Melissa Musings

I had a wonderful time driving through very jungly, overgrown, lush roads on the Big Island of Hawaii to get to Hope Bee to interview her about her beekeeping practice for our podcast episode, “Melissa Musings.” 

When I arrived at her home, she was topless, tending to her hives, while a friend of hers stood nearby, playing a crystal singing bowl tone to the bees. 

I have known one beekeeper before Hope, who would bravely, humbly, amazingly, bare all to check on his hives (shout out to Stan the Bee Man on the Mendocino Coast). While in theory I am in love with this idea, for reasons of deeper bee intimacy and the insistency of a slow, cautious pace… I almost always wear a full suit when I am entering a hive. But, I really wanted to hear more about what prompted one to this practice, and Hope happily obliged me in our interview. 

I had “met” Hope online, and was incredibly intrigued by her topless beekeeping. I immediately wanted to interview her even though we had never exchanged more than a social media friendship. 

Personally, I have a very soft spot for bees. Over a decade ago, a few women in my community banded together and we created a small, close knit, ladies beekeeping guild. We would help each other out when we were checking on our hives, and we attended beekeeping workshops, seminars, and classes together too. 

We even had a moment where we got excited about apitherapy; an acupuncturist friend came to visit and was utilizing the bee sting as a kind of medicine. Although I never really took up the practice (because it kills bees in the process) I was thrilled to hear in our interview about Hope’s success in keeping bees alive while doing apitherapy.

Everything I have ever learned about bees fascinates me completely. I could, and do sometimes, talk about bees for hours on end. Anytime I meet a fellow beekeeper, we’re rapt in the glory of having found another friend of the bees to compare notes with. 

And so it was with Hope. I watched her at work for the first hour of our “visit.” Then, we promptly sat down and recorded the podcast episode “Melissa Musings.” I hope that our interview with help shed light on why bees are so fundamentally important and what we can do to bring more consciousness to how they are tended for optimal health in the future.