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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

Even if you find one post on the subject, I've posted a lot on basic beekeeping skills like installing bees, harvesting honey, inspecting the hive, etc. so be sure to search for more once you've found a topic of interest to you. And watch the useful videos and slide shows on the sidebar. All of them have captions. Please share posts of interest via Facebook, Pinterest, etc.

I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

Need help with an Atlanta area swarm? Visit Found a Swarm? Call a Beekeeper. ‪(404) 482-1848‬

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Monday, November 15, 2010

I miss Honey on the Table

This, as most of you know, was not my year for honey.  I miss my bees on my deck and I didn't realize how much I would miss their honey.  I am glad there are bees at the two community gardens and at Valerie's house, but May and June seem far away and honey is really missing from my table.

I have a few jars left from 2008 but I feel stingy with it and miss the generous feeling of many jars in the cupboard.

One of my new favorite poets, Mary Oliver, writes often about the bees.  Her "Honey at the Table" really speaks to me:

Honey at the Table


It fills you with the soft
essence of vanished flowers, it becomes 
a trickle sharp as a hair that you follow
from the honey pot over the table


and out the door and over the ground,
and all the while it thickens,


grows deeper and wilder, edged
with pine boughs and wet boulders,
pawprints of bobcat and bear, until


deep in the forest you
shuffle up some tree, you rip the bark


you float into and swallow the dripping combs,
bits of the tree, crushed bees - a taste
composed of everything lost, in which everything 
lost is found.


--Mary Oliver from American Primitive


She has written a number of poems including bees and I'll share more over time.





1 comment:

  1. Anonymous11:14 AM

    I found your blog while looking for Mary Oliver poems about bees. I am a first year beekeeper and in love with my 'girls'. I have swarm bees; one by accident and three others caught. I even caught one by myself without the help of my mentor. I look forward to learning more, and learn something new almost daily. Elaine.

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