[Francesca Charlton]

We respect the natural organic ‘collective intelligence’ of the bee society, each bee society is a separate intelligent being with different characteristics, different responses. To varying degrees a dog a horse or dolphin has an individual character, so too does a society of bees. When we had only a few bee societies we had a name for each that related to the character of that society. “Ancy-bee” was a quick to take offence. “Ra” had a beautiful golden shimmer and was very kind and enjoyable to work with. “Stora-Bee”, stora means large here in Sweden, “Stora-Bee” was a very large strong society and was quite intimidating to work on as she was very curious and in your face all the time but I was never stung by this society even when I made a clumsy mistake. I learnt a lot from “Stora-Bee” and because she was so forgiving I practiced new procedures on her first. “Hair-bee” all her bees were noticeably covered in a very fine silver hair. “Tibee” well she got her name because; in the autumn evening after we collected her from a local farmer, we had to rap the bee hive in an old red quilt to keep her warm as it was a thin old wooden type, the next day when we came to see her, she looked like an old Tibetan.

We would very much like to hear anyone who has observations on this theme.

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