A
few weeks ago, I spent my Sunday (three hours and ten minutes of it, anyway) in
a one-hour beekeeping atelier at the Parc de la Villette.On my way there I wondered who would go to a
beekeeping class.Sundays in France are
usually sacred.They are typically
spent eating roasted chicken and chestnuts with grandparents, great aunts and
uncles.If you don't have extended
family with which to spend the day, you're a bit of an outcast.A weirdo.I felt a little guilty for leaving my family at home for the day, but
the beekeeping atelier is only held on two or three Sundays a year and they
fill up quickly.I went because when am
I ever going to get the chance to do hobby beekeeping?But more importantly, I was promised to
return home with a pot of honey.My
very own honey.I hear the word
"beekeeping" and I think honey.
There
were thirteen of us in the class.The
park employee, who chaperoned us throughout the class, walked us behind a
locked gate and into a walled garden where we met Head Beekeeper, an older man
whose life passion, it turns out, is bees.We sat around long picnic tables under what looked like a makeshift Boy
Scout shelter.I got out my camera.Everyone else got out a pad of paper and a
pen for note taking.Note taking?
I
looked around the table at the freak show that surrounded me.
Did
you know that the average beehive contains 20,000 to 30,000 bees?
There
was the May of '68, hippie-never-turned-yuppie couple with their matching long
gray hair, thick two-for-one black-rimmed glasses and terrible, terrible taste
in fashion.No, we don't wear
Birkenstocks anymore.No, turquoise
jewelry is not in.And no, men do not
wear bandana headbands.
There
was the crazy woman who never stopped humming or singing.Not even when Head Beekeeper was
talking.Part of me admires people who
can ignore social norms and go about their day as if they were living in a
musical.I wish I could do that.I wish that I could periodically break out
in song and dance and have total strangers around me join in, somehow already
knowing the lyrics and choreography.And the lyrics would always be so clever, so apt and always rhyme.But I know that will never happen.
So
far, Humming Lady was in the lead for Craziest in Class-our Summa Cum Laude
of crazy.
That
is, until the dork sitting directly across from me opened his mouth.
Did
you know, he asks me, that
when the queen lays her eggs, those that she chooses to fertilize become male
and those that she chooses not to fertilize become female?No, I had no idea.Instead of answering, I decided to smile and nod.
It
is glaringly obvious that this gentleman sitting across from me has never been
laid.Ever.He's probably 45.Ugly as
homemade sin.Could stand to bulk up by
at least 30 pounds.Needs a massive
personality overhaul and a makeover.Has absolutely no social skills.During Head Beekeeper's one-hour lecture, Never Been Laid Boy kept
interjecting thoughts, opinions, and tidbits of trivia on all things related to
bees.He knew everything about
bees.Colony habits.Colony reaction to inclement weather.The structure of the De Layens trough hive.Everything.
He
looks up at me and asks, Did you know that bees date from the early
Cretaceous period, but over time evolved so now they have a stinger?
Overly
eager to share his knowledge, he was upstaged only by the woman sitting
directly to my right-Never Been Laid Girl.Ever.She's probably 45.Ugly as homemade sin.Could stand to bulk up by at least 30
pounds.Needs a massive personality
overhaul and a makeover.Has absolutely
no social skills.She shares Never Been
Laid Boy's sole passion in life-bees.
Did
you know that when the female worker bee is born, she immediately starts
cleaning the hive?From Day One.
Head
Beekeeper passed around parts of a beeless De Layens beehive box.One of the hanging wooden frames had an old,
dried up hive.Never Been Laid Girl
hands it to me, pointing out the largest hole, explaining to me that this is
where the queen lived.She was so
excited she could barely contain herself.I almost told her, you know, the queen bee ain't really royalty.Instead, I smile and nod.
Never
Been Laid Boy tells me the average queen lives for one to two years; an
exceptional queen lives up to seven years.I want to ask what makes her exceptional?Benevolent treatment of subjects?Diplomatic skills on state visits to other hives?Instead, I smile and nod.
After
an hour of listening to a highly technical lecture on bees full of French words
that I did not know (that's right folks, I was too much of an idiot to even
think about bringing a dictionary with me since I knew the words for bee and
honey and thought that was enough), it was time to play dress-up.I chose the overgrown Umpa Lumpa costume.All the Frenchies chose the Michelin Man
costumes.Of course, the Umpa Lumpa
costume and the Michelin Man costumes were identical-it's just a matter of
perception.
Did
you know that the Michelin Man actually has a name?Bibendum.
As
we zip up, Never Been Laid Boy tells me the reason we wear white is so we
don't look like brown bears trying to steal their honey.I almost tell him not to worry, those bees
is so smart they'll catch on soon that people dressed in white are just as much
of an enemy as bears dressed in brown.Instead, I smile and nod.
Head
Beekeeper set a small fire in a metal can.I have absolutely no idea what's going on now.Are we going to smoke the bees out?Geez, won't that make them mad?Like really, really mad?Like as
mad as bees?Mad enough to, say, attack
us?Is this Umpa Lumpa material woven
tightly enough to block the stingers?
Never
Been Laid Boy tells me the smoke actually has a calming effect on the
bees.This calming effect makes them
want to eat and they'll start looking for food.That way, we can stand around the beehive, stealing their honey,
and they won't even notice.Smile
and nod.
Did
you know, he asks me, that
when bees get hungry and start to feed, their abdomens distend, making it
impossible for them to sting?Smile
and nod.
It
is finally one hour and ten minutes into a one-hour atelier, time to open up
one of the De Layens beehives.You can
feel the excitement buzzing in the air.Bees start flying out.Disoriented from the enfumoir.It may be difficult to visualize 30,000 bees buzzing around in a small
area.It looks like gently falling snow
all around.
Snowflakes
with stingers.
I
see bees land and crawl around on the Bibendum clones all around and then it
dawns on me that perhaps they're not discriminating against me the Umpa
Lumpa.I can feel them walking around
on my back.I can feel myself starting
to panic.Wait a minute.Aren't I scared of bees?Yes.Yes, I am.My whole life.I take a quick mental tally of what I'm afraid
of.Bees, spiders and snakes.That and plane crashes.But when you have kids, you have to pretend
like you're scared of nothing.I've
been pretending like I'm scared of nothing for seven years now and here I am,
without my kids, surrounded by 30,000 bees.Crud.I really am not liking
this.I am surrounded by crazies and
I'm on the verge of out-crazying them by having a little mental breakdown
inside my Umpa Lumpa suit.
For
some reason, my mind flashes to a story about G. Gordon Liddy.I have no idea if this is true, but
supposedly he used to be scared of thunderstorms.In an attempt to get over his fear, he tied himself to a tree
during a thunderstorm one evening, forcing himself to face his fear.This was my G. Gordon Liddy moment.I found my inner strength.To answer the obvious question: yes, next I
plan to recruit my own personal militia.I will base them in Switzerland.
A
man in our atelier got stung.He
screamed, which brought me back from my G. Gordon Liddy daydream to the 30,000
bees buzzing around my head.Head
Beekeeper looked at him in scorn, letting out a hair-raising whisper:do not scream around the bees!
Did
you know, asks Never
Been Laid Boy, that not screaming around the bees is your first line of
defense?The Umpa Lumpa costume is
your second.The enfumoir is your
third.
For
an hour, we stood around playing with the beehives.Never Been Laid Girl was deemed "the assistant" and she spent the
entire hour actually holding a beehive, excitedly pointing out where the
queen lives.Frantic bees would crawl
up her hands and she was totally cool with it.She found three larvae that were, as she said, "being born" and everyone
stood around watching the birth of new, precious life.
Did
you know that the average lifespan of a worker bee is six weeks?
After
everyone had their fill of bees and beehives and after we had stolen three of
the wooden frames, it was time to take off our Umpa Lumpa/Bibendum
costumes.The chaperone led us and our
beehives (along with some stray bees) to a nearby building.
It
was the start of hour number three of the one-hour atelier.It was time to "make" the honey.
To
extract the honey, you perch a hive on a special table and uncap the cells with
a special uncapping knife.We each took
a turn with the knife.We had to scrape
off the surface of the beehive.It was
finally my turn.I put too much
pressure on the knife and accidentally cut into the hive.Never Been Laid Girl ran over, shook her
finger at me and yelled: stop, stop, stop, stop, stop!Arrêtez!Mais, arrêtez! C'est le miel là!.I
want to reply that yes, I am a deficient beehive cell uncapper, but at least
I've been laid before!Instead, I smile
and nod.
At
three hours and ten minutes, I finally had my little pot of honey.Head Beekeeper and his fellow enthusiasts
were knee-deep in beekeeping discussion.And as much as I wanted to grab Never Been Laid Boy and Never Been Laid
Girl and say:Dudes, wake up, here's
your soul mate.Go get a hotel
room.Mate.Make socially dysfunctional, bee-loving babies together, I
just had to get away from there. It had
started to feel like a kidnapping situation.Like some cult that invites you in for a lovely spot of tea and you
realize that you've been there for a week and you don't know where the exit
is.
I
quietly slunk to the back of the room, found the door, and ran out.Made a beeline for the Metro.
And
did you know that most bees never get laid?Ever?Over the course of her entire life, the
queen bee mates with about a dozen male bees.All dozen in the same sunny summer afternoon early during her rule.She stores their sperm for the next one to
two years (or seven if she is "exceptional").Then when she lays eggs, she can choose to fertilize the egg or
not.But after that memorable daylong
group orgy involving only thirteen of the 30,000 bees, ain't nobody in that
beehive getting laid.Ever.
Mollie Coyne
About the author:
Mollie Coyne is from South Carolina, USA and moved to France in 2003.