It is ripeness and color and a time of maturity;
but it is also breadth, and depth, and distance.
What man can stand with autumn on a hilltop
and fail to see the span of his world and meaning
of the rolling hills that reach to the far horizon?
- Hal Borland
My daughter, Erin, and I cleaned out several of our raised beds last week. Gone are the bush beans and snap peas. Gone are the turnips, the dill, and cilantro. The same for most of the garlic and scallions.
The supers (boxes that hold the frames of honeycomb) have been pulled and the honey extracted. The first year of the apiary has produced approximately 20 gallons of honey (240 lbs.) not counting the approximately 60 lbs. of honey I took care to leave in each hive to carry the bees through winter. The bees continue to forage on warm dry days but the nectar is waning. There is nothing in the bee brain, however, that says, "well haven't we done a fine job this summer, just look at how much honey we've stored. Let's say we take it easy for the rest of the year." The bee is type AAA+ personality and lives a "work till you drop" existence. I, for one, am thankful for their zealousness as it allows me a much sweeter existence. Imagine a world without baklava or loukoumades. My morning toast would be much duller, the yogurt sour.
The bees have begrudgingly yielded the fruits of their labor for this year and the garden's offerings are diminished. Summer is winding down.
For me, the ending of summer/beginning of autumn is heralded not with the subtle transformation of colors that begin to splash the leaves, nor the cool crisping of the air; it's the changing character of the light. The intense summer light that creates the deep cobalt blues on a canvass of cloudless sky begins to soften, becomes more diffuse. This change sneaks first into the subconscious (more felt than seen) making me more attentive to my surroundings. I find myself looking around, searching for a glimpse of something just beyond my field of vision to explain..what? A feeling?
Perhaps that's not so strange. Painters know the emotional impartation of color and light. That "feeling" I experience this time of year is the same one I get looking at Monet's water lilies - a sense of contemplative stillness while whispering of the coming transformation.
The hives adapt to the change of season by reducing their numbers. The healthy hive that in summer sustained 60,000 bees can drop to 10,000 in winter. As the nectar flow begins to subside and the weather cools, the queen lays less eggs. Drones (males), whose only purpose is to mate with a queen, become expendable. Most find themselves kicked out of the hive and refused entrance. They are left to starve and/or freeze to death. Only a few are allowed to remain inside the hive where there is food and warmth [Summer or Fall, bees maintain the hive at a nice toasty 95 degrees]. This rebalancing allows bees to survive to repeat the growth cycle once again. Balance is a key attribute of the maturing process, whether in regards to apples, wine or bees.
September is my favorite time of year, suspended between the heat of August and the pending explosion of colors upon the oak, maple and aspen. The weather dwells in near perfection as the garden harvests continue and change. Though there is still much work to be done, the frenetic attitude of summer subsides and there is room to just breathe.
There is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
