DC Buzz: Himes creates some buzz of his own

On Capitol Hill, normally it is words — with and without four letters — that fly around and sting lawmakers deliberating on the major issues of the day.

But on the leafy Cos Cob property of Rep. Jim Himes, D-4th, and family, it is actual bees that do the stinging.

It’s not as though the 51-year-old long-distance commuter needs any more distractions in his busy life. But it turns out Himes was not fully content with pastimes like maple syrup production or low-tide digging for clams, oysters and mussels.

In addition to those, Himes is also a beekeeper with a hive that is home to 10,000 honey bees. He built the hive over the winter and got the bees over Easter break. It may take a season or two for the colony to produce a measurable amount of honey.

He described his interest in beekeeping as “a response to 21st Century living.”

Therapeutic, given the intensity of his day job?

“Absolutely,” he responded. “I’m drawn to primal activities. And it’s a wonderful distraction.”

Bee-tending is not pain free, of course. Himes said he got stung twice this past weekend — on his waist and chest.

But so far, no complaints.

“When you work in Congress, handling bees is no problem all,’’ Himes said.

Evidently he has learned a lot. For instance, there’s the “waggle dance” — bees hit the nectar jackpot in a nearby rose garden or honeysuckle tangle. Then they fly back to the hive to spread the joy. After winner-bee does the waggle dance, the rest of the bees know to vector in on the same spot.

“You can look it up,” Himes insisted.

Imagine training campaign volunteers to do the same thing with voters!?

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Measured in Dog Years, Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., at age 44 is an ancient gaffer — as long in the tooth as you can get and still register a pulse.

But in Senate Years, Murphy is a first-grader blessed with boundless energy.

His relative youth in the Senate may well turn into an asset (like, 2020, maybe?). But at the high-concept “Ideas Conference” put on Tuesday by the liberal-leaning Center for American Progress, it was a point of deference to truly youthful gun-violence-prevention advocates.

“Unfortunately, I am what passes for young in the U.S. Senate, so I’m not going to be an emissary to 18-to-25 (age bracket),” Murphy said during a panel discussion with Ryan Deitsch, a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School senior, and DeJuan Patterson, a Baltimore community organizer who was shot in the head during a robbery. “These guys are. They are just the tip of iceberg.”

For the record, Murphy is the third youngest U.S. senator, behind Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo.

Since the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Murphy has been a gun-safety leader on Capitol Hill. With Republicans in control, the Senate has not been fertile ground for new gun laws.

But that may change, Murphy said. Since the mass shooting at Parkland, Fla., which took 17 lives, youthful enthusiasm has galvanized the gun-control side, promising to generate a wave of votes to equal or exceed the National Rifle Association’s gun-rights turnout machine.

“Yes, Republicans know things are different right now; they know they are mispositioned on this issue, and they know it may cost them for the first time ever in 2018,” Murphy said in response to a question asked by Jane Whitney, a former NBC reporter now based in Washington, Conn.

Problem is they can’t break the “genetic connection” they have with the gun lobby, Murphy said.

“It’s never going to be a cataclysmic mass shooting that’s going to make them break,” Murphy said. “It’s going to be recognition that their political survival depends on them getting it right.”

“We are further along than I thought we would be,” he said.

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