A Toast to Serendipity

Quelle journee!

“What a day!” en français.

When I walked into the office belonging to my first interviewee this morning, I expected to meet this architect /beekeeper, his colleagues, and some bees. I certainly did not expect to see a camera crew in his office, adjusting the lighting and furniture, as if for an interview. "That’s odd," I thought. Then I realized, “Oh wait, the camera- it’s set up for me! Ack!” My hand immediately goes to my hair, and I quickly assess its frizziness level, amplified by this morning’s rainstorm.

Pour moi? "For me?"
Eeek!

It turns out that Interviewee Number One has a friend who makes documentaries and enjoys practicing camera work on her friends, so he had offered our interview to her as camera fodder. He apologized for not letting me know in advance, and asked if this was alright: though my mind was preoccupied with the thought of my sorta-kinda-halfway-fluent-French-speaking skills being immortalized on film, I eeked out a Bien sûr! "But of course!"

The architect/beekeeper's atelier (workshop)

How fortuitous that somebody else was recording this interview; I was free to focus completely on our conversation. To sit there with a camera rolling while I asked questions of a real, live, French beekeeper made the experience a bit surreal. Every conversation I have en français is another step towards fluency, and it’s nice that it’ll be on film!

See all those white caps on the cells? Those cells are plein de miel, full of honey.
Sweet success!

As bees aren’t the happiest of campers in rainy weather, I’d accepted the fact that I would be interviewing only humans today, but Lady Luck struck again: the rain stopped, the clouds cleared, and the sun showed her lovely face. Out we went, climbing a small stepladder out a back window on the top floor, onto a small patio area, where there were three hives. One hive was stacked three boxes (“honey supers”) high, and the other two were set up, and the colonies inside were in the process of “growing,” as he described it. That one hive was plein, full, of honey! It was magical to see the bees lining up at the entrance to the hive, like planes taxiing on the runway. Then they would fly off into the sunny city, at what looked like a precise 45-degree angle from the ground. Maybe that’s why they call it a “bee line.”

The smoker, which is used to calm the bees upon opening a hive.
And a garden ornament, just bee-cause!

Well, this was my first day “on the job,” research-wise. Absolutely nothing went according to plan, but absolutely everything turned out marvelously. I didn’t even know this man existed before I happened to pick up a discarded Le Monde on the subway last Friday, flipped it open to a random page, and found an article in which he was interviewed about urban beekeeping in Paris. Not only did I discover his existence by chance, but after I found his email address via Google, he happened to agree to an interview, during which he generously offered me a list of his beekeeper friends who would also be happy to meet me. Today’s lesson: let thy expectations remain loose, making room for serendipity to fly in.