A Swarm of Service

Beekeeping Surprises

          Every Spring bees swarm and this past few weeks have been no exception here in Southern Arizona. The TV news people are telling us what to do with all those swarming bees. Bill Welch, one of my husband's best friends came to visit this morning. I had discovered yesterday through a mutual friend, Roy Lacey, that both were very interested in bees. Turns out Bill had some 80 hives when he was a young man. He's had lots of practical experience with bees. He told me he had a hive under a grapefruit tree and he would go lay out on the ground near the entrance to the hive and just watch them. "They were really docile. Some of them would return to the hive with various colors of pollen." It was a very special time for this beekeeper. I asked him about swarming and he told me it is simply that the hive was too crowded over the winter and the queen had laid several "eggs" in specially built hexagonal chambers that were fed exclusively with royal jelly and had become "large as a peanut." So the queen bee decided it was time to go find a new home. It was simply like splitting a ward in the church; when a congregation reached around 700 they split it into two wards.
          I asked if it was a terrible thing for home owners to kill all the swarms they found near their home if on a branch of a tree, (obviously not in their home) and he said, "Oh that's not good because without the bees our fruit trees would just flower and never bear fruit. More often than not they are just swarming then sending out scouts to find a new place to live." He went on to say that a real beekeeper would take a cardboard box (He actually did this and it was no big thing) and give a sharp tap to the branch and all the bees would fall into the box. He'd then tape it up, carry it home to a prepared hive box, open it up and tip it toward the entrance and they'd all just march in, happy as can be. Well, I'll bee doggone. With the advent of an Africanized strain of bees, however, since Bill retired he only has two hives (they are still a lot of work);  one is an aggressive hive and one is a docile hive. Now he wears protection all of the time; but before he'd let the bees crawl all over him if they wanted to.

We have Been Covered in Service This Past Week        

          A ward in our LDS church is like a hive when it comes to service. When a worker bee finds a source of pollen he returns to the hive and lets everyone know the directions to that source. In a ward, the members let the leadership know where there is a need for service and the Ward Council meets and discusses what can be done to help. This past week Bob and I have been the focus of prayers, phone calls, offers to bring over dinner and lots of other small acts of kindness. I've decided that at this time in my life where my whole focus is on my eternal companion, Bob, that I will blog these last special days of his life. Bill called this a transition stage. To a non-member they wouldn't understand this terminology, but knowing who we are, where we came from, why we are here and where we go after we die is knowledge that provides Joy and Hope rather than fear, despair, anxiety and all the other sad emotions that occur when a loved on is dying or has died. My blog will hopefully reflect our philosophy, be relatively positive, yet realistically record a truly special person's final days on this earth. We all have regrets, felt we are failures in some area of our life and come to realize, when time runs out, that ooops we don't have any time left to do those things that we've either procrastinated or we'd been too scared to do for some reason. There are regrets of omission and regrets of commission. Maybe, Bob, who is very very private will open up and talk about some of these things. I'm the fortunate one because I get to see the love and esteem others have for him, and the kind, little (and sometimes not so little) acts of kindness they bestow on our family.

I'll Present Bob's Life in Photos and Stories

Sometimes in His Own Words Via His Writings, Too

At the end of this blog is a photo of Bob about 1933 on his Tricycle. No, he doesn't have much interest in cowboys, guns and such now, but he did ride a bicycle on Kwajalein, in the Marshall Islands, when we lived there in the early 1990s. He's actually only owned one red plaid flannel shirt in his adult life that I know about, but Brianna our daughter decided that it was hers now.

Bri wears her father, Bob's, Red Flannel Shirt

She also captured an old T-shirt from the 1994 50th Anniversary Commemoration of the Battle of Kwajalein-Roi-Namur. He had thrown it away and she said, "No Way," and hauled it out of the trash and  took it home with her. She said that since she was pregnant, it would come in handy when she'd just want a large, soft T-shirt to wear and this one was just perfect, holes and stains and all.

Bob's Kwaj Tshirt is just the right soft bluejeans color for Bri since she's expecting. She anticipates wearing this large soft Tshirt a lot in the last months of her pregnancy. By the way, it's a boy and her due date is Bob's birthday!

Memories of our parents lives are special and their clothing, toys, books and other possessions become special touchstones to us.

Bob plays cowboy about age 3 riding his greyhound tricycle