Letters To My Daughter: The Wild Urge

 

Dear Daughter,

It didn’t start with a box. It started with a hum.

We were leaving the house together when I heard it—not a buzz, not a flutter, but a vibration so full-bodied it seemed to ripple through the stucco walls. Thousands of wings, moving as one. Above our front door, a piece of fascia had been nudged open by a finch seasons earlier. She’d used it as a nest—a quiet rebellion against the HOA’s clean lines. But now, that same gap had become a portal. A swarm of bees had moved in.

They didn’t ask. They simply arrived.

I stood beneath them, stunned. The air was electric. The sound was dramatic, primal. It felt like the desert had sent a message—a living, humming reminder that wildness finds a way.

We called a beekeeper—a man I’d later learn was the president of the local bee club I now belong to. He couldn’t come for a week. So for seven days, we lived with them.

They shared our garden. And the garden responded. The air felt charged. The flowers seemed brighter. I remember opening the compost bin and finding a single bee waiting, patient and curious. I lifted the lid for her, watched her inspect the contents, decide it wasn’t worth her time, and vanish into the secret world bees inhabit—a world of scent trails, sun angles, and whispered dances. They were everywhere and nowhere. Guests and gods.

And then, just as suddenly, they were gone. The beekeeper came in the night and removed the colony with care. He was gentle, reverent. But the next morning, the garden was quiet. The hum had vanished. I felt it in my chest—the absence. The silence.

And that’s when the wild urge hit me like a brick. I tried to ignore it. Tried to reason it away. But it followed me through the day, tugging at my sleeve while I folded towels, while I stirred soup, while I stared out the window at the now-quiet yard.

Bees. Not honey. Not a hobby. Just… bees.

I started reading. Not the glossy backyard beekeeping articles, but the deep corners of the internet where people spoke about bees like family, like gods. I learned about the queen’s scent, the waggle dance, the way a hive breathes in summer heat. I learned that bees will forgive your clumsy hands if your heart is steady.

And then—the box arrived. Perhaps placed by unseen hands of an ancient antlered goddess, or perhaps by the crooked grace of fate itself. Our neighbor was moving and had an empty hive in her backyard. Bees had never come to it, but she confessed she’d felt the same pull I did. She handed it over like she was passing on a secret.

It sat empty in our yard for months, tucked into the corner where the chickens once scratched—a quiet promise of something we couldn’t yet name.

Then one fall morning, it happened again. I was at work, walking past a piece of old engine equipment—the kind that sits half-forgotten near the edge of the lot, rusted and sun-bleached. And there they were. A cluster of bees. Not flying. Not passing through. Settled. They clung to the metal like it was sacred—a living knot of gold and black, pulsing with quiet determination. The hum was low and steady, like a heartbeat.

The contrast was jarring. Steel and wings. Machine and miracle. I stood there, transfixed. The desert wind moved around me, but the bees didn’t flinch. They were slow, hungry, and still—as if waiting for something.

One of my coworkers walked by, squinted at the swarm, and wrinkled his nose. “I’m gonna call someone to spray them,” he said, already pulling out his phone. I felt it rise in me—that same wild urge. Fierce. Protective. Ancient.

“No,” I said, too quickly. “Don’t.” He looked at me like I was strange. Maybe I was.

That night, after everyone had gone, I came back. With a cardboard box. And a putty knife.

Looking back now, I was wildly unprepared. No bee suit. No smoker. No veil. No training. I didn’t even know what kind of bees they were—and in Arizona, that matters. These were feral desert bees, likely carrying Africanized genetics. For all I knew, they could have surged in defense, stingers drawn, and taught me a lesson I wouldn’t forget. But I wasn’t thinking about risk. I was thinking about rescue. And rescue, I’ve come to realize, is its own kind of wild urge.

I knelt beside the engine, heart pounding, hands trembling, and whispered something I don’t remember. Maybe a prayer. Maybe a promise. I slid the putty knife gently under their tiny bodies, coaxing them into the box one slow scrape at a time. They didn’t scatter. They didn’t sting. The sound of their wings was soft, almost questioning.

I brought them home.

The box was warm in my hands, humming softly with life. I could feel the gentle vibrations of the bees inside—a breath beneath the cardboard. Out back, the empty hive waited like a cradle. I opened its lid, placed the box carefully atop the bare frames, peeled away the tape sealing them in, and closed the hive with quiet hands. No ceremony. No instruction. Just instinct. I didn’t know if they would stay. I didn’t know if they would survive. But I had given them a door.

The next morning, I rose with the sun. The garden was still, the air cool. I stood at a respectful distance, coffee in hand, watching the hive as the warmth began to rise. And then—movement. New bees, slipping in and out of the entrance, testing the light, mapping the world. Tiny, curious faces peered out from the hive, blinking at the dawn, blinking at me. I smiled.

Your father came out, drawn by curiosity. He saw the hive, paused, placed his hand on his face, and walked back inside without a word. I imagine he was wrestling with the quiet madness of it all—his wife coming home with bees, and somehow it wasn’t a disaster. He watched them, gentle and golden at the entrance, not the monsters the news makes them out to be. Torn between shock and awe, I think.

Today, he loves the girls. He’s not a beekeeper, but he suits up and walks the bee yard with me. He stands quietly as I work the hives, watching the rhythm, the hum, the sacred choreography. He’s fallen in love again too—with the wild, with the hum, with the way the bees made a home in us.

Lesson for you, my daughter: 

When the wild calls, listen. It won’t always come with instructions. It may arrive as a hum, a tug, a strange idea that doesn’t fit the rules. But if it moves you toward life—toward rescue, toward relationship—follow it. You don’t need to be ready. You just need to be present. The bees will teach you the rest.

Love, 

Your Mother 

The Desert Druid