3 Honeybees

I sat for a long time watching 3 honeybees working on the blossoms of the Russian sage alongside my house.  As I watched the honeybees flirting with the tiny purple flowers, I thought about my hero, Nikola Tesla.

Tesla was brilliant in more useful and practical ways than most intellectuals.  He was awarded hundreds of patents for electrical inventions that, to this day, make our lives better.  We still use his power transmission system and his induction motors.  He his largely credited with development of both radio and wireless remote control. 

Tesla was also notably eccentric.  He was obsessed with the numbers 3, 6 and 9.  He said of them: “If you knew about the magnificence of the numbers 3, 6 and 9, you would have the key to the universe.”

Tesla’s number obsession led him to require 18 napkins to clean his plate at every meal.  He would walk around a building 3 times before entering.  And he would only rent rooms whose numbers were divisible by 3.       

Considering the vast number of electrical engineering contributions attributed to Nikola Tesla, I am willing to entertain his eccentricities.  Maybe there is more to the number 3 than I can comprehend. 

The 3 honeybees I watched never faltered or crossed one another as they spiraled around the purple displays of sage.  I became a little dizzy trying to track all 3 at once, simple man that I am.

My Russian Sage

—Mitchell Hegman