Dear Beekeeper,

Months ago, I overheard a coworker saying to another, “Wow, you’ve lost weight, you look fantastic”. The other replied, “Weight Watchers. It’s not about the number. But I feel lighter, you know? Not so weighed down.”

This is the type of conversation I overheard constantly in the early 2000’s when I was a child on my first Atkins Diet, avoiding carbs and eating protein packed meals as I began to form the neural pathways that assigned food and indulgent as evil. Conversations about weight, endless calorie counting and WW “points” icons on restaurant menus overwhelmed the zeitgeist then, and certainly, in most time periods of modern age has been a profound concern especially for white, cis women in the United States. Who can forget the endless measuring tape, wrapping around slim waistlines in Special K advertisements? Or the non-stop Jenni Craig campaigns? Or Oprah pushing a wheelbarrow of fat on national T.V?

What was most shocking to me was the scriptedness of the conversation, and how it was assumed that the other person would know exactly what “feeling lighter” and “not so weighed down” meant. Perhaps one of the reasons I’m thinking about this conversation still, is because it reminds me that in the Ozempic-fication culture we live in, not much has changed. We still culturally oppress people into making themselves palatable for the colonized, white, patriarchal mind. Lest we forget that weight control is a form of oppression to control populations, eradicate cultures, and enact the worst atrocities of settler colonialism. The great irony is you win by disappearing, and looking like everyone else, and also lose your individualism in the process, in a country that touts radical individualism, and anti-community sentiment. It is hard not to buy in when in this country, being different can be a death sentence.

The feeling that I am ruminating on, that inspired my thoughts written here, is a deep weariness. I find myself wondering, how do you trust that change is possible, when the antiquated control tactics come back around in a different form?

As a pill. As an injection. As a policy. Under different name, but with the same objective?

Sincerely,
thinking about everything everywhere all at once

Dear Everything-Everywhere,

This whole conversation is one we could write out, isn’t it? I am also of this generation where I witnessed women connect over this issue more than nearly anything else in acquaintanceship.

I’m really sad about it, when I think of it. I mourn the brilliance of women funneled into bodily shame. The negative focus put upon our bodies is a persistent little parasite wiggling its way into our internal narratives.

Wait.

Let me pause.

Before attending to the tactics of those who are constantly trying to shape narratives of distraction, I must first witness to the wonder and brilliance of women, and our bodies.

Oh, beloved sister(s), you are created exactly as you were called to be. Your beautiful body in curves and stretch marks, strong thighs and hips for movement, bold voices and gentle belongings— aren’t you a wonder of nature!

God delights in you, dear one.

(And to be honest, I get it. Women are amazing in so many ways.)

There’s the other side of this conversation, too, where we’re becoming more attentive to the tactics; and wise to them….

…but the brain pathways of this tired script are very, very easy to fall back into.
then there’s more shame when we didn’t “do it right.”

It’s a parasite. A mite sneaking in to the beginnings of our understandings of the world and ourselves.

Mites are persistent.

In a honeybee hive, Varroa Mites are potentially one of the greatest threats to domestic beekeeping. They feed on the bodies of the bees and can cause hive collapse quite quickly. And like the tactics of Those Seeking To Make Us Smaller, those little jerks keep adapting to mitigation treatments.

Longtime beekeepers remember a time when working with the hive didn’t include a regular intervention to prevent excessive mites. I’ve heard some of the old timers scoff at the interventions that are available today. And I’ve heard others that embrace each new technology of moderation.

I’ve tried a few, personally:

• The dribble method— where oxalic acid is dribbled on the honeybee cluster, ideally killing the adult mites riding on their backs.
• Formic Pro— a formic acid soaked patty that is placed directly on the frames, and the vapor penetrates through the capped brood, killing the mites hiding there.

• Oxalic Vapor— Some packages (10,000 bees, plus queen, used to start a hive) are hit with the vapor even before installation into the hive, and the vapor crystalizes all over them. For packages, this is particularly effective as it kills nearly all the mites.

There’s more. Even recently, I’ve heard of two different treatments I’m curious about:

• Norroa — an RNA- based treatment that stops mite reproduction, and,
• I saw a reel where a beekeeper experimented with using Nettle as a natural intervention for mites. That intrigues me…

(Aside, I’d love to hear what other beekeepers are doing!)

All to say: Varroa mites aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. They are getting more voracious and beekeepers are adapting methods of management in response to the parasite.

Beekeepers aren’t failing at mite management… we’re adapting. Just like women seeking to live fully in the world; we, too, must adapt to the methods that continue to attempt to control us.

Like you, I don’t blame the women. I blame these damn parasitic systems.

I also acknowledge that there are different standards of what is acceptable in fatness for white women, brown women, young women, old women, black women, trans women, disabled women, rich women and poor women, and that these struggles are compounding in so many ways.

I also want to be clear that there are different pathways of healthiness that are right for different people. While fatphobia is a real thing, well documented and significant to health impacts… (I think of the good ground work that Anastasia Kidd did in “Fat Church” for the Christian context I am in…) Some folks have also found their own liberation for other compounding health issues through interventions that also impact their body mass.

Your question of how do we trust this is a hard one, because I can’t always tell, from inside the moment, whether I’m holding a treatment or a new shape adapted to by the same old threat. Also, if bee club teaches me anything, it’s that 3 beekeepers will have 5 opinions of what’s right! I won’t know what’s really happening in the hive until I test it: count the mites, check the brood, see what’s actually living and what’s actually dying. Trust, here, isn’t a feeling. It’s an ongoing practice of testing. And faith.

Here’s where I think the communal hive as a whole comes in.

Decisions about whether to have intervention through medication is a conversation that faithful and community minded people are having in their doctors offices… and also in their homes and communities of care. They are weighing (no pun intended) the ethics and impacts clearly and carefully. I’ve heard stories of complete chronic pain turnaround, as well as critique on the ways in which these new tactics have supported or challenged the people we are and the ideals we hold.

The communities of care that hold us accountable to our values, our health, our bodies, and our wellness— these communities are our hive. There are different communities for each of us, weighing different risks, in different rooms. It’s not a decision in a vacuum, it’s a decision of intervention in a context of care. The labor of staying attentive, aware, and aligned wiht collective liberation is ongoing. And, Everything-Everywhere, I do believe change is possible in community. It’s the hive work. It takes us all.

Just like the labor of staying on top of those damn pesky Varroa. It takes work to survive. And, surviving in bodies that are different from the norm presented by whiteness, ability, and wealth is revolutionary, and communal.

All to say, Everything-Everywhere, you are wonderful, Created, and held in a community of care as you discern what is your own thriving wellness, challenge what is tactics of control, and delight in your body.

As it is. Not as they say it needs to be.

GIRL. You are created GOOD. Very, Very good.