No, I Don’t Want to Take Your BeeKeeping Class
The perils of well-meaning people giving you presents you don’t like

My beloved ex Honey, was the kind of person who had enthusiasms — many of them were mine, too. Until they weren’t.
We loved photography. Paris. Cooking. We loved unearthing gay history. We loved a good picket line. She loved buying me beautiful high heels.
Trouble arose when she took up a hobby I didn’t embrace. She wanted to do everything together; I’m the separate vacation type. Honey Lee, she would’ve liked the kind of marriage where you are not out of each other’s sight for a minute!
“Why does it have to be a big deal?” I’d say. I was all for her motocross, mushroom, and desert safaris, for her. “Go for it!”
Hon took this very hard, very hard indeed. She’d get so hurt, so wounded when I wasn’t 100% stoked about her latest fad, that I would submit and do the very thing that terrified or bored me, just to end the guilt trip.
Her big blue eyes would flip from betrayal to delight if only I’d say yes.
Hence, one Xmas, with great fanfare, Honey bought me a very expensive enrollment in a cadre-level beekeeping course, sponsored by the Arboretum at the University, featuring one of the top apiarists in the world. It was an 8 hour course with a half hour break.
“And I’ll make you a lunch!” she said, as if she was packing me for a Grand Tour.
“But I have no interest in beekeeping. This isn’t my secret dream. I don’t want to sit at a desk for eight hours of anything. If you’re so into bees, why aren’t YOU going?”
Hon got that dark indigo look. “I don’t want to take the class; it’s for you, you could keep bees here in your garden, you have the room for it.”
“This is like giving me a Saint Bernard when your landlord says ‘no pets.’ I’m not starting a bee colony! I DON’T WANT TO LEARN ABOUT BEES! I WANT TO TAKE A NAP.”
Hon marched outside and smoked one Sherman after another. The kids wanted to open the other presents. And I couldn’t talk anymore about it because of Christmas and you have to be on your best behavior.
Two months later, the Bee Course date was on the calendar. My current partner, perhaps innocently (or perhaps not?) was also gung-ho for me to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. He dreams in bees as well.
“Why don’t YOU take the class, then?” I waved the paperwork in their faces. “Why is the one person in this family being driven to the Hive Factory who doesn’t want to go?”
Jon and Hon looked at me with Christlike forbearance. They were sure I was going to have a wonderful conversion as soon as I relaxed into it.
And this is what happened:
I showed up at the Arboretum classroom with my paper bag lunch. I decided to eat the chocolate bar right away. The chairs were unbearable. Professor Bee Doctor came in, along with twenty students. The pupils seemed amped, impatient. Why the urgency? I wondered. They squirmed like sixth-graders in our little chairs. Largely over-50. Someone finally said, “When does the Q&A begin?”
I was warming to the sound of our instructor’s voice. He started The Bee Saga at the beginning, the mythology. Queen Bee is an “origin of the world” tale. I may not like animal husbandry, but I like the Humanities, and I settled into my tuna sandwich quite amiably. Good thing Hon had packed extras.
I took a perverse satisfaction that the Doc had not yet imparted us with one piece of practical information, after two hours. That meant I could come home and say, “Yeah, I got an A and it was all theory, no practice. Sorry. Build your own bee.”
The Professor anticipated the hobbyist impatience in the classroom. He was deliberately putting them off! He was going to teach them about Egyptian art and Mayan mysteries whether they liked it or not.
But the natives were restless. “Look, we’ve got issues here,” someone snapped— and waved their $500 registration packet in the air.
So it became clear. This very same bee professor was an on-call expert whom people hire to extract highly dangerous Queen Bee Situations or fucked-up hives buried in the walls of their homes.
This is the dude the police call when 911 gets a bee crisis. He is the hive whisperer.
Apparently it’s not a job for amateurs. People get hurt. The bees go nuts if you do the “wrong thing.” You can’t just wave a rag at them, or pry them out with treats. They can go berserk.
I don’t remember all the details. Here’s the one fact I do remember: These “students” would’ve had to pay THOUSANDS for Dr. SmartyPants to come do his magic in person at their bee-fucked disaster property. Hence, they took his class so they could get a cut-rate deal.
And he knew it! The professor was very familiar with some of these “students” because he’d already given them a quote on the phone, and they’d all shown up here with their cameras and notepads and photos of their Nightmare they wanted solved in detail, right this minute. They were pent up.
The students were swarming on ole’ Doc Bee.
I went out for a prolonged bathroom break. There was no wifi and no escape. I had been dropped off earlier by the fam. I wondered if I hitchhiked home and said I was allergic, would they believe me. No.
I came out of the ladies room and saw a couple students peel out of the parking lot, clearly armed with whatever secret they’d wrested out of the professor.
I tiptoed back in the room . . . was the coast clear?
Doc looked used up. Haggard. Maybe those were sting scars. “Is there anyone with a question that isn’t about an impacted wall?”
I shot up my hand. “What did you think of Peter Fonda in Ulee’s Gold? — it’s a masterpiece, right? What’s the Tupelo diaspora take on a film like that?”
Half of the remaining students looked at me with disgust, the others in non-recognition.
But I had made me a pal.
I became teacher’s pet the instant I said “Fonda.” All the man wanted was to do was talk about bees in the movies. I’ll talk about movies and ANYTHING.
Professor told us Henry Fonda kept hives himself, all through his Hollywood career, in his Pacific Palisades home. He said that Peter never got stung once on the Ulee set, and everyone else did. That yeah, the whole story was an allegory about him and his dad.
The hands-on bee people gave up. We bore them out.
Bee-Man insisted on driving me home. He dropped me off and gave me an embrace, right in front of a floored Hon, who was pruning in the front yard.
“You call me anytime, let’s go the movies,” he said.
You got it, Doc.
“What did he say to you? What was that?” Hon pointed her clippers at me like a divining rod.
“He said I don’t have to keep bees; it’s not for me,” I said. “We’re going to be friends, instead.” I picked up a couple oranges off the ground. “You should really take that class sometime.”
And then, I told her about the Egyptian sun god, Re, and how his tears ran down his face and turned into honey bees, whenever they touched the ground.
P.S. My photo on this page is taken from the UC Davis vet school, but I don’t know Dr. Dear! He sure reminds me of my professor though. That exact same look upon the hive.
Many's the years ago I wantyed a transformative period early in his life for a Maya insurrectionist (based on a real-life Maya rebel), a time when he had nothing, was maybe somehow out of his mind, and did something dangerous. I had heard about "honey men" in Yucatán, guys who went about getting the honey out of people's hives (all in the day before the suits and the smokers, when a firebrand might be the only instrument to control the bees). Writing that section (the novel is called A GREEN TREE AND A DRY TREE) was super fun. As an artifact, I still have (somewhere) my copy of the bee-keeping guide from the W.W. Dandant company, major suppliers of bee-keeping stuff, should you, Susie, ever want to reconsider...
Great read! With you all the way.