Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Domesticate \Do*mes"ti*cate\, v. t. [imp. & p. p.
Domesticated; p. pr. & vb. n. Domesticating.] [LL.
domesticatus, p. p. of domesticare to reside in, to tame. See
Domestic, a.]
1. To make domestic; to habituate to home life; as, to
domesticate one's self.
2. To cause to be, as it were, of one's family or country;
as, to domesticate a foreign custom or word.
3. To tame or reclaim from a wild state; as, to domesticate
wild animals; to domesticate a plant.
Within beekeeping, at every caste, there is this romance. It is the art of
the craft, the almost celebrity status we have among the populous for our
unique endeavor, the days afield where time is measured by the experiance
of the moment, the sudden emergence of a storm on the horizon or the
impending dusk.
Because of who we are, beekeepers, a part of us will wish our bees to
remain wild creatures we interact with (and who interact with us) in a way
significantly different from the more "domesticated" farmers who tend cows,
heard sheep or raise chickens.
We stretch our intelect to build fences around the impossible with words
like religion, universe and domesticated. We struggle to accept that in a
practical sense we can call whatever we choose domestic in a moment of
seemingly controlled captivity. In truth all living creatures are wild
except for the fences, hive bodies or houses that keep us. Any event may
remove that barrier and all, even humans, would return to a wild state.
Possibly different from others we would encounter who have lived longer in
the wild, but still surviving or becoming extinct, based on deep drives
that have been in the making, long before Mr. Webster and his dictionary.
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