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One of my unfulfilled desires is to have a bee hive in the back yard. Of course, I have had conversations, and read how-to articles, and checked out boxes from the roof of the Contemporary Craft Museum a mile away to off road hives out from Steamboat Springs protected from bears by fences. I’ve bent over lilies to watch the little creature sip nectar and gather pollen on their legs before zig-zagging off to their unknown gathering place. The nearest I’ve come to mass excitement was a swarm coming in to make a large noisy gathering on an oak tree limb just at carpool time. While we teachers took children one at a time to each car, others in charge called to see what to do next.

No wonder my attention was caught by a fill in article a week ago last Tuesday. Fans of the Arizona Diamondbacks were gathered at 6:40, poised for the start of a game. A dark balloon moved over the field and settle en masse at the top of the netting behind home plate, a prime spot to be disturbed by action below. Scientifically, the same pollen rich air that evokes allergies in humans causes well-fed bees to seek a place to peacefully let their lunch settle. The sound system announced ,”Please ‘bee’ patient” and the call went out to a corporate partner for pest control. A scissor lift was provided for the outfitted beekeeper to climb. His job was to spray, vacuum, remove the swarm and safely relocate them.. Two hours later the game began. The original starting pitcher was scratched and the beekeeper threw the opening pitch to “bee-gin again” Oh, yes, the Diamondbacks did win in a 10th inning walk-off home run.

We know that besides an exciting ball game, bees help give us next spring’s wild flowers and are a necessary part of having California almonds. Less known are the variety of gourmet honeys that vary in taste from the source of the pollen. The most common is clover honey. One of the more exotic is eucalyptus. Any variety provides nutritional benefits and helps lessen stress. Bees aren’t touted Biblically, yet the journey from any Egypt is to a “land of milk and honey.” You can’t get there without bees on the way.

 So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Exodus 3:8