You may have noticed I took a break from the blog for the month of May, and there are a few reasons for that silence. Before I give a rundown of the last two months, I first want to thank you for your understanding! I hope you missed me, but not too much :)

Between the last blog post in April and today, I was battling some seasonal anxiety that seems to arise every May due to a combination of my birthday and Mother’s Day landing close together. While I don’t mind my birthday and celebrating being older and doing the fun little and large activities associated with birthdays like getting free treats, spending time with loved ones, etc., I also spiral into decision paralysis and have an ongoing battle between holding firm to not ‘shoulding on myself’ and stressing over my people-pleasing tendencies. Have a big party, or not? If yes, who to invite without people feeling left out? If not, do I want to do nothing entirely? Do I need to remind people? What if it’s forgotten entirely? What do other people expect? Is celebrating in your thirties strange? What if no one wants to come? What do I want to do?

Then I find myself freezing over Mother’s Day.

There are spoken and unspoken expectations about birthdays and Mother’s Day, and I still haven’t found the right balance for myself with boundaries, support and celebrating between those 2 events.

This year, I worked on my birthday (I might try to change that next year), and Jared gifted me an amazing watercolour portrait done by one of our friends, and bought an ice cream cake and made dinner. To top it off, that weekend we gussied up and went to Betty Lou’s Library for some cocktails.

Sunday, my cousins came over for brunch and games – our fairly new annual tradition. We skipped church that day because sometimes it’s painful to be reminded of your brokenness or called out and highlighted as an example of inclusivity when it feels like anything but loving or honouring. Then I called my mom to see if the flowers we sent are thriving, because I love my mom and know this day is a big deal for her. And then we had a quiet evening, hanging out with the pets and avoiding social media.

I’m a mess of emotions between the last week of April and the second week of May. To help, I try planning things I can look forward to after those weeks, and this year I had BIG plans. This year, we got a beehive.

I took a few years to really consider if caring for bees was something I was willing to do. After a weekend intensive course that resulted in a certificate (necessary for keeping bees in Alberta), and watching countless beekeeping videos, talking to beekeepers and former beekeepers, and reading extensively on the topic, I decided to dive in.

This leads to my new venture into keeping bees.

Day one was a whirlwind. I made Jared get up way too early to pick up our nucleus (5 frames of bees and their comb in a small box), and then carefully drove home to transfer the frames in the nucleus into the brood box I’d painted weeks ago. We had a few hitchhikers in the back of our vehicle that wanted to get back inside the nucleus but couldn’t because it was sealed. So once we parked, I picked up the nucleus and brought it to our backyard while Jared tried getting the 2 bees to leave our car. I put the nucleus next to the hive box and then gathered my supplies: jacket with veil, gloves, smoker, hive tool, lighter, sugar water, pollen patty, and lemongrass essential oil. I put a few drops of the oil into the birdbath and the pet autowaterer I’d set up with rocks for the bees to have a drinking source and not drown. Next, I donned my jacket and gloves and poured the sugar water into the liquid hive feeder, then started the smoker. It was time to open the nucleus.

Taking the frames from the nucleus and inspecting each one to see where the queen was, spying pollen, honey, eggs, worker and drone brood amongst all the bumbling black and yellow bodies was enrapturing. I forgot to speak about the things I was seeing and what I was doing for the clips Jared was recording. Look at all of that life!

I finally found the marked queen on the last frame, which was such a relief. My anxiety spiked a bit going from frame to frame, wondering if I’d missed her or if she’d died. Placing the frames in the hive, I was also scared to squish her, the heartbeat of this super organism. But the bees needed to be in a safe home, and I had found the queen. Sometimes you have to hope and trust in something other than yourself.

In the process of setting up the hive, I did get stung once, but that was because I leaned my arm against my leg, and, unfortunately, a bee. All in all, if that was the greatest tragedy of the day it really wasn’t that terrible of a day in the grand scheme of things.

Finally, the last frame, the pollen patty (their protein source), the inner lid and the outer lid were all put in place. And there were bees zipping around, orienting themselves to their new home, inspecting me and Jared, the plants and trees in our yard.

I gave them space and went inside. The next time I open the hive up will be in a week to see how much they’re expanding, see if they have enough food, and try to find the queen again. I’m looking forward to that process and learning more about my colony of bees.

Looking Forward

What writing is like…