The Complete Beekeeper

'There is a mysterious quietness in the air when one approaches a beehive - an almost sacred stillness, despite the low drone of countless wings in sunlit activity. It is the grace of a paradox. The beekeeper moves slowly, deliberately, as if stepping into an ancient rhythm not of his own design. Crimped smoke twines and unravels from his smoker, calming the hive, announcing his quiet, respectful presence where others might feel the need for conquest. But the beekeeper is not a hurried worker, nor just a harvester of profit. He is a craftsman of patience and of poise. And here, in the quiet hours of tending his beloved bees, we find a kind of figure, or type, for how human life might be lived well. Dressed in white, his face veiled, he moves gently, deliberately, as in a temple. And in truth, he is in one - for within the hive lives and moves an allegory for the sacred mysteries not only of nature, but of the human soul.

To keep bees is to move slowly through a vast mystery. To tend the soul is the same. Both require time, reverence, patient attention, humility and, above all, love. In both, if we are willing to learn their whispered language, we find that the most sacred things speak softly through a veil.

To live well, then, is to become like the keeper of bees: engaged in quiet reciprocity with life, making a thousand small moral choices that no one will see. Only the bees see the choices of their keeper, and in the same way the soul knows its own choices.

And then, one day, there is honey - rich, golden and fragrant - not something stolen or taken, but something offered and accepted. Spiritually, we are engaged in the same inner alchemy: transforming suffering into wisdom, ego into compassion, confusion into clarity...The sweetness of joy, of wisdom, of peace are not things we can manufacture or force by the will alone. They arrive with grace when we have tended the inner world faithfully, patiently and lovingly. You can't force this insight or peace; you can only cultivate the conditions for it. It is not the beekeeper's work alone, but the work of a greater Master beekeeper.'

Gabriel Wilson OSB, the Prior, Guest Master, Novice Master and Beekeeper of Douai Abbey, shares in this deeply engaging book a lifetime of spiritual reflection inspired by the bees in his hives and the rhythm of the seasons.