If you see me at the grocery store buying big bags of sugar (and I buy a lot of sugar) I am just feeding my hobby! That’s right I’m feeding my hobby–not my habit, but my hobby. And that means I am feeding my honeybees.
This is the time of year that beekeepers across the northern states are feeding their hives in order to get them through the winter. All summer long the bees have been making honey from the nectar they gather. When we then harvest a portion of their hard work it means that we need to provide a nectar substitute or they just might not have enough honey to survive a long cold winter. If we take from them, we need to give back to them.
And so on these autumn days my bees are busy transferring the sugar syrup I provide into their available honeycomb. There they work and work at dehydrating it and combining it with their secretions as it becomes a kind of honey ready to be capped until they need it later in the winter. Already I am enjoying the sweetness of their summer labors. I certainly hope that my autumn labors of feeding them now will be the food that will get them through winter until they begin to gather the first pollen of spring.
My little apiary has taught me many things these 11 years. To marvel and wonder in awe at the systems of life God has put in place is a starting point. The beautiful interconnectedness of all life is a wonderful lesson as I have watched more blossoms become fruit and vegetable and nectar become honey. My bees have been God’s daily sermon illustration as I listen to the wisdom of God’s creative design in their contented hum.
I have also witnessed the spirit of stewardship my bees have inspired as neighbors have pledged to refrain from all pesticides on their lawns and gardens. And sometimes I wonder if I am seeing this stewardship of God’s creation spreading across Cook County and all the land like an increasing trend; from Arrowhead Electric Co-op’s promise to not spray powerlines to my perception that there are more dandelions this year than ever before.
Could it be that more and more people are trying to care for pollinators?
I can only say thank you. I know for a certainty however that thousands of people have expressed their concerns for honeybees and other pollinators and in doing so have influenced major stores and garden chemical companies to cease the use and sale of the worst of the pesticides. That has proved to me that we can learn from God’s world and we can respond with the power to change. Again, I say thank you.
Another simple spiritual lesson my bees have taught me is gratitude. A friend of mine in the farming country of southern Minnesota tried to put into words the flood of feelings he had every time he stood on a hill overlooking his farm. Despite all the hard, hard work of farming, he always felt that he was the recipient of the immense blessings.
“All this is God’s work– not mine,” he’d say. I could feel his humble gratitude toward God.
In the microcosm of my little bee hive as I place a feeder full of sugar syrup on the top frames and a hundred bees cover my hands, I feel something of what he was trying to express. The process of pollination and food production long predates me, and in fact predates all of humanity itself. The intricate activity of the hive proves to me every time how great is our God! As I oversee my little “farm,” I understand that I am privileged to participate in the immense blessings God has provided. Like Adam and Eve placed in the garden to “till and keep,” God allows me the honor to care for what He has made. Gratitude is perhaps the most profound spiritual lesson we will ever learn. And as a friend recently wrote, “Thank you,” is the most sincere prayer we can ever utter.
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Reverend Mark Ditmanson of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
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