. If they refuse after I “guarantee” they won’t get stung, then I know they are not the person I am seeking. The only exception would be the kind of allergic reaction that finds me giving an emergency tracheotomy in the field, but even then, I’m sure it would become a deal-breaker in the end.
But I have had experiences with bees and loves which in hindsight were telling of the direction of a relationship. Several years ago I asked my girlfriend on a date to help me harvest some honey on a very hot, dry August day. I had never heard a beehive roar before that day, but they were not happy with me or her. By the end of the experience, we were both doing the bee-dance across the field. I received seventeen stings, mostly to my left arm, and she received eleven. It was one of those obstacles in a relationship that take a lot of time to reconcile if you ever do, and although she has become a dear friend and we can laugh about it now, the bees were telling us something that day.
Don’t worry; it’s not all stings and fleeing when we ask the bees. May you find yourself sitting in reverie of your sweetie, with bees alighting nearby. Indeed, there is no finer sign than that.
[...] this swarm, introducing it to a hive, and maintaining it at the Longfellow Garden. Since my Valentine’s Day post, a lot of people have been wondering if I have introduced Rachael to the bees and if they approve [...]