Beekeeping and WWI veterans

[mightymads]

I came across an interesting article according to which beekeeping can serve as a method of therapy to cope with mental health issues:

Researchers say the act of beekeeping may help people with mental health problems such as stress, anxiety and depression. Many call it “beekeeping therapy.”

One group of people is especially getting help from such therapy: military veterans.
Many soldiers returning from military service have trouble dealing with the experiences of war. They may also have trouble creating a productive life after the military. Homelessness, depression and drug abuse can affect some military veterans.

“The buzzing – it fills that void in my head where clutter can go [says one of the veterans]. So, instead of thinking of the things that clutter my brain or the experiences that clutter my brain … I think of the bees.”

Beekeeping programs aimed at helping military veterans are not a new thing. In fact, the U.S. government had a program that taught beekeeping to soldiers returning from the First World War. Other countries at that time had similar programs.

“When things get really hectic, crazy and you want to relax, you just put your chair out in front of the bee hive and watch them go in and out [says another veteran]. And it’s so relaxing. All your cares just float away.”

Makes sense that Holmes was into beekeeping in his later years, doesn’t it? Previously, his ways of coping were self-destructive, and after Watson weaned him from substance abuse, Holmes managed to find a healthy method to cope with his depressive episodes.

Headcanons, everyone? Was Holmes was ahead of time yet again in finding such an effective way of therapy? Perhaps Watson suggested the beekeeping treatment for WWI veterans, seeing how soothing it was for Holmes?

Comments

[sanguinity]

Thanks for the link to the article -- I didn't know about people using beekeeping as therapy after WWI.

Re beekeeping being therapeutic for Holmes, I agree. If I can quote from my retirement-fic draft (for indeed, that's where the great majority of my retirement headcanons end up going):

...there on the page before me, I saw the inescapable paradox: even as Holmes came alive at the first hint of the chase, it was that self-same chase that brought him to such broken lethargy again. I had encouraged his passion for crime as both a prophylactic and an antidote to his cocaine, but there on the page, the similarities between the two were undeniable. The same grueling cycle of highs and lows, the highs exhausting him until his listlessness could be relieved only with a new dose.

[...]

But this man who stood in my foyer, hale and vibrant, no longer at the mercy of cocaine and criminals for his entertainment, was a stark contrast to the man I had been writing about. The Holmes before me had as keen a passion for scientific apiculture as he ever had for scientific deduction -- but a passion without the dangerous highs and lows of crime...

 

(And wholly off-topic, but I like the website you linked that article from. I subscribe to an easy-reading-level Japanese newsite, but I'm still only managing headlines there.)

[mightymads]

It’s a pleasure to have another glimpse of Langstroth on Bees! Absolutely spot on that his crime-solving had the same pattern as substance abuse. He was dependent on adrenaline the cases gave him. I think in many ways thanks to Watson’s presence in his life he became more balanced later, even though they shared passion for adrenaline of detective work. I wonder how he became interested in beekeeping in the first place. Maybe he encountered it through one of his cases and discovered it was both intriguing and soothing?

Are you studying Japanese? I used to too. Maybe I should also subscribe to that newsite, to practice what I still remember :)

[sanguinity]

Holmes had so many and such wide-ranging interests: goodness only knows how beekeeping first caught his eye, but it probably helped that there'd just recently(ish) been a scientific revolution in apiculture.

Self-study, and more to read than to speak. The easy-reader Japanese news website is by NHK: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/

[mightymads]

Thanks so much for the link!

I'd like to read a story where Holmes gets interested in beekeeping. There was some passing reference in the Bert Coules adaptation, but I don't remember well.

[brewsternorth]

Oh hey, I have an icon for this topic! :P

Perhaps Watson suggested the beekeeping treatment for WWI veterans, seeing how soothing it was for Holmes?

...Headcanon accepted. I'd not heard of apitherapy (though having read two of the three books of the "Regeneration" trilogy I've heard of some of the others), but that totally would be something Watson would take an interest in.

(Now I'm wondering about an epistolary Holmes/Regeneration Trilogy crossover where Watson is corresponding with W.H.R. Rivers.)

[mightymads]

I looked up the Regeneration Trilogy and yes, a crossover would be amazing! Perhaps after returning from WWI Watson would find helping out Holmes in the apiary therapeutic as well :)

[mightymads]

Helping Holmes out with keeping bees could also have a therapeutic effect for Watson after returning from the horrors of WWI. Sometimes it happens that a person starts to share the hobby of their spouse and gets absorbed in something they otherwise would have never been interested in. Perhaps it was the case with Watson: before the war he only watched Holmes working in the apiary, but after he would join in little by little and to his surprise found it soothing.