If I were managing to keep a Hive Journal, like I should be, the most recent entry would read something like this:

14 Mar 07 – unexpected sun, breezy, 70+.  yellow crocuses in bloom, also some maples (yesterday? today?) bees active, lots of pollen coming in.  full spring inspection on Iris – ~5 frames bees, top box, east side.   3-4 full frames honey remaining, top box.  eggs on at least one frame, small amount of open brood, small amount of capped.  no new mold.  bees calm.  reversed boxes (bottom almost deserted, some granulated sugar in cells.)  pulled fully-drawn frame 5 from bottom box to store, replaced with mostly-drawn extra from last year.  cleaned bottom board – lots of granulated sugar, dead bees, pollen, mites (level?  doesn’t seem bad for oxalic drip?) replaced all, removed entrance reducer, removed sugar from inner cover.  cleaned bee yard. 

March will probably only offer me this one day to get into the hive, but it’ll tide me over; winter is long when you tend hives, and spring never seems to arrive soon enough (I haven’t even reached my first anniversary with these bees, but I learned that lesson quickly.  Building woodenware keeps your hands busy enough, but all you think about is how soon you’ll get to pop open some boxes and actually use it.) 

I love being a beekeeper – both for the keeping of bees and for the being of something.  I do other things, too; I work and play the cello and sometimes I draw or crochet things.  But when pressed for words, I do not call myself a molecular biologist or a cellist or an artist – I say that I do molecular biology, or I take cello lessons, or I make sweaters.  It may sound like a small, nitpicky difference, but there is an untruth in those identifications that I would have to purposefully overlook. 

I say that I am a beekeeper, though.  Perhaps there is some level of arrogance in that, since I am still new to the art and will be a one-hive operation for at least another month (and that hive, despite looking really good yesterday, could still die between now and true spring.)  But perhaps there isn’t; from the beginning I have felt an ease and comfort in this activity that I don’t feel in anything else, even things I’ve done for years.  My knowledge is incomplete, my experience limited, but I work without anxiety and I feel good about my decisions.  Even when the work is hard, it’s a joy.  And there’s more than a little to be said for finally feeling entitled to identify myself as something.