Holliston December 2023

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BEES
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subset of European honeybees,
familiar to folks by their brown
and black tiger-stripe-patterned
abdomens. Yet despite their
more-docile reputation, the
church’s tiny charges are still
bees at heart.
“We have gotten stung,” said
McGuire. “It’s highly entertaining.”
But why bees?
McGuire said the effort was
inspired by the convergence of
the ecological and ecclesiastical,
a philosophical place where the
two concerns connect.
“It’s part of a spiritual project,”
she said. “Being charged
by god to care for the earth.”
Of the 23 acres of church property,
“We’re turning over a good
portion of that to meadowland.
To assist our pollinators in the
community. For me, it’s very
healing.”
Spinoza agreed. “It’s really
about the community. Everybody’s
sort of rooting for the
bees.” She joined Fr. Chudy and
McGuire to help tend to their
growing flock of little fliers, a
pursuit that can entail a lot of
work, knowhow, and much attention
to detail.
“They were kind enough to
take me on as their apprentice,”
said Spinoza.
The church hopes eventually
to bring its number of hives to
seven. The group has had a success
(survival) rate of about 50
percent over its several winters
tending to the bees, not atypical
for this cold and long winter
climate.
“In the spring we hope to
add a couple more” hives, said
Fr. Chudy. The group arrived at
the aspiration of seven hives, he
added, because of the number’s
spiritual significance.
“It’s kind of symbolic of
being whole and complete.”
But it’s been a bad year for
bees, he said, owing in part perhaps
to the summer’s numerous
and voluminous downpours. Yet
one sunny spot of the season
was that the beekeepers were
for the first time able to harvest a
little honey for the bipedal community.
Fr. Chudy said that the hives
had recently been tucked in and
sent to sleep for the season, but
the little buggers don’t actually
doze all winter, or even go dormant
in a general sense. Rather,
honeybees remain active during
these long and cold northern
months.
They become shut-ins during
the darkest season, clustered
in a sort of collective and longwinded
shiver to stay warm and
survive. Vibrating their wing
muscles generates the heat energy
needed for wintering, and
the calories required during
those weeks comes, of course,
from honey.
About 70 pounds of the stuff
is needed to sustain a single colony
of bees over our northern
winters. At nearly 1,400 calories
per pound of the viscous and
valuable golden goo, that clocks
in at a smidge under 100,000
calories per hive during that
season alone.
Lack of food and frigid temps
aren’t the only challenges the
honeybees must handle. A species
of mite with a menacing
moniker (Varroa destructor) is
parasitic to and preys upon the
pollinators, can decimate an infected
hive.
Vigilant beekeepers are
aware of hazards confronted
by the colonies, and take steps
to mitigate them. Use of a few
chemical pesticides is considered
safe for honeybees, and sprinkling
a line of cinnamon powder
around a hive is said to ward off
invading ants.
Keepers can also supplement
a colony’s food stores during
winter with prescribed, sugarbased
products. Such and sundry
are among the tricks of the
beekeeper trade.
Still, the lives of bees and
the synergy of their little societies
are still largely a mystery to
entomologists and beekeepers.
Colonies can be sensitive to subtle
changes and contaminants in
their environment.
“You can lose the whole
hive,” said McGuire, “if someone
uses Roundup” nearby.
“Sometimes beekeepers
never know why you lose your
hive,” said Spinoza.”Everything
can change on a dime.”
The sight of dead bees outside
the hive on snow or frozen
ground can be a good omen, a
sign that the hive has brought
its fallen comrades outside the
shelter as part of keeping their
digs clean. Cleansing duty commences
during sunny and unseasonably
warm winter days
(50 degrees and up), when honeybees
sortie out to dispose of
waste products produced by the
hive.
With winter’s onset, drone
bees are evicted from the colony,
having served their purpose.
With the falling mercury,
nature’s cold calculus of survival
becomes acute, and there
just aren’t enough calories to go
around. Health of the hive is
paramount.
“Every bee has a job,” said
Spinoza. “To have that many insects
working together to create
one thing. It’s a group effort.”
Here she may have equally been
referencing the flocks of tiny fliers
and the human shepherds
tending to them.
““There’s so much care that
goes into each. It’s really miraculous
to watch them.”
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