The Rural Ethicist: The Beehive

By Katharine Adams

August 2025

Summertime, and the beehive is breezy. Everybody’s electric fans come out from under wraps and get dusted off for the season.

In our house, a bunch of whirring fans has us repeating and hollering things to one another over their roar. We are one with nature, we reason. We often give in to midday torpor, like any sensible animal. The dividends are high: we can usually guess the temperature within a couple of degrees and that’s fun. We swim through the air, trying not to "kavetch" (too much) as we seek cheap chills.

While trying to attune to our environment, the choices of our four-legged housemates are curious. We’ll never understand how an otherwise bright-eyed, intelligent being wearing an obligate fur coat chooses to sprawl on the floor upstairs, in the hottest room of the house.

As leader of my own solo focus group, I studied the best coordinates with which to point my cadre of loyal fans. After careful analysis, I’ve aligned my electric friends close to where I spend 3/4 of my labor so they may admire my efforts and cajole me to the finish line. They egg me on at the kitchen counter, keep things breezy by my desk and shush me on my nightstand.

My fan is as important in achieving my goals as any volunteer bearing water along a marathon trail. My hat’s off to you, my little buzzard. I owe you a nice dinner out. Yep, you and me, an extension cord and a tin plate, while seated out on the screen porch.

But sometimes, even good fans (my favorite brand rhymes with “tornado”) just can’t cut it. A 90-degree heatwave renders them more like blow-dryers on “warm” setting. You could do up your hair in rollers, prance about the house and have your choice.

So I set up an oasis in the cellar to escape a recent hot spell, complete with trifold yard lounger, couch pillows and reading material. And it’s effective: just thirty minutes spent down there, and your feet grow cold. Only weeks prior in June, I wore a knit cap and wrapped up in fleece to watch the news.

Then, the momentous occasion arrived when we entertained other options for climate control. Finally, we caved and placed an order for a pair of modest air conditioners to fit a couple of upstairs casement windows. I was like a kid at Christmas.

For the uninitiated, casement windows are a crank-out style that open swinging from one side on a set of hinges, as opposed to double-hung, or “sash” windows sliding vertically within a window frame.

The former entails a bit more effort to permit an A/C, because a window is removed and ultimately, a temporary piece of plexiglass is fitted.

For years, I didn’t believe it was possible to pair any kind of A/C with a casement window. I had consulted a home fixer’s YouTube video on a hot summer day to see a plucky guy on a cautious budget demonstrate how to crank out such a window half-way, then stretch and adhere sturdy, clear plastic to seal the resulting angular-shaped, negative space.

Next, he drew a circle on the taut plastic, fashioning a die-line to cut out a hole and permit the exhaust tube of the portable air conditioner.

But many a snooze chamber can’t reasonably accommodate boxy rolling A/Cs. And DIY plastic-and-tape open ductwork, charming as it would appear, isn’t super compelling. So I reasoned we’d take some nice, frosty car rides and stroll through some nice, icy stores. After all, a heat wave is relatively brief.

But then? The magic discovery of these little guys. Turns out our new, cute A/C window units do help take the edge off on heavily hazy days.

Meanwhile, the electric fans elbowing for room on tabletops still have an important job. They know their value. They hum along with more than resignation. They’ve mastered the art of staying cool while being indispensable.