One of the things that I needed to come back to Florida to accomplish was to get the bees out of my sister's oak tree and into a hive. Since I've gotten back, I have been anxious to check my hive box on the tree to see what they've been doing. Tonight I looked in on my “girls” and they seem to be working there, drawing comb. Considering how seriously they took exception to my bothering them, I suspect that the queen may be up there laying her eggs. On the other hand, they could just be irritable because it was so hot today. I waited until sunset, because they are usually settled for the night. Unfortunately, as hot as it was today and still is tonight, 90 degrees Fahrenheit at 9:30 PM, that just might have been sufficient reason for irritability.
I thought I could get away with peeking in without “suiting up.” However, I upset them enough about an hour ago that several even followed me into my sister's house. Unfortunately, that did prove fatal for three of them, the one that stung me, the one I caught inside my pants leg, and one that I caught on a table a little too roughly. A friend was able to capture one and get her out of the house alive.
I really should have known better than to open the box under these conditions without long sleeves, long pants and a bee veil. Tomorrow, when I check again to actually know where the queen is, I'll wear everything including gloves. I'll even light the smoker just in case I might need it. However, I hope that misting with plain water or sugar water will be sufficient to pacify them enough for me to work.
Depending on what I find, I can then decide how to proceed. If the queen is in my box, it will be easy to get the rest of the bees into the hive, because they will follow her. Eventually, it may turn out that patience and persistence, two of the values related to the daily offerings as explained by Khenchen Konchok Gyaltsen Rinpoche, will be the key to successfully moving these bees out of the tree and into our hive with the fewest deaths among the bees. Nevertheless, I do have parts for a “bee vac” if I need it. However, eventually I probably will need it for another bee removal when time is limited for getting them out of their unwanted colony location.
Regardless of how it works out, these “girls” are still teaching me important lessons from the Dharma. Not only that, they are requiring me to put fulfill the samayas I accepted when I took refuge, officially becoming a Tibetan Buddhist. Furthermore, I am being challenged to be mindful of my conduct in relation to karma. It shows me on a smaller scale the difficulty of trying to only do virtuous actions and strictly avoid nonvirtue. Trying as hard as I could, I keep failing to preserve the life of every bee. Hence I continue to need to purify my karma. It may be a good thing that I not only do Vajrasattva practice on a regular basis, but also have downloaded the daily smoke offering practice text to start that as often as I can.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment