A Bee in Catherine Comello Stehlin’s Window

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Catherine Comello Stehlin has died. Some people are simply forces of nature, and when they leave us, they leave gaping holes. That’s the way I feel about Catherine, and I didn’t even know her that well. I wish I had. I loved her from the moment I first spoke with her on the phone, and I grew to love her more through several conversations and by watching her spirit-filled life on Facebook. I won’t go on and on, but I am not usually this crazy about people.

They say that when someone important to us dies, we should tell the bees. Which I have done. They need to know about the shifts in our world.

Anyway, several years ago, photojournalist Emily Maxwell spent some time with a few local beekeepers documenting the plight of the bees and urban beekeepers. Emily recorded Catherine’s voice, and I like hearing it. To hear it for yourself, click on this link and then watch the slideshow titled “The Rise of CCD and Urban Beekeeping in Cincinnati.” There, at about the half-way point, you’ll find images of Catherine and her fire-escape bees. And you can hear her voice as she talks about them.

 

(photo by Emily Maxwell)

 

 

 

 

So far, so good from Anarchy Apiaries

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Sam Comfort and Anarchy Apiary queens

 

The temperatures these past couple of weeks have given those of us in Ohio an opportunity to check on the bees and to feed sugar candy or honey to those colonies running low on stores. I’ve made a wonderful discovery, Reader: By my calculations (which might be off by a smidgen because my record keeping isn’t perfect), every single hive in which I introduced a queen from Anarchy Apiaries is still living. What a joy to open a hive in which a colony is quietly working toward spring.

Colonies with genetics from my own queens…queens that I started from local surviving stock…are still flying as well. Though I’m not ready to produce quantities of queens, Sam Comfort is. So, if your hive died this winter, I suggest you consider replacing your queens mid summer with those from Anarchy Apiaries.

 

Take it Down a Notch

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Okay, friends. I’m just gonna post this little WKRC video about the bees at the zoo farm right here. But I cringe when I see it. Because I must have been hyped up on adrenaline when the news people came around. I hate to think I really talk this fast and that I sometimes sound so know-it-ally. I don’t know what it is about the presence of a video camera that makes us act differently. And I don’t know what it is that makes me feel as if I need to have all the right answers when journalists ask their wonderful questions. I prefer humility. I don’t mind self confidence, but I dislike sounding as if I am certain of every single thing.

I’ve decided to speak more slowly. And to take that extra moment to think before I speak. And to smile as I think. All of which should make me a more pleasant person to hang with, don’t you think? Sometimes I miss that slight drawl in the conversations of my native Texans. Because there’s a certain casualness to it. A drawl makes you feel as if not everything is an emergency. And it’s usually drawled out with a slight smile as if to say, everything will be all right.

You Can’t Squeeze Blood from a Turnip

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Reader, I cannot tell you how often people want to know how many pounds of honey they’ll get from their hive.

Some folks seem to believe that the sheer fact that there are bees means there will be honey. And lots of it. Which is true only so long as there are flowers.

It’s unfair to expect bees to deliver honey for us if we insist on keeping our dull and boring yards weed free and closely mown. Let it go a little bit. Let our lives rewild.

Here’s the bottom line, my dear Reader: Bees can make honey only only only only if bees have access to flowers. The End. The more flowers, the more honey. And I’m talking about wild, native flowers. NOT KNOCKOUT ROSES. NOT DAYLILIES. Not those fancy flowers you pick up at the garden center. Bees need bonafide native wildflowers. And herbs. And vegetable gardens.

Bees need those wonderfully wild things that grow naturally in fence rows and in acres of fallow fields. And if you don’t have a fence row or a fallow field, then perhaps you can create a little pocket of crazy wildflowers wherever you are. See, bees need A LOT of flowers, and if we all plant a little, that equals A LOT. This is true of everything. Which is completely cool.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poetry Sunday: The Last Days of Summer Before the First Frost

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The Last Days of Summer Before the First Frost

BY TIM BOWLING

Here at the wolf’s throat, at the egress of the howl,
all along the avenue of deer-blink and salmon-kick
where the spider lets its microphone down
into the cave of the blackberry bush—earth echo,
absence of the human voice—wait here
with a bee on your wrist and a fly on your cheek,
the tiny sun and tiny eclipse.
It is time to be grateful for the breath
of what you could crush without thought,
a moth, a child’s love, your own life.
There might never be another chance.
How did you find me, the astonished mother says
to her four-year-old boy who’d disappeared
in the crowds at the music festival.
I followed my heart, he shrugs,
so matter-of-fact you might not see
behind his words
(o hover and feed, but not too long)
the bee trails turning to ice as they’re flown.
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You Can Buy TwoHoneys Honey at Coffee Please

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Coffee Please in Madeira, OH

This is my coffee shop. I stop in here almost every morning at 5:30am. And again at 7:15am. Sometimes for lunch. Sometimes for an afternoon cappuccino. The people who work there are my friends. As are many of the regulars who love Coffee Please, too.

Coffee Please is currently the only public place to buy your local TwoHoneys honey. Go there. Buy honey. Enjoy a cappuccino. Look for me.