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Our bees have certainly been busy this season! The first honey extraction was completed at the end of July.
If you're interested in joining the bee club, please contact Tim through the Church office. |
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Season's End Report
Another season of beekeeping is winding down and in some ways I know less about the bees now than I did 18 months ago when the Glory Bee project started! I agree with the following by Sue Hubbell from A book of bees: and how to keep them:
“The only time I ever believed that I knew all there was to know about beekeeping was the first year I was keeping them. Every year since I’ve known less and less and have accepted the humbling truth that bees know more about making honey than I do.”
While this may be so, there is still so much personal satisfaction from the mystery of bees. And the site of the seven hives on the Glory LC Back Forty is a special spot. The heavy air in the late afternoon and early evening brings the fragrance of the nectar-bearing flowers. Move a few steps toward the creek from the hives and you will hear the sound of running water beside a beaver dam. Hawks and herons fly about—one hawk in particular seems to cry a greeting to me every time I happen by. A robin sings its song. All is punctuated by the regular rumbling of trains on the CN line with the occasional horn toot from a friendly locomotive engineer.
This entire beekeeping pastime is enriching for me on many levels including the great interest by all in Glory LC, Pastor Markus’ continual encouragement and of course the mentorship by Erich Kleinke. One of the greatest things I’ve learned is to slow down and enjoy small moments of beauty. It is a lot like God’s promise of grace where can step outside of the immediate anxieties we may have to relax and realize that God has a deep and intricate plan for us. We may not understand the plan right now, but we are allowed to have very brief glimpses of what is to come!
As I look back on the last 18 months I would like to thank each one of your part in the bee project whether you have visited or walked by the (wildly coloured) hive boxes, read about my sweet journey in Church Matters or simply came up to Eric and I to ask “how are the bees doing?” It has been a wonderful pastime that will continue. If I may conclude by quoting Sue Hubbell again: “I like pulling on a baggy bee suit, forgetting myself and getting as close to the bees’ lives as they will let me, remembering in the process that there is more to life than the merely human.”
Tim Kihn
Another season of beekeeping is winding down and in some ways I know less about the bees now than I did 18 months ago when the Glory Bee project started! I agree with the following by Sue Hubbell from A book of bees: and how to keep them:
“The only time I ever believed that I knew all there was to know about beekeeping was the first year I was keeping them. Every year since I’ve known less and less and have accepted the humbling truth that bees know more about making honey than I do.”
While this may be so, there is still so much personal satisfaction from the mystery of bees. And the site of the seven hives on the Glory LC Back Forty is a special spot. The heavy air in the late afternoon and early evening brings the fragrance of the nectar-bearing flowers. Move a few steps toward the creek from the hives and you will hear the sound of running water beside a beaver dam. Hawks and herons fly about—one hawk in particular seems to cry a greeting to me every time I happen by. A robin sings its song. All is punctuated by the regular rumbling of trains on the CN line with the occasional horn toot from a friendly locomotive engineer.
This entire beekeeping pastime is enriching for me on many levels including the great interest by all in Glory LC, Pastor Markus’ continual encouragement and of course the mentorship by Erich Kleinke. One of the greatest things I’ve learned is to slow down and enjoy small moments of beauty. It is a lot like God’s promise of grace where can step outside of the immediate anxieties we may have to relax and realize that God has a deep and intricate plan for us. We may not understand the plan right now, but we are allowed to have very brief glimpses of what is to come!
As I look back on the last 18 months I would like to thank each one of your part in the bee project whether you have visited or walked by the (wildly coloured) hive boxes, read about my sweet journey in Church Matters or simply came up to Eric and I to ask “how are the bees doing?” It has been a wonderful pastime that will continue. If I may conclude by quoting Sue Hubbell again: “I like pulling on a baggy bee suit, forgetting myself and getting as close to the bees’ lives as they will let me, remembering in the process that there is more to life than the merely human.”
Tim Kihn