Hello friend,
Wow! What a time. Since I last wrote a newsletter, I’ve experienced two more swarms! It’s been a wondrous time, and this time with my bees and all they have allowed me to witness has made me think a lot about attunement and the wildness within nature. I am also thinking about the mother-daughter themes that have emerged for me recently. It’s been a synchronous and eye-opening time. Eyes. Wide. Open.
I dreamt about a swarm landing in a tree on Thursday last week. They landed high up in a cone-shaped cluster, awaiting their flight to their new home. On Friday, I heard the familiar and loud hum of bees barreling out of the hive, engaged in the ceremony of swarming. I sat and watched it unfold. Thousands of bees came barreling out of the hive, while others did an orientation dance in front of the hive. It all moves so fast, and keeping up with what is happening can be challenging. This is the wisdom of the hive, disguising to the human eye exactly what is happening.
The hive, Persephone, flew high up in the sky, and I knew they would land in the Leyland Cypress. They did. They stayed overnight and journeyed on their way sometime on Friday. On Saturday, I heard the hum again. I went out and saw Aretmis swarming. I had just been in their hive and seen a queen cell, a tell-tale sign and prediction of a swarm. When Artemis began to swarm, I sat and asked if they would land on my side of the Cypress tree (not in my neighbor’s yard) and if they would land on a lower branch. They continued to fly high. I ran inside, grabbed my singing bowl, and engaged in the ancient technique of tanging, which is when you induce a theta state through sound that draws a swarm of bees lower down. Super witchy and mystical.
I only rang the singing bowl a few times before they descended and began to land on a tree branch, not on my side of the fence, but low enough down for me to gather them in a bee box. While I have watched a gazillion videos about swarms and read about how to catch them, I had never done it before. At the same time, the swarm was buzzing around, my neighbor’s daughter saw them, and I saw her. The look on her face was one of horror and excitement. I told her how swarms work and asked if she could call her dad to ask if I could go into their yard to gather the swarm. He obliged.
I took the ladder and ventured through the brush to get to the Leyland Cypress branch. I had to tromp back through the brush with a heavy hive stand and box that amazingly had been sitting in my apiary, empty of bees but full of frames, just waiting for a moment like this. I set up, lit the smoker, took a deep breath, and shook down the bees. It wasn’t simple, and my first attempt failed. They flew back up to the branch. My second attempt, and several shakes later, resulted in the swarm landing in the hive box. Bees began to flap their wings, which is a sign to the other bees, flying around in a frenzy, to enter the box. Flapping wings is a way to spread the hive’s and queen’s pheromone and to signal that this is our new home. After a while, they settled, and I moved them from the other side and into my apiary.
Later that day, I asked my dear friend, Amanda, what I should name them. She said, Leto. I had read about Leto, and I love mythology. So, I repeated Leto a few times, and it rang true. The story goes like this: Leto needed to give birth, but for many reasons, including Zeus and Hera, she couldn’t find a place to give birth. She wandered and wandered in search of a place. Finally, she asked the land, the island of Delos, if she could give birth there. Leto asked permission of the land to give birth to the sun and moon there! Delos responded YES, and with the help of Eileithyia, Leto gave birth to Artemis first, and then, after some time, to Apollo, twins, the sun and moon.
If you’ve followed me this far, you’ll begin to see the magic in all of this. There is so much of it. My hive, Artemis, swarmed. Leto was Artemis’ mother. I caught my first swarm ever and named them Leto. I had a place, a home, already set up for them to come to, and they landed. They are happily bringing in pollen and drinking bee tea now.
You might ask, What does this have to do with anything. It has to do with everything. Cycles. Nature. Wildness. Birth. Home. Finding a Place to Give Birth. The land. Permission. Trust. Care. Mothers. Daughters. Love. Grace. Strength. All. Of. It. Everything.
It is no mistake that I had a dream, saw a queen cell, caught a swarm, and named them Leto. It is no mistake that I brought my mother back to me now. It’s not a mistake that the daughter gave birth to her mother. The rebirth. And it is all happening now in this glorious season of spring.
Right now, we must listen closely to the more-than-human world. We must ask it to make a home for us while so much of what we thought was home is unrecognizable. We must trust the cycles and rewrite history in ways that allow us to move beyond conditions and to be in the primal energy of birth and creation. We must make a home for each other. We must prepare and dream. We must get and stay ready. We must be reborn and be part of the rebirth. We must rely on ancient myths and archetypes to travel through this time. We must listen more deeply in ways we may not have before. We must wait for the dream and the hum and respond with the knowledge we have because, as Clarissa Pinkola Estés says, we were made for these times.
With all this in heart, spirit, and mind, I have recorded a humming practice for you to enjoy!
