Giving Thanks to the Bees

The bees that dwell in 12 hives at the Mount have been spinning honey out of nectar since April, and it is now harvest time. This past week I learned how to “uncap” wax cells on the frames from the hives so the honey can be extracted through use of a hand-cranked spinning machine. Harvesting honey requires a great deal of effort, but not nearly as much effort as the bees expend in making it! To produce one pound of honey, bees must visit approximately 2 million flowers. A hive of bees must fly around 55,000 miles to produce a pound of honey, and the average worker bee makes only 1/12th teaspoon of honey in its lifetime (about 5 to 7 weeks).

The immense amount of work that goes into creating and processing honey makes me think of all the unnoticed, behind-the-scenes work that is performed at the monastery so that, for example, our liturgies flow smoothly, we have jelly to sell in the gift shop, and rooms are ready for our guests. We have much to be thankful for, yet we become complacent all too easily. As the Shawnee military and political leader Tecumseh said:

When you rise in the morning,

give thanks for the light,

for your life, for your strength.

Give thanks for your food

and for the joy of living.

If you see no reason to give thanks,

the fault lies in yourself.