My background is in European and African history, and in education. In my years of high school and graduate work I was never required to take so much as one course in US history; instead we came across the US obliquely. The American Rebellion, for example, (as it was called) while studying the reign of George III; Woodrow Wilson’s role at the Treaty of Versailles; Truman and the two atomic bombs in the context of the Second World War; and Americans in Vietnam during the Cold War. I guess many Americans have done the same with unwanted gaps in their education, perhaps as regards Africa, South America, the Middle East and the Far East.
I am reasonably well traveled, by circumstance as much as by choice, and am acutely aware not only that most readers are intelligent, highly distractible, able to stop reading at any time, do not necessarily care about this month’s topic, and know more about a multitude of things in a wide range of fields than do I.
The question is how to get such readers to care about something that they would otherwise not pay heed. Spoiler alert : the answer is stories.
History, after all, is a story. Often reduced to dates and events, it is the saga of humanity, of how we have related to each other, to ideas and to power, over time. In essence, it is the story of complex relationships with the elements of failure and success, of joy and frustration, of quests and mysteries.
It has been suggested that when I come up with a bee topic for any particular month, I look for a ‘hook’ (often history-related) on which to hang it. In fact the reverse is mostly true. While being exposed to a concept or event, I realize that there is a connection to the world of the honey bee. Last month it was George Mitchell’s comment that “It was 700 days of failure and one day of success” that led first to the association with Socrates, and secondly to the concepts of the Socratic method, induced confusion, and their application to the learning process as experienced by a beekeeper.
The opening story has another function: as a local beekeeper shared with me, it aroused his curiosity along the lines of, “I wonder how Jeremy can possibly make this story relevant to honey bees?”
Here is a current example. For the first week of July Mary and I were in County Donegal, Ireland. We had lunch and dinners in pubs, as well as mid-morning and mid-afternoon teas in small cafes, of which there were a proliferation. I was struck not only by the absence of fast food outlets (granted, Donegal is one of the most rural of Ireland’s counties) but also by the leisurely time in which local people ate and the sociality of the meals (which perhaps is the difference between a pub and a bar.) Frequently we struck up a conversation with those at a nearby table, or watched the inter-table visiting between customers who clearly knew each other.
In the first week after our return to PA we went out for lunch. The meal I ordered came with two sides, which I didn’t need When I declined both, the gentleman behind the register said in some amazement, “But why don’t you want them? They’re free!”. The insinuation was that I had to have them simply because they were free, whether I wanted them or not.
These events in combination prompted a recall of the Slow Food Movement, and to question if and how it relates to beekeeping.
The former was founded by Carlo Petrini, a journalist and gourmet, 34 years ago. Having studied at Berkeley and getting a taste of the university’s famed counterculture, he returned to his home town of Bra in Piedmont, Italy, which to his concern had been infiltrated by American culture. He was incensed when, in 1986, McDonald’s announced it was building a Golden Arches in Rome, adjacent to the Spanish Steps in Piazza di Spagna. Would it threaten the traditional food culture of Rome – local trattorias and osterias, the dining establishments of the working class? As a means of protest he organized a festival of cooking and eating titled Slow Food, with an accompanying Manifesto proclaiming that food is the joy and heart of life, and that it is threatened by the trend to commodify, industrialize and destroy its essence, which is Taste, with a capital T. In the twentieth century, modeled on industry, the machine and profit, speed became both our unit of measurement and our shackles. We are willing victims of a fast life that assails us in our homes, fractures our customs and threatens our environment with a tempo that propels us down the road to stress, tension and anxiety. Food is a matter of necessary calories, absorbed as we rush out the door or drive to the next appointment, rather than a source of conscious pleasure and community.
Petrini’s initiative piggy-backed on the organic food movement as well as the more generic trends towards individuality, sensuality and rebellion. As the movement grew, Carlo added slow food conventions, feasts and seminars and an international conference in Paris. Today, Slow Food has in excess of 150,000 members and is active in more than 150 countries.
In 2004, Slow Food co-founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences in Pollenzo, Italy, which offers undergraduate and master degrees in food studies, and in 2008, the University of New Hampshire, inspired by a visit from Petrini, launched the first U.S.-based “Eco-Gastronomy” major in 2008. Today there are more than 170 chapters and 2,000 food communities in the United States.
Is there merit in the concept of Slow Backyard Beekeeping, with an emphasis on the rich varieties and aromas, rhythms and tempos, cadences and inflections, wisdom and experience, of the bee hive? After all, the honey bee is the key to so much of our sustenance, both body and soul. With Slow Beekeeping the emphasis moves from how to manipulate a hive as quickly as possible to the zen of beekeeping by which we consciously exercise patience and observation, thought and reflection, wonderment and awe, through significant connection with the natural world. I have been one to stress the need to keep a hive open for as short a time as possible, in terms of minimum disturbance to the bees, and I wonder if the decorum with which it is opened is as important as the time.
Honey, rather than simply a resource for the bees and for us, becomes the United Nations of the food world in its infinite global variety, the closest we can get to tasting the energy of the sun though the miracle of photosynthesis, a complex product of the evolution and adaptability of plants, the joy and heart of life And we cherish the Taste (with a capital T.)
Beekeeping and honey reveal our history – ‘the story of complex relationships, with the elements of failure and success, of joy and frustration, of quests and mysteries’ – if only we can take the time to slow down, reflect and rejoice in our privileged position as guardians of the honey bee.
Our Green Cathedral 