My day job is in the arts, I’m a classical pianist and teacher. This is seen as pretty high-falutin’ stuff, rarified and remote. People talk about inspiration and expression. But the daily work in the arts is a repetitive slog. 

It’s actually much like beekeeping, a steady, scrupulous attention to detail in time both real and remote. With music, you are increasing your sensitivity to sound, your control of muscles often not originally under conscious control, your ability to track and respond to multiple variables at once and learning to manage your emotions around learning and failing. The ultimate product is way down the road, the satisfactions are in the daily discipline.

The difference is that beekeeping is heavily visual. The sound of bees is compelling and often informative, but it is really not the point. The point is pattern recognition in the hive. That’s where the daily slog is, looking and looking and looking some more. And learning to manage your emotions in the middle of a hot, sticky mess of bees. 

I don’t see much manual work in beekeeping at all, unless you were whittling frames out of old barn boards. It takes no particular coordination to pry frames out of the box and look at brood, but some manual  strength, which is why I use all mediums. 

There’s a lot of science in music, the science of movement and sound production, the leverage of bones and piano hammers, the resonance of rooms and instruments. But you could do it all without knowing any science. It’s very helpful to know more science when you’re teaching, because getting another human to do a certain thing is complex work, any extra information will help. 

 I suspect the same is true of keeping bees. 

Yours, Megan Hughes

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