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As 2020 finishes, I have optimism for the future. It has simultaneously brought me to my knees and lifted me up to the heavens by the lessons learned during the pandemic.
Six months before the pandemic had started, I lost my winter job. I was well into panic mode long before the worst of it began. To be truly honest, we had been in panic mode a lot longer than that. We had been struggling financially and otherwise for the last 4-5 years before that.
I had been on the treadmill of life for so long I had been neglecting a lot of things in my life like my wife and partner, my family and friends, my personnel dreams and just the general care of me. I had been burning the candle at both ends for years. The cracks had been showing for some time. COVID-19 came along and brought all those things to the surface.
COVID suddenly exposed that I had been living in a shell, a prison of my making, that I had been blaming my circumstances on other people or just the world. I had been putting things on the back burner for another day, thinking, “this will be taken care of", but that time never came. I was too eager to bury it, it felt like to much work to really take it seriously. The pandemic swept away all the distractions or problems that were too painful to deal with and expose them for what they were. The glacier of COVID swept away all the falsities of my life. What was left was the bone stark reality of the life that I had inadvertently created, and it was a mess. Fear gripped me, I felt like my entire life was up for grabs, that everything that I had been working for was softly fading away. I questioned myself and really beat myself up for all the wrong decisions that I made. My inner voice had turned on me and I was finally all alone. My spark had gone dark, and it was replaced with a black hole that was slowly swallowing up who I thought I was and what I thought I wanted.
Luckily for me, I was in an industry that was not restricted during the lockdown, so I could go to work and not have to think about the frightening aspects of the pandemic, its unprecedented territory for this generation. When it first begun, I could spend my nervous energy working my body, not having to think about my future and the greater fear we were all sharing. As I went about my day, I realized something. That I was in a place that made me feel good and I was doing something that I genuinely loved. At that moment I experienced genuine gratitude, I saw something that I once had taken for granted with new meaning. It made me feel a little better.
I not going to lie to you. The clouds did not part and sun rained down and everything was awesome from then on. Even as I write this, I am still piecing together my life and suspect that never really ends. There have been many dark times between, but as I sorted through my life’s wants because finally, I had to choose and no longer could I put it off. Each decision was less anxious, the unknowns were being answered, piece by piece.
I needed to do a lot of things better. My relationship with my wife and kids, if I valued it, I had to show it somehow. If I wanted to remain doing what I loved, I had to make that continue. To get it right, I had to be kind to myself. Let all the mistakes, the bruised ego and all that fed it behind. I needed to open up to the ones I trusted with my feelings. Mostly to grieve what was my old life plan, release that grief and embrace the possibility of a healthier me.
I go out of 2020 feeling grateful for my life and loved ones, family, and friends. The future, I look to it with optimism rather than fear and anxiety. Being kind to myself is easier, and I look for my positives and accept responsibilities for my negatives as a fair, balanced look at myself. Simultaneously, 2020 is the end and the beginning of my story. I will welcome 2021 as the future of better things to come.
24 Hour Mental Health Support: Canada Suicide Prevention Line 1-833-456-4566 Mental Health AHS 1-888-7854284 Mental Health Help Line 1-877303-2642
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- How to clean beeswax food wrap: Wash in cold water with eco friendly mild soap. Let air dry.
- Avoid hot temperatures, microwaves, and raw meat.
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The recent news from the Alberta Beekeepers Commission reporting the honey crop in Alberta was down by as much as 50%, did not come as a shock to me. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/honey-bees-beekeepers-environment-1.5488447 Friends in the beekeeping industry in Alberta had already shared that information with us last summer. We were slightly better at 33% less than average, on par with 2018 which was the worst crop in my 27 years as a beekeeper. With a persistently low price for Canadian honey over the last 4 years, and large hive loses in the 2017 and 2018 crop years has put many honey producers at risk, including our bee farm.
Highs and lows are normal for farming, but this is different beast for the beekeeping industry mainly because the increased pressures from the Varroa mite persist and a dwindling average honey crops in the last 10-15 years were already making things more difficult. With the cost for labour, fuel, and building skyrocketing, the price of honey has stayed largely the same since the early 2000’s.
These increased pressures together with disasters of the last few years could bring some producers to their breaking point. Beekeepers that are thinking of retiring and see little to offer the next generation’s future could throw in the towel. Some of these family farms are multi-generational beekeepers. Their loss to the beekeeping industry and the rural towns in which they operate will be devastating.
What can you do if you want to help? The best action is to buy honey directly from the producer. Purchase honey produced in Canada, the producers name and bee farm will be listed on the bottle. You are supporting the producers directly and indirectly supporting the price of honey for the entire Canadian honey industry.
Social media is a strong tool to help others know what is happening right now in Canada. Not many people are aware of the plight facing honey producers. Please share, post and encourage your friends to buy honey from Canadian producers. The power is in your hands.
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One of the questions over the years I have been asked many times is what made you decide to become a beekeeper. I wish I could give an answer like it always was my dream from a child to a beekeeper. Honestly, I just fell into it.
My introduction into bees started during summer breaks in high school in the extraction plant where we would separate the honey from the frames. At first, I didn't really like it. It was hard work, it was hot, and you were getting stung by bees continually. When I closed my eyes at night after working those days, all I could see is multitudes of bees crawling over each other in mass. It was more like a nightmare than anything.
It wasn’t until I was in college and would start working earlier in the bee season and seeing the hives build up for honey flow that I started to fall in love them. Seeing the inner working of the hive was magic to me. I had never thought it possible of insects all the things they were capable of. They shook the foundation of what I perceived of intelligence, sacrifice and dedication could be. Cue the bright lights from the sky and angels singing, it was a personal epiphany.
It opened my mind to the possibility of the divine. I remembered reading about different cultures of the ancient world and how many of them admired and even worshipped bees. I was starting to understand their obsession.
It can be one of the purest sensations I argue in the world to work with bees. The smells of honey, wax and propolis makes me think of warm soothing feelings, comforting, familiar, safe. The bees flapping their wings gives off a C note, pleasing to our human ears. The inner workings of the hive inspire a sense of purpose and belonging. It was making it hard not to become a beekeeper.
I was completing my other great love in life, Art and Design in college. The prospects for jobs in my chosen field were grim in the early 1990’s. A student loan that I had taken was coming due. As a farm kid I had limited skills other than knowing how to work hard. I got a job working in the patch in the winter and beekeeping was there for me in the summer. It seemed like not a bad thing to do until things got better in the job market.
Things probably got better for jobs in my field. What I had dreamed of as an Artist probably could have happened, but I didn’t notice. I had fallen in love and I could not bear to think of summers without the bees and being immersed in nature. So, I forgot about the city, and the dreams and ambitions I had, in exchange for a soul filling life filled with bees. And that’s how it happened.
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