Humans are a very young species so it is hard to tell if the idea of humanity will stabilize or not. It’s not looking good. Jane Goodall writes in the forward to Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation that “what separates us from our closest living relatives, the Chimpanzees—and all other animals—is the explosive development of our intellect. … How bizarre that we, the most intellectual of all species, should be destroying our only home.

No honeybee would do something that dumb. I wonder if we can learn from them?
We do not deserve to stand in the presence of such wondrously complex creatures. But they don’t mind as long as we are quiet and let them work. When I do, I can’t help but reflect on our own way and Spirit. It gives me both hope and instruction.
That’s what the workshop is about August 17 and 24th (online). I’m leading it at Threshold Retreat and Farm (here). You might want to join with people who will gather in humble, hopeful curiosity to ask how can we humans might find our way illuminated by the honeybees.
It is worth pausing to study bees carefully because many of the things we think we know about them are exactly wrong. For instance, they are not rigidly organized around a totalitarian leader. They are democrats with no one bee deciding anything, certainly not the queen who is busy laying eggs. When they vote on a new home, they do so in the open, transparently and while dancing. No mean spirited puffery. Good decisions happen.
The honeybees are not invulnerable. Three of my hives died within two weeks when gardeners nearby sprayed poison ivy, which have little flowers the bees like. Nothing bad for bees is good for humans. We breath in the same crap that kills them. Dumb us.
Honeybees remain wild, even after millennia of being managed and robbed by humans. We think of bees as orderly, hierarchical and well-behaved because we steal their precious honey. About four thousand books have been written purporting to teach silly humans how to manage them. And yet honeybees are still untamable for thirty million years and counting,
Honeybees survive because they are wild. They mate high in the wind with six or ten boys not from the neighborhood. It reminds me of my Norwegians who were often led by women as fierce as honeybees, finding mates and raising children across the waves to Newfoundland and down long rivers all the way to Turkey.


Human cultures also find life through shared–not shed–blood. Our story includes violence, often organized and sustained over long period of time. But the species as a whole thrives because of what flows across the boundaries where we find new blended life. Zero immigration adds up to….zero.
Wild works. I’d rather live in the wild USA than teeny weeny Hungary which used to have a diverse empire. Now it is afraid of the world, encouraging us to be afraid with them. Look rather to the honeybees.
Honeybees don’t teach us; they probably think we’re unteachable. They do pose a damn good question: how do we humans remain wild and expansive? How do we remain curious about where love might be found, Spirit unleashed, new songs and vibrations pointing to new possibilities?
We are so young that we are still stupidly proud. Surely it is obvious that every human structure, hierarchy, creed and scientific certainty has passed like the dew in the dawn. Wild, adaptive, ever beginning, ever new–that’s what works. The honeybees have been a stable success for at least 300 times longer than we’ve been painting on cave walls. Generously, they invite us along for the flight.
Register here for the workshop, August 17th and 24th. Zoom, of course. $75 tuition goes to Threshold Retreat and Farm. Participants will receive a PDF draft of a book I’m writing about this. And a real copy when it is published. I’m glad to scholarship a bit, if you’ll give me some feedback. Email me at gary@honeybeespirit.org. Please join us!

Note: The honey from the bees who live with TC and I is called Warthog From Hell honoring the wild untamed nature of southern women. We also bottle honey blended from five other sites to make Honeybee Spirit. Both are available at the Threshold Retreat and Farm booth at the Cobblestone Market in Winston-Salem.