Have you guys seen that Flow Hive thing? The cool-looking beehive where you just turn the spigot and honey comes out?
I saw it, and it looked cool, and so I thought to myself that it might be cool to have a hive of bees. My own honey. Plus I get to support a cool innovation. SCIENCE!
And so I jumped on it. Why the fuck not, right? I have some disposable income. Plus, wouldn’t that be a fun project to do with Oot? Look at bees? Learn about the natural world? Father-son bonding?
Also, (I continued to think to myself) when I finally get around to building my house in the country, the house I dream about that’s half sybaritic pleasure dome, half Winchester Mansion, and half apocalypse bunker, it would be nice to have a hive of bees there, too. Because after civilization collapses, I would still have honey. Magical easy-to-access innovation honey.
What’s more, I could also give this hive it away as a gift to someone who would actually use it and enjoy it. Then they could give me some honey. That was really the most realistic scenario here. After I bought this, it would make a fun present after I came to grips with the fact that I was never going to ever fucking keep a hive of bees.
So I bought one. It’s so easy these days. Watched a video. Got excited. Clicked. It showed up at my house.
Not only did I buy it, but I felt *good* buying it. I was supporting innovation with my money. I was rewarding someone for moving forward arcane technology that had been stagnating for ages. Good for them. And good for me, too. We were working together to make a better place.
Right now it’s actually sitting on my porch, and has been for a couple days.
Part of the reason it’s still sitting there is that I’m super lazy. But the other reason is that I stumbled onto this article on facebook a while back:
It’s a really good read, even if you don’t care much about beehives. It’s a great example of someone calmly, rationally, dismantling someone else’s bullshit. It’s a great read, and I wish I’d done my due diligence and read it *before* ordering my hive.
So. That’s the end result. I now have a beehive that not only will I not use, but I don’t even feel good about giving away as a gift. I could sell it to someone to re-coup some of my money, but honestly, from what I’ve learned in that article it looks like using could lead to bad shit in terms of the local bee ecosystem.
Why tell this story? I dunno. Maybe so you don’t buy a flow hive. Or maybe to balance the scales a little bit in terms of the stories I tell. Usually when I write a blog, I’m talking about a convention I went to. Someone cool, I met. A fun story.
So this is a story of me just being regular dumb and impulsive. Take it for what it’s worth.
pat