Oh wow, what a journey it is to tend bees consciously. So I never realized that most beekeepers, feed their bees sugar water instead of nectar in order to create more honey to sell to you as raw, unprocessed, organic honey. I never realized that most of the bees in the United States travel thousands of miles wrapped in plastic on the back of trucks every year to be forced to pollinate the almond groves in Northern California.

Here in the in the Central Valley of California. I never knew that the practices of conventional beekeeping include regularly killing the queen to replace her with a genetically superior version. Thereby upsetting the entire hive colony and breaking them out of their natural rhythms. That breaking bees out of their natural rhythms is like a really preferred practice among most conventional beekeepers.

It is such an unknown hidden area, and while so many well-intentioned bee enthusiast beekeeping enthusiasts keeping being the main word show concern about the radical decline of bee populations, possibly threatening our survival as a species on the planet. As some of you already know. they’re also using. Plastic comb like honeycomb. Usually the bees make their own honeycomb from their own wax, in their own size, in their own dimensions to sacred geometry.

That’s amazing. But most beekeepers use plastic combs so that the bees don’t spend their precious time building their home, but rather just create honey to sell to us.

How is it that we are confused about what’s killing the bees when we know that neo insecticides, that roundup and other bug poisons are used in almost every garden, and those can kill bees, like, can kill an entire hive of bees. What happens is, if the bees go and are foraging in that garden, they don’t know that those are poisoned.

They’re drinking the poisoned nectar. They’re bringing it back to the hive. They’re dancing and showing their sisters where to go. Get that food. The whole hive, the whole. All the workers go to that place, they all get poisoned and they all die. The hive collapses.

There are so many poisons being used in so many of the places, including maybe your backyard accidentally, that are killing the bees. And then I don’t. I can’t even put numbers to how many bees die on that trip across country. Why do beekeepers do it? Because it pays really well. It pays well to wrap your bees up in plastic.

Their their whole home gets wrapped in plastic and then trucked, stacked high on these trucks and trucked out to the almond groves where they sit. And they are forced. Right. So they’re not there’s no biodiversity in their forage. They’re super stressed from sitting on a hot truck wrapped in plastic. And a lot of a lot of bees don’t make it back to wherever their home is.

It’s it’s so well-paying, though, that, the beekeepers don’t care that all those bees die because it pays so well that it’s worth it to them to just try and genetically modify and breed more bees, which then are not as strong as wild living bees. And so they don’t survive the mites and they don’t survive the other things.

So I just, I felt it important to speak up here for the bees. What can you do to help save the bees? Number one, stop using poison in your garden. Like, let’s stop using roundup completely. Let’s stop poisoning our things. There are there are natural ways to tend for insects. number two, if you have bees in your swarming, in your in your house or on your trees, call a local beekeeper and have them removed.

Or have them without killing them all because a pest company will come and kill them. buy honey from your local natural beekeepers. Not only do you want to do that to support natural bee tending, but you also want that because it’s real honey made from actual nectar from actual flowers. And when it is, it’s more expensive. It is, and it’s more precious.

It’s also incredibly healing.

Speak up if you see it. A hotel bees being killed in the thousands so they don’t get in the pool. There are simple ways, like offering a little bubbling water fountain in your garden that gives bees a place to come and get water if it has stones in it, as opposed to just being a pool, then they have somewhere to land safely and drink.

It’s a wonderful thing to do in your garden, and a great way to be able to observe the bees, because they are sacred. Did you know that just about every indigenous tradition has some sacred relationship with the honeybee? They are the only creature that creates sweetness. They are the the only creature that lives in a hive, as they do with these varying levels of of jobs and collaboration and connection, we’ve witnessed how one bee can dance on one side of a honeycomb, and the bees, who can’t even see that dance, can feel the vibration through the honeycomb and know exactly therefore where to go to find water or nectar.

Bees are miraculous and magic, so don’t just protect the bees like we’re feeling sorry for them. There’s a deeper invitation here to to meditate with the bees, to whisper into the bees the bees ears. Your prayers, your messages for your beloved dead, your dreams for the future. Whisper to the bees. Because no matter what blood lineage you’re from, no matter what land you might be from, if you go back far enough, you will find that your ancestors did just that.

Because the bees crossed the veil. They are a sacred being. And that’s why actually, in the Wisdom Collective in my programs, I welcome my sacred bee teacher in. She teaches once every month or two about how we all can connect with the magic of the honeybee. This is one of those divine feminine practices that’s both pragmatic and deeply spiritual.

So I hope I’ve inspired you about the honeybee. It’s part of why my logo is a bee. It’s why my name is Melissa. Honey bees hold part of the mystery that delights me.