Both meditation and beekeeping ask you to exist completely in the present moment. When you're sitting on your meditation cushion, you watch your presence by observing the breath. If we get lost in a thought spiral, we diligently return to the cadence of our inhales and exhales. Likewise when I’m beekeeping, I have an object of focus, but instead of my breath, it’s the bees — the sound of the hive and the natural flow of these incredible insects. If my attention wavers, it’s no big deal, but the practice of reminding myself to return my focus to beekeeping has a therapeutic effect that’s similar to meditation. I find the sound of the beehive deeply calming.
