The Beehive in a Tree

Last night, as I was sleeping,

I dreamt-marvelous error!-

that I had a beehive

here inside my heart.

And the golden bees

were making white combs

and sweet honey

from my old failures.

-Antonio Machado

About a year ago my friend Si took me on a walk in my neighborhood to see a beehive in a tree.  He led us to a spot under the tree and then told me to look up. It was one of those jaw dropping moments; like a bee sting. It was a stunning thing to witness this magnificent organic sculpture hanging way up high in an old blackened craggy elm. Strange and mysterious.

He told me that on rare occasions a honeybee colony will build comb in the open air if they do not find a more suitable place-like the hollow of a tree- quick enough after they swarm.  When that happens they will not last the winter, (that was a hard thing to hear) this temporary home would not sustain the hive and they would die.  All through the summer and into the fall I would make frequent visits and look up from my place on the ground to this curious form above.  Once it got really cold, I could no longer discern any bee-bodies moving in and out of the hive. In the spring I visited it again and again but there was not any evidence of life moving around the honeycomb. I  became intent on getting it down.  But the question was: how?

Enter Shelia, tree pruner, bee keeper and flying arborist. Something of a Peterpan with a purpose, she flew up this tree and scaled it with seeming ease.  I’ve never seen anything quite comparable, a performance both high-wire circus act and rock climbing ballet in a tree.  By the time she rose up into the branches, I realized too late, I should have brought a video camera. But sometimes it is better not to try and capture the moment but let our memory serve us and hold the event.  She simply took my breath away.  Once she was close enough to cut through the branch the hive hung from, (oh how great my anticipation) the coveted treasure was at hand.  As it was lowered down into my open arms, I felt a palpable excitement to receive this golden home, great gift from the worker bees.

It is without a doubt, a work of art; a captivating object of utter beauty. Eight combs are attached to the limb, each one carefully constructed of translucent wax. The hive is almost completely cleaned out, except for a very few delicate little bee wings peeking out of cells in the interior, no bees remain. No honey, or capped cells evidenced on any part of the eight hanging combs.  It is immaculate except for a noticeable dark brown dusting across each of these rather tongue-shaped forms, clearly used, a few random leaves stuck in places where the combs fused with the tree.  It is a thing of exquisite perfection.  Each and every hexagon shaped cell boggles the mind, delights the eye and leaves substantial yet incomprehensible proof of the wonder of our animate universe.

Of course we will never know what happened to the colony of bees, whether they endured the winter by abandoning their wax nest to build another home in a more protected location.  But I like to think they did; I like to think they found a more sustainable place nearby and that maybe they are the very bees sucking nectar from the flowers in our garden this spring and making sweet honey to survive another year.

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