Honey bees hang together: linked in chains, sculpting their wax into the sacred geometry of hexagonal cones. They harness energy from the sun through the plants into their honey, and they can do this because they’re highly adaptable, communicative, and social. Many work together for the greater good of the people, pollinators, and planet as a whole. Every member is valued, has a set role, and is supported in contributing.
Humans naturally form interconnected communities - and yet, isolation pervades Western culture. It is in sleeping alone in alleys, overdosing in hidden rooms, and feeling invisible that we lose. When we create opportunities for people to come into connection and to build their own belonging, lives are saved. What could we build if we all linked, creating life and balance together?
Apiary participants (where volunteers spend time with a collection of beehives) report transformative experiences: chronic pain dissipation, stress evaporation and the return of joy. And even if those are just moments, even if the very same burdens wait right outside of the apiary to get picked back up again, these are moments that everyone can carry forward - and they all count.
There are 20,000 species of bees in the world. Each has evolved distinct relationships with the plants and environment they grow up around. When beekeepers slow down, the details begin to emerge: a rusty bottom here, a yellow band there. The individual. And when we meet people, valuing their unique details, experiences, and perspectives, our ideas and assumptions are transformed. Our lived experiences challenge our learned biases. And this is how we begin to dismantle the systems that are placing such incredible stresses on our communities: causing species of bees to disappear, and habitat loss for all kinds of animals.
The impact of this is contained in every drop of honey. It takes a bee her whole life to make a teaspoon of honey: A flower blooms. A bee buzzes. A person breathes. A community shifts. A life is saved.
References:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjB3t0YZzf4