8 APRIL 27-MAY 3, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | laxation after a stressful parent-teacher conference. The Petersons note that they aren’t medical professionals, so they don’t consider their huts medicinal. “If it happens to help, great,” Carolyn says. “It’s relaxing. It’s thirty minutes of nobody bugging you.” One person who says the bee huts have helped is Marsha Ruggeri, who lives in La- fayette. She went to Capella Ranch four times during its inaugural season. She fi rst came with a friend who’d bought a deal on Groupon. After struggling with heightened asthma symptoms the past two years — which she attributes to wildfi res and air pollution — Ruggeri was excited to learn of a potential way to alleviate her symptoms. It worked. “I’m not saying it was a panacea,” she says. “It felt like I was actually doing something that wasn’t an inhaler or medication and I was regaining some control over how my body was reacting to all this shit in the air.” She’d had to cancel tennis games because of bad air quality three times last summer. After visiting the bee huts, she shared with other players that her asthma had improved because of the experience. Some of them also went to Capella Ranch to soak in the benefi ts. Ruggeri bought honey made by the bees at Capella Ranch and found that helped, too. Although the Petersons aren’t technically in the honey business, the bees are so busy that the ranch does sell it, along with fresh chicken and duck eggs. On Ruggeri’s third visit, she experienced the electromagnetic fi eld produced by the bees. “I was laying on my side, and then all of a sudden, I could feel it,” she says. “It really deserves more than one treatment. It’s kind of like people who go for acupuncture, and they’re like, ‘Well, it didn’t do anything for me.’ You really need to try it more than once.” People often report feeling tingly, Carolyn notes. By design, the huts aren’t equipped with many cushions or other padding so that people can connect more closely with the bees. “The fi rst minute or two of just sitting on the bench may be kind of uncomfortable,” Charlie says. “But for me, by minute two or three, I’ve forgotten about it. We didn’t want to block any of the vapor, so that’s sort of the trade-off.” Even beekeepers like Charlie can be lulled by their experiences in the huts; opening hives to do beekeeping work causes bees to get in a tizzy, but the humming sounds they create then are different from the noise they make when they don’t know someone is sit- ting in on their process. “They don’t hear them like they normally hear them taking care of the hives,” he says. “Because you can’t help but interrupt them and send them airborne. That’s the nature of taking care of a hive.” Along with the eight hives in the huts, there are six to eight more near a special pond on the ranch where the bees drink. Charlie puts the healthiest hives in his care in the huts. When he swaps them out, he uses hives he has stashed on other people’s properties; otherwise, bees might go back to the location of their previous hive, recogniz- ing the landmarks in the area. The Petersons have heard from people in Virginia and Seattle interested in opening their own bee huts; they hope more join the movement. Last summer, over a hundred people came to Capella Ranch to check out the bees; a TikTok Charlie made announcing that the huts were open has gained about 20,000 views. Yarmey, a yoga teacher and reiki practitio- ner from Fort Collins, was one of those visi- tors. She found Capella Ranch while scrolling on Instagram after reading a book about a female beekeeper and becoming curious about bees. “I’m really interested in energy and grounding and our connection to nature,” she says. Reiki is a practice of directing energy to help facilitate healing. After her fi rst visit, Yarmey came back a second time, when she says she was really able to share a meditative space with the bees, reveling in their presence in a way that humans rarely get to do with other species. “When else in your life do you get to share space with a million other beings who all are very clear about their purpose and their path and what they need to be doing?” she says. “Carolyn and Charlie are just such wonderful people. … It was just so lovely to spend time on their land. Everything felt a little slower, more grounded.” The huts are now open for a second sea- son; anyone is welcome except those allergic to bee or wasp stings. A thirty-minute ses- sion is $35; an hour runs $60. And on a fi rst visit, anyone can book a complimentary fi fteen-minute session with the Petersons to ask questions. “It’s amazing how many people seem to be fi nding us,” Charlie says. “It sort of drives our belief that things that are supposed to be connected seem to connect, and that’s pretty cool. This was not a huge, lifelong dream of ours or anything.” “We just thought, ‘Sounds fun,’” Carolyn adds. “We didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, but it’s an adventure.” Email the author at [email protected]. Bee Here Now continued from page 6 Charlie Peterson puts the healthiest hives in the ranch’s two bee huts; the buzzing of the bees creates a meditative experience inside the huts. EVAN SEMÓN EVAN SEMÓN
