Excerpts from a beekeeper’s journal

Inside: See how a personal, intimate beekeeper’s journal can help you become a better more thoughtful beekeeper and enjoy all the bright moments honey bees can offer.

Sultry afternoon. Windless. Melty. My hens bury themselves in silken soil beneath the hop vines. On toasted concrete, Minikin stretches to twice her feline length. My hives smell like ground beef and honeysuckle, proteinaceous and sweet.

Many of us keep some type of beekeeping log. A log contains data — facts and figures that describe what we found, what we did, and what comes next. It may also contain colony maintenance reminders, to-do lists, and inspection notes. Some of us record these reminders in a notebook or digital device, while others scratch code inside a telescoping cover.

Before doing my rounds, I gather the things I will need, then proceed from hive to hive, performing tasks and recording colony health. I work as fast as possible, always in a hurry to get done. It’s sometimes fun and sometimes a chore, but logging can fast-track you into becoming a successful beekeeper.

Log vs. journal

Beyond logging, another rewarding record you can keep is a journal, a collection of notes and reflections that float unbidden into your beekeeper’s brain. A beekeeping journal is not a record of inspections, queen replacements, and mite treatments. No, not that. It’s more like a series of screenshots, your bees’ activity, visitors, environment, and adventures. Or sometimes it’s a snapshot of your bee-inspired brain — an idea for a try-it, a fix-it, or a better way to manage your colonies.

Unlike a log, journal entries can be soft and amorphous, their benefits fuzzy and inscrutable. While logs (other than those we cut from trees) won’t keep you warm on a chilly winter’s night, a journal most certainly will. It can fill you with cozy gratitude for bees, nature, and the wonders of life, something that’s especially helpful when day-to-day trivia dampens your spirit.

When you observe and record bee life, you learn about your own. You absorb triumphs and failures, theirs and yours. Your notes help guide you through conflict and contradiction, disagreement and indecision. Of course, we can observe without recording, but the act of recording helps us learn, interpret, and remember.

I call it mountain melancholy. It’s a feeling I get in early fall when the first arctic breeze seeps under my jacket and painted maple leaves crunch underfoot. It happens when I taste the sweet/tart tang of a new apple, inhale the smoldering warmth of a wood fire, or see the orange tip of a chanterelle poking through sodden moss. It happens during those moments when I see bees labor heavily under the last pollen loads of autumn.

Rules for journal-keeping

Heads-up here: Journal-keeping has no rules. Having kept notebooks most of my life, I’ve discovered the best ones have the least structure. If you have unrealistic goals like writing every day, writing without cross-outs, or using only blue ink, you will quit in frustration. In my mind, journaling should be free from psychological stress. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling, or complete sentences. Don’t obsess about neatness or following the lines. These left-brained contrivances can kill creative thinking.

Instead, scribble in your notebook when a passing thought intrigues you or when you have a question. Jot down conversations, project ideas, and links to articles or videos. If you coin words or have lousy spelling, no one cares.

When I review my old journals, the ones that make me happy are the ones I wrote without censorship. They contain drawings, diagrams, mind maps, poems, random words, overheard snippets, quotes, recipes, questions, and ideas. I review these bee-related musings when I need a plan, a story, or an inspiration.

Often, these notes simmer in my unconscious until, with little warning, they germinate into a project. Inspired by my own cacography, I’ve tried keeping a website, submitting an article to ABJ, and learning to identify native bees — all things that worked for me. I also tried to design a section super (so-so results), keep an outyard (abject failure), and harden my black bear defense (didn’t do it; paid the price). My foray into building a straw-bale pollinator garden ended when dozens of leafcutter bees nested in the hollow straws (misalignment of goals).

Of course, not everything we write is worth keeping. I’ve crossed out multiple pages of mush, rants, and AI-style hallucinations. But garbage is okay because it helps us learn (and you’ve got to put it somewhere).

Winter is the time to repair supers, build frames, assemble section boxes, and paint. Before my bees fly again, another Christmas will pass. Another turn of the calendar. Another birthday. My bees and I go our separate ways during the dark days of winter.

What’s inside a beekeeper’s journal

My beekeeper’s journal is also where I keep detailed phenological notes for future comparison. This year, for example, I began hearing Pacific tree frogs in late January.^* I knew this early date was unusual, so I checked through prior journals. My notes reminded me that two years ago, while curled around a book on a February night, their unexpected green voices startled me. And a year before that, they sang in early March. Times are changing, so perhaps my frogs will soon predict spring better than Punxsutawney Phil.

Other dates I include are the bloom times of certain flowers and the appearance of specific insects, animals, and dandelions. I also jot down the timing of swarms, storms, robbing, drone eviction, and colony losses. Sometimes I record the taste and color of new honey or the shade of pollen by date.

As you can see from my entries, anything goes, so I sometimes slide into the soppy and saccharine. I like to sit on a stump near the hives, watching and listening. I keep my mind free to observe whatever is there, rather than searching for a particular thing. In peaceful companionship, the bees and I keep busy, each doing our own thing.

Allowing myself to observe nature without expectation is revealing. For example, I’ve learned to recognize bird songs. I’ve learned to separate bees from wasps, flies from beetles, and slugs from everything else. I’ve watched my bees’ flight paths change from morning till night and from season to season, right along with their temperaments.

By patiently watching, I’ve seen spectacular sights. I’ve watched a queen return to her hive with mating sign still attached, and I saw a mouse scuttle freely through a hive entrance amid hundreds of indifferent foragers. I’ve seen a lizard crawl out of a hive, a baby possum lick up dead bees, and a gang of honey bees scuttle a bald-faced hornet.

I also take my journal into my workshop, where I make notes on what works and what doesn’t, and what I should try next. I jot down questions about tools or methods or alternative materials. My journal follows me into the kitchen where I make notes while cooking fondant or honey cakes. And I toss it in my truck when visiting beekeeping friends. I’ve stopped along the road to make notes about unique hive stands, hive placements, or hive art. Whatever attracts my beekeeper’s attention finds a place in the book.

What is the best part of beekeeping? I like fiddling with pieces of wood and tools I never had a use for. I like being outside on a summer day, inhaling the hive scent, watching the bees dart and soar. But I also love bees on blustery fall days, and snowy winter days, and earthy spring ones. I love the whole outsideness of beekeeping.

An unexpected affection for bees

Non-commercial beekeepers have an assortment of reasons for keeping bees. They want to have a clean source of honey, pollinate their gardens and orchards, or teach their children about nature (or at least divert them from their smartphones).

But many beekeepers find an unexpected solace in their bees, something they never expected. They develop a rapport, a sharing, with them. Yes, it sounds mushy and melodramatic, but the emotional connection is undeniable. Genuine affection for bees is universal among beekeepers. You see it in their faces and hear it in the sweet nothings they whisper to their colonies.

I am convinced that beekeepers persist against spectacular odds — things like mites, pesticides, and disease — not because of the promise of honey or money, pollination, or recognition. Instead, we persist because we see our human selves reflected in the things bees do. We admire them, emulate them, and believe we understand them. Bees are us.

History confirms this admiration in art, poetry, insignia, and biblical references. Bees and their industry symbolize dedication, prosperity, fertility, rejuvenation, selflessness, teamwork, generosity, romance, and magic.

Even if we mistake instinctive behaviors for human traits or recklessly imbue bees with human emotions, doing so can help us through tough times: those times when we need to believe in something beyond our ken.

I’ve done what I can to prepare my colonies for winter. I’ve checked for diseases and treated for mites. Honey stores are high, entrances reduced. They have enough ventilation but not too much. “Bring it on,” I hear them say.

My personification epiphany

Although many of my journal entries make their way into articles and blog posts, written observations offer more than a poetic turn of phrase. I’ve discovered that journaling about bees reveals a lot more about us than them. And because we humans seldom remember that we are a part of nature rather than apart from it, reflecting on bee life can be illuminating.

For example, I’m often criticized for anthropomorphizing bees, as in the above quote: “‘Bring it on,’ I hear them say.” I appreciate the objection, and I understand a desire for separation, yet I continue to do it. Still, I wonder, “Why do I anthropomorphize?” Moreover, why do so many other beekeepers do it too?

On a sultry afternoon after years of bee-watching and note-taking, I found an answer to my question — at least, one that works for me. It occurred to me I had never seen a person sit before a dog house or fishbowl with notebook in hand, pondering the meaning of life. Whenever I’ve witnessed such introspection, it occurred in the presence of a social animal, the kind that lives in hen houses, bat caves, or bee hives. We are curious about the social ones because we are social ones. Honey bees mirror ourselves.

What keeps us going as humans — and perhaps as bees — are goals rather than achievements. A bee that successfully delivers a load of nectar turns around, intent on doing it — or some other mundane job — again. In her zeal to fulfill the next mission, she forgets what she did in the past. We humans are no different. If we write a book, we mitigate our success as we work to write another. After we accumulate five colonies, we want six. If we earn 100k, we strive for 150. And so it goes. Humans, like bees, are accumulators, always preparing for the future by searching for more.

And just like bees, we collect, hoard, interact, communicate, and build social structures. We save, steal, defend, and kill. What’s more, we get angry and “sting” those who mess with our treasure. No matter how much we accumulate or what we accomplish, we want more. Always more.

I’m convinced that the traits humans have in common with honey bees explain why we are so apt to personify them. But mice, llamas, cows, and goats? Not so much. Even though we share much more biology with our four-footed mammal friends, and even though we dote on dogs and cats, horses and bunnies, we behave more like the six-legged, cold-blooded, winged invertebrates that live in our hives.

Once this idea took hold in my mind, I stopped worrying about personifying bees. After all, honey bees — being so similar to humans — probably beeify us in return. What goes around comes around.

I was taught that obsession was a bad thing — a life misdirected. Certainly, there are types of obsession that are best left to the books that name them. But now I see that obsession can be a gift, one that provides direction and purpose. It can give you joy at each success and motivation at every failure. It can open your mind to learning and your heart to teaching.

You don’t need a reason to write

There is no more riveting reminder of connection than patiently observing your bees. Amidst restless grasses and dappled sunshine, we feel the lure of the wild. The banter of birds, chatter of chipmunks, and purr of insects remind us we are part of a whole: Like them, we emerge into the world, work, accumulate, and die. For humans, happiness and contentment, joy and sadness, fill the interstices of that pre-ordained framework. As for bees? We don’t know, but their similarity is stunning.

So go ahead. Buy that notebook and allow your bees to expand your mind. Use your private space to ponder, hone your powers of observation, sharpen your beekeeping skills, and solve those perplexing problems. The more you write, the sooner you will build a reservoir of excitement, disappointment, inspiration, and yes, even melancholy.

And no, you do not need a journal to keep bees. But why not?

Rusty
Honey Bee Suite

A Note and Reference

*The type of tree frog here in the coastal Pacific Northwest is sometimes called the Hollywood frog (or chorus frog) because filmmakers recorded its song for night scenes in endless cowboy movies, even ones set in places where tree frogs don’t exist. https://www.wildlifeheritage.org/gallery/pacific-tree-frog/

About Me

I backed my love of bee science with a bachelor’s degree in Agronomic Crops and a master’s in Environmental Studies. I write extensively about bees, including a current column in American Bee Journal and past columns in Two Million Blossoms and Bee Craft. I’ve endured multiple courses in melittology and made extensive identifications of North American bees for iNaturalist and other organizations. My master beekeeper certificate issued from U Montana. I’m also an English nerd. More here.