The Taste of Honey

It's an ordinary day
I've fixed my breakfast
A toasted English muffin
Oatmeal and honey, my favorite kind
I butter it but rather than using fruit preserves
I put honey on the muffin instead

I haven't used honey in a while
So I'm not prepared
For the emotional reaction I have
When I take the first bite
I don't expect it to trigger
The flood of memories and images
That come rushing into my consciousness
And fill my head with thoughts of my father

He was once a beekeeper
And had quite a few hives
When we lived on Coltrane Mill Road
I can see him wearing that white jump suit
With a hat and veil and a smoker in hand
Trying to catch a clump of bees that swarmed
If they weren't too hard to get to
But even if they were he usually got them
Then he'd add another hive to his collection

Dad got into bee husbandry quite by accident
I was still in high school
When a swarm decided to build a nest
Inside the eave in the roof of our house
To get at them Dad had to pull off
Part of the eave's overhang
The bees had been there long enough
To start making and filling
Several rows of honeycombs
Dad had to call in a professional
To get them out of the house

After that Dad did some home renovations
For the man who removed the bees
And they became friends
Then Dad took a class in bee husbandry
At the local community college
And he was hooked
The next thing I knew he came home
With a queen bee and a small colony of his very own
He had found a hobby that he loved
It didn't take long before he became the man
Who people called to catch a swarm of bees
Or to remove them from places
Where they didn't belong

I loved watching my father work
But I always stayed back a good distance away
For fear of being stung
I hated getting stung
My father didn't mind it though
He was pretty fearless while working with them
And occasionally when his arthritis was acting up
He’d catch a bee and make it sting him
He said it lessened the arthritis pain
I said he traded one pain for another

One fall Dad even harvested some of the honey
He rented a large extractor for a few days
And set it up in the basement
It was a huge stainless steel drum
With metal brackets inside
To hold the wooden frames of honeycombs
Then using centrifugal force
The metal brackets spun around the center rod
Which would sling the honey out of the cells
To collect at the bottom of the drum where
There was a pour spout
The honey would then be drained
Into five gallon buckets
That had screens covering them
To strain out any particulate matter
Such as small pieces of wax
Then once the honey had matured
It was poured into small glass jars
Which could be sold
I can't even remember now
Just how many cases of honey
Were harvested that year
But it was a lot
And I believe there may still be a few jars
In the basement of my parents' house now

I also recall how I helped my father with his hobby
I typed up labels and put them on the jars
I also cleaned up the old frames
And then put a base sheet of bees wax
Into the frames which would go into the supers
Which were placed on top of the hive itself
To give the bees a head start on making
The cells for the honeycombs
These were both activities
I did on my own, in my spare time
Back when I still lived at home
While attending college
Although I wasn't actually
Spending time with my father
I was doing something for him
And I enjoyed that

But once I moved out on my own
And in with my girlfriend
I no longer helped my father
With his hobby anymore
And as I sit here writing this I try to recall
Whatever happened to all the hives
That he used to have
Before he and my mother moved in 1997
To their new house
Because there aren't any hives
Out at Mom's house now
I really don't know
What happened to them
Which saddens me
And makes me miss him

Now I find myself wondering
If I'll always think of him
Whenever I have honey
I never imagined that I'd ever
Consider the taste of honey to be
Bittersweet

1.25.08