Cold Moon

This Month is Cold Moon in the Sacred Beekeeping Calender. A time when the bees are huddled as tight as they can get, determined to keep the brood and queen bee alive with their vibrating wings. Bees are the only insect that creates heat which gives them an added adaptability for our crystalline winters here in So. OR.

The bee cannot make enough heat this way to keep her individual self warm! Rather, the bees form a tight cluster and create a group vibration in order to heat the Body of the Hive. There is a sweet and tender hum that you can hear if you put your ear to the hive box near where the cluster is. This is the collective voice of the winter-dreaming hive.

I always wondered what happened to the bees on the outside layer of the cluster during these freezing nights. In my mind the outside layer of bees operated as a sort of insulation and would inevitably slow down and freeze if one were to follow the basic rules of thermodynamics. But I rarely see post-freeze die-offs and this set me on the quest to find out how they are managing to keep the brood at the 97* body temperature they need to survive even while clustered in below-freezing temperatures. And, like all explorations into the bee realm, I found out a gorgeous sacred principle at work.

Indeed, the outside layer of bees slows down as they get colder. They cannot vibrate indefinitely! When the bee gets cold, she slowly stops moving and, guess what! The sister bees pull her into the cluster to warm her, and the next bee takes her turn vibrating on the outside layer! What a wonderful dreamy metaphor. What a lovely thing to think about when applied to the human society; To do the work, then snuggle and rest. The Cold Moon Dreaming Meditation. The dark night can be cozily melted into while the hive continues the vibrating buzzing of creation.

#sacredbeekeeping #skep #beegoddess #beesinwinter #hivesinwinter #winterbeekeeping #beecentricbeekeeping #sacredbeekeeper #winterhiveobservation #ccd #beescience #apiculture #beehistory #insulatinghives