Bee Stuff

Bee stuff is like taking a vacation in the 1950s, at the seaside in a gingham checked bathing suit with wide straps, a structured brassiere and modest leg cuts. Bee stuff is like a Shaker chair, or a feather comforter, or a one-speed Schwinn with an S on its broad seat.

Bee stuff is nothing like an iPhone or a big screen t.v. or an Xbox 720.

When they're new and pristine, bee boxes smell like a wood shop or a pine forest or a mowed lawn. Later, after the bees have lived there for a while, they smell like honey and beeswax, sunshine and sweetness. After I've dumped the ashes out of the smoker, the skin on my arms holds the smell of smoke, carrying me back to the beeyard.

The bee boxes and the empty smoker make the car smell like something outdoors and wild, like you want to take a bite of it, or take a nap in it, or take a deep breath of it. Nothing like a new car smell.

I love the elegance of bee stuff, and its function, and the way it mostly hasn't changed in a hundred and fifty years. A blacksmith and a carpenter and a seamstress could have made beekeeping equipment for President Lincoln that would fit right into my bee bucket in the backseat of my car. The hive tool. The veil. The bee brush. The smoker. The boxes.

Bee stuff.