The Comfort of “Why”

Reader Contribution by Christy Hemenway
Published on May 9, 2011

Everybody’s heard it – the insistent, persistent voice of a small child asking “Why?”  

They start with one question and then dig deeper and deeper – to your every best answer – there is another “Why?”, another “Why?”  and yet another “Why?”  Eventually the questions become impossible to answer and the line of questioning comes to an abrupt end, sometimes with a bit of frustration on the part of the adult.

But we really never stop wanting to know “Why?”, do we?  As adults, it’s comforting to know that there is a reason for the things that happen.  Without a sense of cause and effect we feel lost and out of control.  More importantly,  if we know why something happens, we know what not to do if we want to prevent that thing from happening.

So it’s challenging to live in a world where we can’t always know the “why” of things.  And beekeeping is a prime example of such a world.  There are a multitude of variables involved in the keeping of bees – weather, location, colony strength, queen fecundity, availability and quality of forage, temperature, pests and pesticides – just to name a few of the possibilities.  

As a business owner, and even more, as a teacher in the top bar hive beekeeping world – it pains me when I am unable to give concise, scientific answers to the questions I am asked by students – answers that soothe and satisfy, instead of insisting that the student be brave, and to come along and learn to live in the uncertain world of nature and beekeeping.

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