08/12/2026
It feels like year three our leap year at Honeycomb Cottage MN has been absolutely packed with learning and beginning to walk more intentionally down this path of natural and sacred beekeeping.
We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have mentors come into our lives from so many different directions, and it feels like we’re learning at a rapid pace. But one thing we just can’t say enough about is the value of simply spending time with the bees. Hands on. Watching. Listening. Being around them day after day.
One of the unexpected gifts of the Cottage has been the opportunity to build our ear for the hive being able to to recognize drones from workers, changes in pitch and intensity, the collective hum of a colony, and the different “songs” a hive seems to sing!
Jacqueline Freeman writes beautifully about this in The Song of Increase, framing the life of the colony through the Song of Unity, the Song of Belonging, the Song of Communion, the Song of the World, the Song of Increase, the Song of Abundance, and the Song of Sharing.
The longer we do this, the more we realize how much there is to hear.
This work has brought us closer together as a couple. It’s brought us closer to this land. It’s made us more observant of the flowers, the weather, the seasons, the movements of insects and animals, and all the subtle changes happening around us.
And it’s brought us deeper into listening into clairaudience, into tuning our ears toward this incredible soundscape and landscape that we get to call home.
There is something profoundly different about tending bees when you begin to approach the hive not simply as something to manage, but as something to listen to.
Three years in, and it feels like we’re only beginning to learn their language. 🐝
