UNDRESSING FOR THE BEES

HOW DOROTHY ALICE'S BICYCLE COMES FULL CIRCLE

I. KAREN INTRODUCES ME TO JACKIE

This woman lived next door
to Grandma and Grandpa Everett.
She learned to ride on my mother's bicycle.
My mother's bike went to Sherman
an he learned to ride on it,
and when he was done with it,
it went to her an she learned
to ride on my mother's bike.

II. JACKIE SAYS,

She must have been baby sitting me
and I slept upstairs in her house.
It was exciting to go upstairs in that house.
My mother's mother died when she was a child.
My mother went to live in an orphanage
from the time she was 8 until 18.
She had a good experience.
She wrote a story about it.
It was a sad day when Dorothy died.

III. WALKING WITH KAREN BESIDE THE CORN

Mary Ellen told me Uncle Frank and Aunt Edna
wanted me too, after Mama died.
It's funny how things work out.
I was wanted in so many ways
nobody could say and I never knew.

Jim Bodeen
12 July 2010
New Ross, Indiana


DRESSING UP TO GO INTO THE BEEHIVE

           --for Beth Binch

Long white pant legs dress me up on Sunday,
but this is a white cotton body suit
with a hard hat and netting
that zips me up from the neck.
Beth wants to guarantee my safety
while drawing on my fear.
Bees can smell your fear.
Look at them flying around out there.
Imagine the bee line you're going to make.
Bees come out and know where they're going.
Beth says her bees are in Corn Flowers,
Red Bud, pears and Dutch Clover.

She shows me the hive tool and brush,
explains how propolis glues hives together
to withstand weather, lighting wood chips
and dead leaves to go into the smoker.
Smoke alerts them to danger,
then calms them down. In a danger mode
they engorge themselves on honey, getting ready
for flight. I pull on white and yellow gloves
to the elbow. No way a bee can get you,
Beth says, putting me on alert.

Oh, what beauties! I love these ladies!

This is the world of royal jelly.

She holds two new frames we'll place
inside the hive to build the foundation of bee's wax
that will draw it all out in honeycomb.
This is what they love. Last week one hive swarmed
and left its population in half.
30-60,000 bees in a hive. She found the Queen
hiding under the hive. Another bee keeper
marked her. Look! she says, finding her Queen.
See her! The Queen is a marker.
They're active, brooding, repopulating--
making honey combs on frames.

My left hand's not strong enough to break
the hive from the propolis and lift.
Surprised by its weight I alarm the bees,
and Beth laughs and says, Back around
towards me on the other side.
Bees have a 3-mile travel distance,
stay in one flower all day. They do the bee's dance.
Don't work, fly, or navigate in rain.
Beth, they're sensing my fearmones.

You can't kill bees. It's against the law.
The swarm belong to nobody.
Bees are legally protected.
Nobody owns the bees.
Beekeepers share. My swarm.
Last week, somewhere else, in another hive.

Beth says she'll harvest some this year,
leaving bees plenty of honey for winter.
Commercial beekeepers can get greedy
and not leave enough for the bees.
They use too much pesticide.
Maybe 30 beekeepers in Montgomery County.
Beth keeps three hives of the environment.

If something happens to our bees
we have three years left. Beth takes off her gloves
to get a fingerful to give to me. I do the same
to take it from her finger. I must be vulnerable
to the bees to taste their nectar.

Jim Bodeen
11 July 2010
New Ross, Indiana