The Life of a Cluny Worker Bee        


Hello, My name is Melissa and I am one of the worker bees living in the hive you call Dorothy just down below Cluny Hill College. Actually, we bees don’t have names for each other in the way you do, we recognise each other by taste, touch and smell, but John thought that it would help me to communicate with you if I took on a human name. He tells me that Melissa is the Greek word for bee and the Melissae were the human priestesses in Ancient Greece who served the hives, so this name will do very well because this is what I do. I serve the hive.
        

John has asked me to tell you something about the life of a worker bee. He believes that there are real similarities between the work we do for the greater good of the hive and the work that those who live and work in Cluny do for the unfoldment of the overlighting purpose of the Findhorn Angel and the Angel of the Cluny Hills.


We honey bees don’t live for very long in your terms, about sixty three days from when our egg was laid, although autumn bees like me can live throughout the winter into the spring. However, to us, our lives are long, rich and vibrant, filled with colour and scent and taste.
        

We take about twenty one days to develop from egg to adult bee and then we live about twenty one days as a house bee and twenty one days as a field bee.  Our tasks are allocated according to age, but this may change to meet the needs of the hive. When there are a lot of flowers out  then the house bees may go out collecting, while older field bees may take a turn doing nursery duties if there is a shortage of house bees.  


As soon as we emerge from our cells then we start our duties in the hive. First we preen ourselves and then we clean our own cells and the cells around us. The floors and walls of the cells are licked clean and painted with a glandular secretion, leaving them gleaming. During breaks from cleaning we warm the brood by sitting on the brood cells. John has this strange picture of bees sitting there sipping nectar from little acorn cups. I don’t understand this, but he finds it very funny. He says that it is a Cluny thing.


After two or three days, our cleaning duties are finished and we begin to feed the brood. First of all the young nurse bees feed the older brood with pollen and honey from the hives’ food supplies. I can remember eating quite a lot myself to help build up my own brood-food glands so that I could supply the youngest larvae with the protein rich brood food over the following days. Each nurse bee can only rear two or three larvae in this time. Our royal jelly glands, which we use to feed our Queen and some of you humans believe can rejuvenate and extend life, are particularly active at this time.
        

We sometimes take orientation flights at noon during sunny days to get used to being outside. We dance in front of the hive, so that we can memorise the whole of the area and find our way home again.
        

During the second half of our time as house bees, we work at building the hexagonal combs within the hive, secreting transparent flakes from our wax glands, which start functioning properly at this time.
        

Other duties that we do as house bees are receiving pollen and nectar from the returning field bees, carrying honey around the hive and capping the mature honey stocks in the hive, keeping them safe for when they are needed. We also drag out dirt and debris from the hive, including old wax, dead bees and wax moths - which can create such problems if they are not dealt with. John tells me that one of you humans, called Rudyard Kipling, wrote a story called ‘Mother Hive’  about a hive of bees that finally had to be destroyed because it didn’t maintain its boundaries and let in a wax moth.
        

Before becoming field bees, we all take a turn at standing guard at the hive entrance. We check each incoming bee by its scent to see whether it belongs to our hive or is a robber bee. Sometimes, wasps or hornets who want to rob the hive need to be driven off by the guards. I have heard it whispered, though, that sometimes foreign bees bribe their way into the hive with nectar.
        

Our last task as bees is foraging outside of the hive for pollen and nectar. I love this work, dancing and making love with the flowers. We can travel as far as three miles away (4-5 km) in search of food, although most of it is much closer to home amongst the wonderful flowers and shrubs in Cluny Gardens. Some of us go out scouting for food and then we come back we perform wonderful dances which tells our sisters exactly where the flowers are to be found and how many there are.
        

When we find food we use our proboscis (tongue) to suck the nectar from out of the flower into our honey stomachs, where we also store the water that we carry back to the hive. The pollen we brush into the baskets behind our hind legs. We can always be sure of a wonderful welcome home when we return to our hives with our baskets laden down with pollen.
        

John has taken me around Cluny and I can see that Cluny is, in many ways, similar to our hive. The Cluny Family are all working towards a common purpose - the holding and nourishment of all of the guests who come to stay in Cluny on one of the many Findhorn Foundation programmes. You also have workers doing different tasks for the good of the whole. There are the Homecare worker bees keeping the home clean, the Maintenance bees who keep Cluny safe and secure from the elements and the Kitchen and Dining Room bees who provide the nourishment for the guests and residents. Then there are the Garden workers who provide nourishment for both body and the soul with the beautiful gardens. I wonder though, who is the Cluny Queen Bee?


Melissa
(with the aid of John Abdey)