The Gift

(right click here to listen to the song 'Wild Mountain Honey' in a new tab.)

My pawpaw (or grandfather, to those of you unfamiliar with my southern dialect) was a beekeeper. He died when I was 8 & that is one of the few things I remember clearly about him, his bee 'charm'.

On a summer day about 4 years ago I walked outside & heard a low rumbling drone- I followed the sound to the edge of our yard & saw that in one of the top limbs of a huge poplar tree was a fat black mass of bees. I was in awe. I sat on the front porch for hours waiting to see what they were going to do & they never moved.

I ended up forgetting about them until about a week later, when we discovered that they had taken up residence in the wall of our old barn; we only use the barn for storage these days & I was ok with them being there as soon as I found out that they were honey bees. I kind of felt like my pawpaw sent them to me.

They stayed there peacefully for 3 years before my brother decided that he wanted to try his hand at beekeeping, and came to get them. I was heartbroken about disturbing them, but I felt like I should let him have the chance, so he came with a couple of his friends who keep bees & pried open the wall of the barn to find that the whole wall was filled with honey. I can still close my eyes & smell the heavenly aroma of the warm honey mingled with the beekeepers smoke- no perfume could ever begin to compare.

Everyone had on bee suits but me & they got stung several times, but I guess I have my pawpaws bee charm because I never did. Of course I wasnt freaking out when they buzzed by me like my brother did either haha!

To make this story short I will cut to the end & tell you that sadly, the bees did not live once they were moved. But I still hold onto the idea that they were a gift from my pawpaw, and so I can still smile.

I still have a ton of the honey they left behind too :)