Journey Through Cancer – Chapter 38 – Overconfidence and Reality

Last night and today, I've been working on getting my plan started for moving the bees from the hollow of the oak tree into my hive. Finally it has been fully set into motion. Last night I covered the opening that the bees were using with screen and started cutting the branch of the trunk section by section. Unfortunately, the tree beat me last night. Today in the daytime I started again cutting the tree in sections. At the same time I spritzed the screened area to give the bees water. However, the bees started to find their way past the screen by creeping through wrinkles along the edge of the screen.
When I was cutting the tree, I had to cut each section in parts resting between each. I also sprayed the bees who were on the outside with sugar water to calm them. Considering the fact that I was working on their home and could even be perceived as attacking it, they were amazingly docile. Until I did something really dumb, they had only stung me three times. After a friend came over to help me with the cutting, the second section he cut opened the hollow that the colony was occupying. They did get rather upset with him and chased him around the house. I had to smoke him to mask any scent.
After I gave the bees time to calm down, I placed a temporary hive bottom which consisted of a piece of plywood with a hole to match the opening in the hollow and an area set up as the “bee porch.” Since the bees were managing to get around the screen that was supposed to close their original entrance, I realized that I would need to remove the screen and eventually plug the opening with rags. Here I made a great mistake of overconfidence. I had not been working with any protective gear, no bee suit, no gloves, not even long sleeves or a bee veil. With so many bees on both sides of the screen I should have at least put on a long sleeve shirt and a bee veil. Not doing that was a big mistake and a clear case of overconfidence. When I pulled the screen, they came after me or rather were thrown at me. I ended up with eight more stings and bees following me into the house. It had been enough that they were docile while I worked on their home, but when I forcibly threw them into the air disrupting what they were doing was more than they could be expected to tolerate calmly.
Eventually, after they had calmed down and it had gotten dark, I thought I could easily stuff the opening because they would be inside the tree. However, all the sugar water I had used had left plenty of sugar for them to clean up on the bark of the tree. Therefore, I had to use smoke to get them to clear the entrance long enough to stuff a rag into it. When I checked back later, I found quite a few bees trapped on the outside. I hope they manage to find their new entrance through the hive body. In fact, I hope the bees inside the tree also find this entrance as well. I already have dead bees for whom I shall be chanting the Amitabha mantra for a better rebirth. Some died when they stung us, others when we temporarily covered the opening to hollow before we put the hive body up on the tree.
I am certain that these bees do not have any African genes, because they are so docile. They might be considered feral, but they are obviously of native or European stock. With all that I did to their home, there reaction was so mild. I spent most of the time working without a bee veil or long sleeves. In fact, one of my friends jokingly called me a “bee charmer.”
This is particularly satisfying, because I may have saved the lives of thousands of sentient beings. However, I still grieve the loss of those few who died or may yet die. Tomorrow I will drive to the Thai Buddhist temple in Kissimmee as a pilgrimage to the shrines. This time I shall circumambulate each one twenty-one times, make twenty-one prostrations in each and chant the mantra 108 times before and after the circumambulation. I make this pilgrimage in rejoicing at my recovery both from cancer and from the treatment. I shall also chant mantras for the dead bees in the replica shrine for the Parinibbana Temple of Kusinara India, because we do all things for the benefit not only of ourselves but also for all sentient beings, even bees.