Looking for Bees, Finding Faeries

The Book That Changed My Eyes

When I’m not beekeeping, I love to read, and I’m currently making my way through Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries.

I’d love to sit down with Emily over a cup of tea and ask her about one thing in particular: faerie doors.

According to Emily, the best clue to finding one is an incongruity—something just slightly out of place. A perfect ring of mushrooms. A mossless stone in a sea of moss-covered rocks. Something so unexpected that it quietly asks you to stop and look again.

I read a chapter or two while sitting in the car before another race in the New York State Parks Summer Run Series at Heckscher State Park.

When I got out of the car…

Emily was walking through the park with me.

A Second Visit to Heckscher

Back in June, the Summer Run Series began with a five-mile race at Heckscher State Park.

It wasn’t my favorite park.

There were angry geese, lots of dry brown grass, very little clover, and I spent most of the evening wondering where all the flowers were. Eventually, following my nose, I found beautiful patches of fragrant Rosa multiflora, but it took some searching.

This visit felt different.

The grass was greener.

Freshly cut hay scented the air.

I noticed a summersweet shrub buzzing with a few bees outside the park building, but otherwise the park still seemed surprisingly quiet from a pollinator’s perspective.

Walking toward the starting line, I noticed something else. A small raised planting bed surrounded by green wire fencing. There wasn’t much blooming inside.

“Of course,” I thought. Heckscher State Park is “Home of the Whitetail Deer” – maybe that’s why there are so few flowers here.

A beekeeper can’t help but begin making sense of the landscape that way.

The Incongruity

The race was only a 5K this time.

The weather was absolutely miserable.

Humid.

Sticky.

The kind of evening where you start sweating just standing still.

I found my place near the back of the pack and quietly waited for the race to begin.

Around me, runners stretched, jogged little warm-up sprints, and adjusted their watches.

I just stood there thinking,

“Let’s get this over with.”

Then…

I looked to my left.

Magic.

A faerie door!

There, growing in the middle of a long stretch of ordinary grass between the incoming and outgoing park roads, was the most perfect little bouquet of Brown-eyed Susans.

Not a meadow.

Not a garden.

Just six cheerful flowers growing where they seemed to have no business being.

I blinked.

They almost looked fake.

I had to walk closer.

The Conversation

As I stepped toward the flowers, another runner smiled.

“They look fake, don’t they?”

I laughed.

Then I said something I immediately worried might sound ridiculous.

“I’m reading a book about faeries,” I said, “and that…is most definitely a faerie door.”

I expected her to laugh.

Instead…

she smiled.

And then she told me a story.

She had traveled from Texas for her aunt’s funeral. Earlier that week, while out on a run back home, she had turned a corner and unexpectedly come upon a field of sunflowers growing where she never expected to see them. Soon afterward, she learned that her aunt—whose favorite flowers had always been sunflowers—had passed away.

Now here we were, standing beside a tiny patch of Brown-eyed Susans in the middle of Heckscher State Park.

She saw a reminder of her aunt.

I saw a faerie door.

Maybe we were both simply noticing the same thing through different eyes.

Magic…or Observation?

Was there magic afoot?

Maybe.

Or maybe once we begin looking for small wonders, we start finding them everywhere.

What I know for certain is this:

A tiny patch of unexpected flowers led two complete strangers into a conversation neither of us expected to have.

By the time we walked back toward the starting line…

I wasn’t thinking about the heat anymore. I was ready to run.

Through the Eyes of a Beekeeper

The little bouquet of Brown-eyed Susans turned out to be almost the only flowers I noticed during the entire evening.

And I paid attention.

Last time I almost missed the Rosa multiflora.

This time…

I was looking for what wasn’t there. That’s something beekeepers do all summer.

Spring overflows with blossoms. August asks different questions.

Where are the bees finding nectar now?

Which flowers are still blooming?

What’s missing?

As I ran through Heckscher, I found myself wishing for patches of Joe Pye Weed like I had seen at Hempstead Lake State Park the week before, or perhaps some autumn sedum getting ready to bloom. From what I’ve read, both are relatively deer resistant.

Of course, not everyone walks through a park wondering where the bees are finding dinner.

The park looked beautiful.

It simply looked different through the eyes of a beekeeper.

Take a Second Look

This week, take a walk through your own yard with Emily Wilde’s eyes.

Look for the incongruities.

The unexpected volunteer growing in the lawn.

The flower that’s suddenly covered with pollinators.

The place you’ve walked a hundred times before that suddenly asks you to stop.

What is the unexpected trying to tell you?

The answer may surprise you.

Full Circle

Emily Wilde believed it took a trained observer to find a faerie door.

The more I read her journals, the more I realize beekeeping has been teaching me the same lesson all along.

Beekeepers learn to notice what others overlook—not because we’re searching for magic, but because the smallest patch of flowers might be feeding hundreds of bees.

I still don’t know whether I found a faerie door that evening.

I do know I found a conversation I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

I found a tiny patch of flowers that reminded me to pay attention.

And I found myself looking at Heckscher differently the second time around.

Maybe that’s Emily Wilde’s greatest gift.

She reminds us that the world still rewards people who look closely.

And if that little patch of Brown-eyed Susans also happens to be where the faeries live…

I’m certainly not going to be the one who walks past without taking a second look.

Follow Along This Summer

This article is part of my Summer Run Series Through the Eyes of a Beekeeper, where I’m exploring Long Island’s parks and public spaces one race at a time.

👉 The NYS Parks Summer Run Series Through the Eyes of a Beekeeper

Next week, the series heads to Jones Beach State Park for the season-ending 5-miler. With Jones Beach lifeguard in my blood, I can’t wait to experience one of Long Island’s most iconic parks through the eyes of a beekeeper. 🐝🏃‍♀️