Bees'n'Beans

Beehouse Project

2009-07-05T00:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since the last blog and a lot of things have happened. At present Sue and I are training a group of eight teachers from a secondary school so that they can set up and manage a school apiary and involve the students. This is a new thing for us and is a very positive experience.

At the same time we are trying to keep all the balls in the air including opening a new apiary at Spa Hill and building a bee-house at our Barnmead Road apiary.

When finished the bee-house will be home to six colonies of bees and have a twenty foot long classroom behind it. Almost all the materials are recycled - pallets, scaffold boards, discarded windows and glazing units etc and the building will have an eco-roof which incidentally will also help to disguise it from potential vandals. We are looking at the idea of small solar panels just to provide lighting but the downside to that is that is goes against the "invisibility" idea.

On Saturday 4th July we celebrated Independence Day by clearing and levelling the floor area with the help of our anglo-Polish friend Jan and Sarwan, who is a fellow member of the allotments committee.

More to follow.

Mike

Running to catch up

2008-11-11T01:02:00.000-08:00

Lots of things happening recently. Doing a lot of work preparing two apiary sites - Forster Road and Hook Farm and moving hives around. There are now three hives at Hook Farm and next week there will be three at Forster Road towards the eventual six we want there.

Work going on too at Barnmead Allotments - site clearance for the Bee House - done in the pouring rain with the help of three volunteers. Also moving specimen hives (occupied by bees)from Glenthorne to Barnmead.

In discussions with another allotment site with the hope that approval will be given for five hives there, so the Empire is growing - resistance is futile!!

Sue and I are also heavily into providing a service for people who want theie gardens prepared for the winter - "the autumn blitz" and this is going well too.

So not a lot of time at present for an in-depth blog - but I will do something more interesting soon.

apianus

Green fingers and blue plaques.

2008-10-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

Saturday 11th October.An interesting day started with Sue and I having a meeting with a new gardening client. She lives in a lovely house - the sitting room was filled with bookshelves on all walls - very much my thing and her eclectic garden was a joy though needing some attention. We are going to spend three days next week on a renovation blitz, which should be a lot of fun and hard work.

Later that morning we went to 12, Colworth Road, Addiscombe to witness Alan Sillitoe (Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner) unveil a blue plaque in honour of David Herbert (DH) Lawrence who lived there from 1908-1911 during the period he taught at Davidson Road School, which is just around the corner from our house. Alan and DH are both Nottinghamshire men (along with Lord George Byron.) Found out quite a bit about Lawrence I didn't know - Sons and Lovers was written here. At 2pm we went to Davidson Road School to listen to a talk by a Nottingham University don about Lawrence's Croydon years which seemed to major on Lawrence's women friends - and quite right too!

We both enjoyed the talk but ducked out since regrettably we felt we should do some work on our new apiary sites. A visit to a DIY store produced at painful cost eight lengths of 2x2 - this is the only material on Forster Road apiary that is not recycled apart from nails and a new roll lof builders' mesh netting. This sad purchase came about because the Fearless Tom the Timber Man was, for once, unable to come up with what we needed in the way of secondhand posts for a week or two and we have to finish the job asap.

On Sunday I will be spending my first morning in the Trading Hut at the allotments as a till-lady - much to Sue's delight. As I understand it I shall be the first male till-lady and to celebrate the fact I have cooked a Dorser Apple cake since Sue is insisting that I also act as tea-lady. No macho hangups from yours truly.

Also paid my plot rents - a hundred sobs ( now I know why they call them sobs) and arbitrated over a boundary dispute at the allotments. Ended the day with Sue studying frantically for her presentation at our Bee-Info Day next Saturday and no time really to look at our new Website - yep, at last we have something to look at -still have no idea how it works but ......

Apianus

Don't blame me...

2008-10-08T21:09:00.000-07:00

All around us are people saying don't blame me for the near collapse of the economy, don't blame me for the weather. Well there is a difference between things you can change and things you can't and there is also a case for blaming people who cannot see the consequences of their own actions.

Some people - politicans spring to mind - either just do not see where they have gone wrong or just as likely, know full well and want to shift the blame to some other schmuck.

The following incident may seem trivial but it illustrates the arrogance of assumng a puzzled expression and then staring accusingly at somebody else when you know you have just screwed up.

I have reached the epilogue of my wage-slave career by signing up to do 12 days of work over 3 months for my recently ex-employer which means on one day a week of my choosing I make my way with the rest of the depressed lemmings to Islington and spend the day "in dark-filled rooms". Yesterday being one such day started well enough but in the middle of the morning my computer went on the blink and connection to the server was broken. Not by co-incidence a contractor from the IT firm that is supposed to serve us was in the building messing around with a security upgrade for the 4 or 5 laptops a few of the staff use.

Having found this out I ran him to ground appropriately enough in the basement. It was quite a weird feeling to walk into this over-heated noisy replica of the engine room of the Starship Enterprise and see the contractor hooked up to the Borg machine with a cable from his laptop into the bowels of the mainframe. After some difficulty making myself heard I told him that that it was no coincidence that his presence "deus ex machina" had bu*gered the whole system. He shrugged his shoulders and said "I haven't noticed anything." Not being too long on patience I carefully explained to him that there is no such thing as coincidence, which is at best a futile attempt to avoid acceptance that consequence always follows cause and would he please extract his head from his rear USB and sort it out. Having actually forced myself all the way from home to office I was in no mood to sit around all day picking my nose whilst it occurred to him to actually look at what he had done.

I left him to it. Had an early lunch. Read the paper. Went into the database..Nothing happened.

Then I found another man who was also from the IT firm sitting out of sight in a meeting room probably playing Sudoku. 'Don't blame me, I'm just a senior executive, I'm not an engineer.'

A few seconds later his ears aflame and the seat of his trousers in need of a fire extinguisher he catapuluted himself into a lift and disappeared in the general direction of the basement.

An hour later the first man (don't blame me, I didn't do it) made the mistake of failing to use a different route which would not have taken him past my desk. He looked like a man whose last 20 years had been spent trying to find his way out of a paper bag. The blank expresion on his face and glazed eyes should have warned me not to bother but I said "Well?" Avoiding direct eye-contact he mumbled something about (don't blame me) "there's a hardware problem." Fighting the urge to tell him that there would be a hardware problem in the Casualty Dept when they tried to remove my boot from a very uncomfortable part of his anatomy, I asked him to answer yes or no, can you fix what you broke?

Now there could have been a selection of innocuous answers to my question such as - I will do my best or I'm sorry but it is going to take longer but the answer he pulled out of the box was "Don't blame me, it's a hardware problem." My hands weren't actually pried from his throat by a dozen panicked work colleagues but his squeaks of puzzled self-pity could be heard in the distant basement where his colleague was no doubt hiding. Having firmly and for me very quietly laid out for him a graphic scenario of his probable exit from this mortal coil if he didn't start taking the problem seriously I then told him he would be locked in with the Borg machine and fed only stale bread and water until he corrected HIS cock-up.

An hour later a colleague told me sheepishly that the IT geniuses had left the building (presumably via the ventilation duct) and that a new server had been ordered and would arrive by courier the following day. Furthermore the IT firm's top man would install it. Bloody glad I won't be there till next week - I bet the "top man" says don't blame me as soon as he walks into the building.

Apianus

Onwards and which way is Upwards?

2008-10-07T21:23:00.000-07:00

Recently Sue and I have been working hard on our new apiary at Forster Road and have almost completed our shed. Like me it's a just a tiny bit skew-whiff but it works. Sue has been digging for victory removing ancient and gnarled bramble roots while her ancient and gnarled partner is clambering over the shed finding problems for solutions. The ground looks like Sue has been given a treasure map with the vital X missing or has been doing a Saint Sue and visiting with the local moles. She has also dug a dozen or two post holes ready for the screen-fence and in every way has been a dynamo in rather delightful human form. Boy, would the escape commitee in Colditz have been blessed by her; she can mine for England - sorry should be the US but you know what I mean.

Last Sunday morning was raining felines and canines when we went to Hook Farm and set up a cheese 'n' wine party to say thank you for the support the plotholders have given in getting permission for the apiary on the allotments. As we were setting up Sue muttered "we forgot the cheese!!!" With a tight smile on my face I whispered leave it to me and drove off like a loony in search of a deli which, on not-so-sunny Sunday in Bromley Common would appear like wishful thinking. However less than a quarter of a mile away the dear old Co-op had its egalitarian doors open and an amazingly large selection of various cheese in the cold cabinet - so that was a quick thank you to The Man up There and back to the motley laden with Edam, Leicester,Cheddar and some strange but interesting stuff with peaches or something embedded in it - it tasted good whatever it was.

Teddy - the site manager/secretary/procurer of free dung - true to form was bustling around happily wearing a horrible green plastic mac that may have originally been used to wrap nuclear waste. It was tied in the middle with baling twine ( I think.) A dozen or so brave souls came along and were very friendly to us and each other as they always are there. I just munched on cheese and crackers and grinned inanely as usual and everybody was thinking what deep intelligent thoughts that deep intelligent fellow Apianus is having when actually I was wondering if anybody would notice I was snaffling all the little square cheesy biscuits and the Hovis digestives and wondering if I would ever be dry again.

The rain didn't clear much but we still spent a couple of lotus eating hours there and I get the feeling that nothing could ever disturb the peace and warmth of that place.

We are getting there with the website though all this mumbo-jumbo about hosting and megathingys is as meaningful as an Aztec language version of Winnie the Pooh to me. Fortunately the wise Sue has got her friend Johanna on the case and by miracle of modern communication she is building it in downtown California.

And there was I just getting used to using a quill pen. Ah well, onwards and where did you say my phone was?

Stepping up to the wicket

2008-10-01T21:40:00.000-07:00

Having firmly asserted in my last blog that beekeepers should expand their operations and try to build rather than simply struggle to deal with the problems of colony disease and collapse disorder, I have to put my money where my mouth is and invest in the idea of trying to get more beekeepers to go the extra mile. Also it seems to me all beekeepers have a duty to encourage and inform prospective beekeepers.

This is why Sue and I are keen to create a somewhat different type of beekeeping school. There are a tiny number of admirable examples of people dedicated to teaching beekeeping; one that immediately springs to mind is John Hamer at Blackhorse Apiaries in West Surrey. Most of the courses offered elsewhere will give adequate training to budding beekeepers but I humbly believe there are a number of improvements that can be made to many of these. For example one course I attended a few years ago to try to see where gaps were in my knowledge cost a very reasonable amount of money and lasted ten weeks (2 hours an evening)but it was light on practical work and almost non-existent on the very important area of follow-up. It was designed to dump a load of knowledge of mixed value on as many people as possible at one time and then start planning for the next course(about 40 people started the course and 28 survived to the end!) Not once did any of the three tutors who often talked at cross purposes and contradicted each other, offer to be available if people needed help after the course ended. At 9pm at the end of each session they could not get the people out of the door quickly enough. Get 'em in, load 'em up, kick 'em out, shut the door. Next cattle truck!! Oh yes, sorry, they did always try to get people to join them in the pub afterwards....

After a lot of thought we have decided to limit the numbers of people we will have on each course to eight or nine. If this means running several courses in parallel, that's what we will do.

I think it makes little sense to take people through a course that is at once straightforward but at the same time heavy on know-how without being available to them on an ongoing basis in the months and years that follow. There is no way you can cover all the aspects of beekeeping in 20 hours and after years of beekeeping I can firmly say that every year I learn much more than I could have thought possible. Much of this learning will be self-taught and arises from practical experience but there are many occasions when another beekeeper's views can be invaluable. This knowledge exchange process is also two-way. No beekeeper however experienced can afford not to listen to another beekeeper, even if the Ego is telling you that this kid is too green to know what he is talking about. Listen and learn applies to teachers as well as students.

A good local club is perfect for disseminating knowledge particularly when you have done a basic course and there is nothing quite as useful as watching somebody else open a hive and carry out a particular manipulation. However, unless you get more closely involved with one or two members, meetings are usually monthly and therefore too far between to satisfy most beekeepers. This is why those who give formal lessons should be willing to continue to give advice and help after a course finishes.

What Bees'n'Beans will try to do is to provide a closer level of attention to each student both whilst on a course and in the future to continue to be there for him or her. I am sure any experienced beekeeper will agree with me that far too many new beekeepers give up in their first year or two because they are discouraged when something goes wrong.

Is beekeeping hard work? It can be very hard though it is pleasant to realise that in the coldest months of the year both you and the bees rest but do not hibernate. If like us you deliberately set out to build your apiary (ies) towards bigger numbers of colonies the amount of work can be daunting. Even so there are ways of working WITH the bees that make life a lot easier. For example using topbar hives or long hives can seriously reduce the amount of heavy lifting. This is where a conscientious teacher can lay out all options for all types of student. Unfortunately beekeeping is a craft where many aficionados foam at the mouth if you suggest their particular method may not be the final say on perfect beekeeping. I hope we don't fall into that trap. We have set up an apiary dedicated to working examples (inhabited hives) of all the most common hives in use in the UK and this can be used to show people the pros and cons of different systems without bias.

One good thing about a local club is the opportunity to network with one or several people who would be prepared to help each other at harvest time. Why don't those that run courses help connect people who want to network in this way?

Make no mistake, when you get into beekeeping you are likely to be afflicted with some seriously off-putting challenges and frankly you need to be truly committed or waste a not inconsiderable amount of money and effort you have expended on setting up your first hive. At moments when you open the hive and realise there is a problem as serious as queenlessness it is very reassuring to have somebody at the other end of the phone to whom you can pour your heart out.

Okay, I am plugging Bees'n'Beans but I think the idea of continuing contact is very important.

Another thing we see is a lack of available courses such as a "taster" session. We don't set out to provide a cheap alternative to other courses (not that there are any such courses within easy distance of where we work) in fact we believe that value should be paid for but if you know almost nothing about beekeeping how do you know you will want to keep them? Geographically we are in a good position not to be competing with other schools but that does not lead to complacency. We are passionate about our beekeeping and want to share our love of bees and the craft but it would be foolish to pretend we are not running a business. Sound business practice is to constantly add value and "Always Add Value" is one of the big needlework samplers we should have over our bed. It applies to personal relationships too, of course.

As far as I know there are very few if any intensive courses available to enable people to get to grips with the subject in say three or four days or two or three weekends. This is quite surprising. In many educational areas ( language training springs to mind) intensive courses have been offered for many years but not beekeeping. We want to offer that to individuals or small groups. A group course aimed at a particular community is another idea that is under-explored.

I any of the above makes sense to you or especially if you think I am talking out of my trouser leg please tell me!

Apianus.

All is not doom and gloom.

2008-09-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

This is mainly for beekeepers. Many of you are being bombarded with negative messages from the media concerning Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and rampant Varroa infestations. True, these are problems but not everywhere and not to all beekeepers. In fact one of the positive things about it is the increased and noticeable public awareness as to the value of bees particularly in pollination. Just one example, over 80% of the world's almonds are grown in California and the commercial beekeepers migrating their colonies there have been hit severely. This sort of news starts to ring bells even with the most complacent joe-public.

Just as the UK was hit badly by Isle of Wight Disease in the early years of the last century so it will be seen that this too shall pass! Already serious attention is being given ( albeit in far too small numbers) to breeding varroa resistant strains. Some research into CCD is being carried out despite government complacency on both sides of the Atlantic.

What causes CCD? Actually there is no clear answer to this question but there is no doubt it exists. For sure I don't know the answer and I doubt whether any average beekeeper can steal a march on the scientists and find one. To paraphrase the Alcoholics Anonymous prayer - so let's try to change the things we can change.

Let's all look more closely at Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and non-chemical solutions to things like varroa. It seems resistant varroa will always triumph over chemicals unless you kill all the bees at the same time. IPM is not all icing sugar and mesh floors. Educate yourself. Also look up Demeter Beekeeping on the Web - I find it fascinating.

Remember it may be a hard-hearted attitude to see an advantage in other people's misfortune but less beekeepers means more opportunity for those of us who stick to it and work harder at maintaining as healthy stocks as possible. Recently I have seen increases in the price I get for my honey due to a perceived shortage and also heightened realisation from the public as to what exactly they will be missing if the bees die out (or beekeepers simply throw in the towel). At a time when others are preaching doom and gloom and the wimps are running for cover, it's time to expand. Get your head out of your derriere and go out there and spread your beekeeping empire still further. Sorry about this tired old expression but its true -when the going gets tough; the tough get going.

Sue and I now have four allotment sites for apiaries - expanding from two in the spring. We have closed down one country house small apiary due to distance and a pragmatic view on cost-effectiveness. You too can find new sites, we can show you how just talk to us.

More about this soon!!

Apianus

Saint Sue lands on Planet Addiscombe

2008-09-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

Been a bit busy lately and very enjoyably so. Sue's Aunt Sue arrived for an 11 day stay last week. She is a real treasure - an American lady with a great sense of humour and a very gentle attitude to life.

Sue and I have been showing Aunt Sue the sights. Aunt Sue's nickname in the family, "Saint Sue," comes about because she is very religious and has a genuinely saintly demeanour. This is charming but can occasionally cause problems if like me one allows the occasional expletive to emerge unchecked from one's lips in the odd unguarded moment of frustration. However so far I have not completely blotted the Apianus copybook. To avoid complication I will refer to Saint Sue as Saint Sue and the younger unsaintly Sue as Sue-chan.

I've discovered that Saint Sue is the roving ambassador from the Republic of Essex Junction, Vermont. She is great at making friends wherever she goes and rarely has a bad word to say about anybody. She sometimes wanders off and all you have to do is look for a smiling face or two where she will be spreading the ambassadorial good will. In a moment of quizzical curiosity Suechan asked her if she actually loathed anybody and she said "no" as if the word had never occurred to her.

I was greatly amused in Bath Cathedral when she "visited with" (ie. got talking to) a lady chaplain. Standing some distance away I murmured to Suechan that she was probably trying to convert the good chaplain to Catholicism.

At Stonehenge Saint Sue "did" the rock-pile whilst Suechan and I stood like East Berliners outside behind a chain-link fence both being too tight-fisted to pay the admission charge. As Saint Sue wafted past us on a narrow pathway I offered to take her photograph against the backdrop of the henge for which I would only charge her five dollars. She replied that she had "visited with" a Canadian couple (naturally) and they had already taken her photo with her camera - and had also wanted five dollars.

We have had a lot of fun and I will be genuinely sorry when Saturday comes and we have to take her back to Heathrow for her ascent.

None of the above is an excuse for the fact that we have been rather lazy with our allotment plots in the last few weeks and we will have to really knuckle down to some hard work. One of our numerous empty excuses is that we have been waiting for both of us to get our scythes and find out how to work them.

So the two Sues and I went to South Petherton in Somerset after staying one night at a B&B in Glastonbury. The Scythe Shop is in a converted potato store on a farm and is run by Simon who is a gentle, rather absent-minded man with a life subscription to Oxfam's clothing club. He was the man who taught me in Brighton. He provided Suechan with a scythe and a short instruction session. She was just as delighted as I was with sheer peacefulness and satifaction of using the scythe and since then can't wait to come round and scythe your lawn for you. Simon stated his crusading intention to convert the whole of London to scything and consign a million lawnmowers to the great horticutural scrap-heap destined to bury some unattractive eyesore like, for example, the current occupant of no 10 Downing Street.

I could see Suechan's eyes glaze over at the thought and wait with considerable curiosity to find out just when she will single-handedly bring about the re-structuring of Croydon and Bromley in the said crusade. This year Penge - next year, who knows, Washington DC?

Apianus

So Beans'n'beans, what's that?

2008-09-09T06:06:00.000-07:00

We are beekeepers and we are particularly conscious of current problems with bees world-wide. We think that spreading the word about the almost irreplaceable function of honeybees as well as bumblebees and other insects in pollinating crops is essential because of serious lack of concern (through lack of information) by the world at large. So that's one thing we do.

One way to improve the situation - if only slightly - is to get more people and particularly younger people to keep honeybees. This is why we decided to start a beekeeping school. If we can get a few people seriously into beekeeping after each Course we will be more than pleased. We are also able to offer information visits to schools and organisations to talk about beekeeping and also to talk about the decline in the bumblebee population and what people can do to help.

The beans part revolves around our other interests which include horticulture and particularly fruit trees - you could say "born to prune" is Sue's motto. She can't pass an apple tree without mentally giving it the once over and deciding what she could do to help it. We have succesfully given the kiss of life to one neglected orchard this summer and we are improving our knowledge all the time. Planned learning opportunities include two courses we are more or less committed to attend - Advanced Pruning ( Blackmoor Nurseries in December) and Renovating Old Fruit Trees (Brighton Permaculture Trust in January.) We have already done some courses on grafting fruit trees and basic pruning techniques.

We are lined up to get scythes and I am attending a course on Saturday this week in Brighton to teach me how to use one. This will have a number of benefits. Firstly in this time of huge hikes in fuel prices it will save us money on strimmer and mower petrol, secondly when we are "strimming and mowing" around the beehives, we should now be able to do this without having to dress up to the nines in cumbersome bee-suits and thirdly it's fun and it's healthy. I'll let you know in a few days how the course turns out.

Its apple harvest time right now and we have literally dozens of apple and pear trees. We need to gather these in and dry them or juice them or simply store them correctly. All of which I'll pass on to you in due course.

Apianus

Responsibility and God

2008-09-09T03:45:00.000-07:00

Meaning of Non-Dualism:
“Non-Dualism is the orientation that there is one absolute reality without a second, and that each of us, although an individual person, is one with that reality, just as a wave is not separate from the ocean”. (Centre for Non-Dualism.)

Yeah, well, that’s California for yer. But what if there is something in this that you don’t have to give all your money to and wear a flimsy white bed-sheet and eat nothing but lentils?

In a sense, if you apply this concept to “religion” you believe there is no separation of yourself from God (don’t worry if you don’t believe in God – in spite of what “religion” tells you HE doesn’t care whether you believe in HER or not – but it suppose it’s just as well IT believes in you.) This leads to some interesting thoughts. Christianity, for example, is a dualist belief, since it envisions God (the Trinity or otherwise) as being a separate entity from the individual. Therefore things like the concept of Original Sin are valid since God is free of sin and we are not. But if you believe that you are inseparable from God than you cannot sin because God cannot sin – ditch the Original Sin; ditch the guilt. That’s quite a shift, isn’t it? I truly believe there is no such thing as Original Sin, it’s just a scam devised by the religious elite/priesthood to keep you in your place and keep them in the sweet lifestyle which is the real reason they joined. Moses must have had a wicked golf handicap.

Non-dualism can be expressed as a philosophy more than a religion. It is similar to a religion because it is a belief; it is not knowledge, i.e. nobody knows whether it is true or not. On the other hand non-dualism does not insist on a narrow interpretation of the word God; it could also be expressed in many other ways as the Universe, Love, The One, The Divine and so forth. All that the prophets, sages and mystics have received are flashes of Truth emanating from their own Spirits. Sometimes their “revelation” is perfect as received; sometimes their Ego has distorted it. Sometimes other people e.g the seven Councils of Nicaea filtered out whatever made THEIR Egos feel uncomfortable, e.g. the Gospel of St Thomas, their descendants reinforcing THEIR Egos by inspiring persecutions like the Albigensian Crusade and the Inquisition.

Ho’oponopono, the Hawaiian teaching says that we are inseparable from “Divinity” and that as part of Divinity we are the Creator. Therefore we are responsible for the world around us and if it (they, that insane person, that car, that President) needs healing it is within OURSELVES we should focus the problem. Sounds a bit whacky? Okay here is a documented case to get your head round.

Dr Ihaleakala Hew Len is a psychologist. He went to a mental hospital and over a period of time healed so many patients they closed down the “insane” wing. Think about that for a few moments because it is a bigger deal than just a few words on this sheet of paper/blog/whatever. It cannot be faked; it really happened – therefore we KNOW rather than BELIEVE something is going on here. What is more Dr Hew Len did not see one single patient face to face. The hospital had a savagely bad reputation, it had huge staff problems – those who did actually stay there for more than a short time had a high level of absenteeism and lived in dread of going to work. Physical attacks were frequent and one member of staff described walking with his back against the wall every time he entered the ward.

What the Doctor did was to read each patient’s file and then go deep inside his own sub-conscious and HEAL HIMSELF because he believed through Ho’oponopono that HE was responsible for the world around him and that the problem was with HIM. It worked, whackos walked, ward went out of business.

Another non-dual system or philosophy is “A Course In Miracles” (ACIM). It is a system which holds that we have never become separated from God; we have simply formed a belief that we are separated. We are essentially Spirit in a body which has no meaning except as a tool for learning lessons based on our mistakes in the so-called past (there is no past; it is simply a perception to explain the present). Those mistakes lead to “action replays” where the same problems keep coming back – in somewhat different forms mostly. I’m sure you’ve muttered ‘not again!’ or had a feeling you had been there before. ACIM postulates that we have a chance to deal with them so that they do not recur. If successful, this leads to a concept of collapsing time; that is to say it cuts out the continual repetition of the problem, it brings realisation that there is only the Now and shortens the process whereby we can recognise and full accept our unity with the Divine. It also leads to the interesting conclusion that there is no death, simply that the Spirit, which is invulnerable, moves on and no longer needs the body. I have long believed from personal experience that the body does not control the mind therefore the mind does control the body. This is particularly useful in dealing with personal health. The healing power of the mind itself is so unbelievable, i.e illogical – i.e. denied by the Ego - that we needed to invent drugs. Then somebody observed, probably by accident, that patients healed when a mistake was made in medication and the patient was healed despite the treatment being wholly ineffectual.

Instead of accepting this and denying the Ego, this led to the idea of placebos. It is not weakness of mind that allows the placebo effect, because even though your Spirit may not always be able to get through the clutter in your mind to tell you this, your Spirit KNOWS it is a placebo. Placebos are only a reminder that it is your mind (Spirit) that is healing your body. How else can you explain that they work if your inner consciousness KNOWS they don’t? Your true inner mind, your Spirit, cannot be fooled by the world outside because it/you created that world, so it knows about the placebo and therefore the illness should not be affected by it.

You may ask why I am spending so much time talking about placebos but you need to ask yourself this question. If placebos (i.e devices that have absolutely no “drugs” in them) can have the same effect as a so-called proven drug treatment then obviously nobody really needs the drug! Simple? Why would that not work? Because the Ego is telling you that hundreds of brilliant chemists and scientists and millions of pounds/dollars have been spent on vital research into an effective drug, therefore the drug heals. WRONG! The drug is not healing you at all. It suits the Ego at that point for you to BELIEVE the drug is healing you but if it did not suit the Ego the drug would NOT heal you. Hey! Drugs don’t work every time – not exactly Breaking News, hmm? See how dangerous the damned Ego is?

Can you imagine the power this gives you over sickness if only you could stop your Ego from being a Doubting Thomas? Can you imagine how wonderful it would be to take away all fear of death itself if only you could stop your Ego from convincing you it is the end of all things? Most Religion is a palliative answer. It says only believe in God, the guy with the white beard, and the world to come and your death will seem like the beginning of another adventure when you JOIN God?

Actually there is no death and God has never been separated from you (your Spirit)! Geddit? Forget death, it is irrelevant because the body is irrelevant. The Spirit cannot die – it is only the Ego that wants you to believe in death – THE EGO WANTS YOU DEAD to prove it is right!! It’s like a bloody virus, folks. It wants to kill you even if it dies itself. Grasp that one simple concept and truly grasp it and you will never fear death again. I accept that even if you urn out to be the holder of the Guinness Book of Records entry for longevity you will be parted from your body one day, that is not death and your Spirit knows it. Go on, I dare you to tell your Ego to go screw itself.

The fact is that denying the Ego is probably the one greatest challenge we have. The process starts with Forgiveness. The process is not about forgiving others because YOU are responsible for the world you/your Ego has created. Forgiveness starts and ends in you. Now that really is a problem getting your head around, isn’t it? Read that sentence again. Some b*stard is giving you a hard time and you have to forgive you? Yup, that’s what I said. It took me a long time to get MY head round that becuase the Ego kept telling me 'this is too hard, don't bother with it, have another beer.'

Flash back to Dr Hew Len – he “cured” the patients by forgiving himself. Actually what he did was to focus the following words into a tool to connect with an inner space in his mind – ‘I love you, I am sorry, please forgive me, thank you.’ This “cancelled out” (sorry to keep putting quote marks around things but language is particularly inadequate is describing these ideas) all past thoughts/guilt and brought about a state he calls Zero Limits, i.e. no limits on the mind’s power. Still sounds like mumbo-jumbo? Yes, I too almost threw the book across the room when I read it but the nagging thought kept coming back to me – just a minute, what about all those raving nutters he healed without even seeing them? Mental note : Forgive me, shouldn't have said 'raving.'

At this point you are probably thinking one of three things. (a) this guy Apianus is on something (b) this guy Apianus is onto something or (c) this guy Apianus is an utter pillock. Well I’m on LIFE which is cheaper than weed and much more fun, I’m onto the fact that Ego is sneering at my attempts to beat it and if I am a pillock, why are you still reading this – unless you are just as big a pillock as you think I am?

My honest belief is that for almost all my life my head was stuck in a pile of manure with occasion glimmers of light seeping through. I don’t believe I have been given some Divine revelation like some latter day saint (oops, did I just say that?)just that my Spirit is managing to overcome my Ego’s attempts to keep me in the dark. My life is all a learning experience and it will be until the day I make my Transition and probably beyond and for that I’m grateful. It doesn’t take away the fact that now that I am in a state of radically different belief I can’t believe how successful Ego has been in keeping my inner eye closed all these years. The film “The Matrix” comes to mind as a scary parallel to reality. What if the Machine (Computer) ie the Ego has been keeping all of us occupied whilst it rapes our Spirit?

If you want know more about ACIM look it up on the web. It is NOT a cult or a California whacko-fest and they are not after all your money – neither concept of cult or cash has any meaning.

AND ...I don’t expect you to run out into the street and start waving your arms and shouting that everybody must conquer the Ego until the big white van with the pretty blue lights draws up and they cart you off. All I ask is that you take a sneaky look at the way Ego is telling you that I am talking crap and then think about all those lucky people who had Dr Hew Len as their healer. Yeah? Hmm? Bye-bye for now.

First Day of Blogging

2008-09-07T01:33:00.000-07:00

Here we are....it's a Sunday morning and it's raining for the nth day. Here is the beginning of our blog for bees'n'beans. We are Sue and Mike and amongst other things we are beekeepers. We are also into allotment gardening, fruit tree and orchard renovation, grafting, scything, earth ovens, chickens and stuff like that.

Mike is in the first throes of retiring and wants to spend lots of time beekeeping. He's also putting the final touches on a book about frugal living and steering towards self-sufficiency in the city. Sue is an artist and is into mosaics and painting; her latest projects include hand-painted designer t-shirts.

Things are building up into a new life-pattern for us which includes a beekeeping school for people who want to take a straight-forward course to give them essential knowledge. We will be running a basic course in the spring and if you are interested, get back to us for more info. We are also working on a number of other bee projects including a half-day intro session and an intensive course designed for a group.

Bees'n'beans can be contacted at beesnbeans@yahoo.co.uk .We are in South London (Croydon) and n case you are wondering - apianus has nothing to do with Mike's posterior, it means "lover of bees."

apianus