Happy Birthday x 2

It's been a year since I received the Cease and Desist notice from the city of Denver. It was June 12Th ,Peter's birthday and the bee-gining of work that would eventually bring to fruition an ordinance allow beekeeping in the mile high city. As I read the notice anger and fear coerced through my veins.

At first, it was just about keeping bees. With all that had been written concerning their decline it seemed the least I could do. Host a box of bugs.
It quickly turned into something much deeper for me.

Marduke had arrived at our door step like so many other animals. He had been relinquished as a sickly eight week old pup at, our local veterinarian, Planned Pethood.
He was all legs and had enormously sad eyes that enveloped me. He took over my heart and would become a very dear friend.
It was near the end of my beekeeping course that I had Marduke put to sleep.
The decision, his absence, all of it left me feeling as though I had been hit by shrapnel and I couldn't, just couldn't determine the size of the wound.
I lumbered through spring half-heartedly awaiting my packages of bees.

Following an installation hives must be checked frequently. Is the queen in there? Is she doing what a queen does? Are the workers drawing out comb?

Trepidation does not a beekeeper make and I had very little in my initial encounters. In Marduke's absences I was numb and found it difficult to summons any; joy, excitement or even fear concerning the bees.
Each time I was working with the girls, and I was thinking about Marduke which was all the time, they would sting me. I was caught in an eddy of thought and emotion. Had I made the right decision about Marduke? The fact that it was my decision was eviscerating.
With each trip to the hive they painfully nudged me back to present. After numerous stings, which gave way to swollen body parts, I realized that they were offering me a respite from my grief. The peripheries of our worlds afford a place for me to leave my torment, sorrow and sadness.
When I was able to quiet my thoughts they declared a ceasefire and let me work among them.

When we lose a being of precious nature it's first physical and then we scramble to hold them in our thoughts. Our grief is about reconstructing a place for them in our memories.
My fear was letting go of Marduke, however each time I participated consciously with them I came away with another small piece of building material in the form of acceptance.
The bees are and will always be a place for me to take myself. I had to let go of a buddy and they consoled me.
The energy of a hive is exurbanite and nourishing.
The hive is an organism that seems to embrace life and takes death in stride.