A Day to Bee Remembered 🐝

You don’t need a grand adventure to find something wonderful. Besides a lot of things about bees, that’s what Amy Pemberton discovered on a visit to the FHT hives.

Sometimes the best experiences come from simply saying yes to something you know very little about. 

That’s exactly what Abi and I did when we booked ourselves onto a full-day beekeeping course at the Findhorn Hinterland Trust. Neither of us had any previous experience with bees, and if we’re honest, we arrived not really knowing what to expect. We were simply curious, excited to learn something new and perhaps spend a day doing something a little different from our usual routines.

What followed was a day that surprised us in so many ways.

We were introduced to the fascinating world of the honeybee and began to understand just how complex and incredible life inside a hive really is. We learnt about the different roles within a colony, how bees communicate, how they work together and what is involved in caring for them. We also gained a much deeper understanding of the importance of bees to our environment and the wider world around us.

But what I think will stay with me most is how the day made me feel.

There was something incredibly peaceful about slowing down and simply observing these tiny creatures going about their lives. In a world where we’re so often rushing from one thing to the next, it felt like we had been given permission to pause for a while.

By the end of the day, Abi and I both felt surprisingly relaxed. We had arrived as complete beginners and left with a head full of new knowledge, a handful of new skills and a completely different appreciation for something we had probably taken for granted before.

It made me realise how easy it is to overlook the incredible things happening around us every single day. A hive may look like a simple wooden box from the outside, but inside is an extraordinary, busy and beautifully organised world.

We went along thinking we were simply going to learn about beekeeping. Instead, we came away with a new appreciation for nature, a slower pace of thinking and a genuine love for these remarkable little creatures.

I’m not sure where our newfound interest in beekeeping will take us, but one thing is certain – it has left us both with a definite buzz and a desire to keep learning.

Sometimes you don’t need a grand adventure to discover something wonderful. Sometimes, you just need to step outside your comfort zone, spend a day in nature and be open to learning something new.

And for us, that day at Findhorn was exactly that.