Rain, Saints, and Trivia in the Beeyard

We certainly are experiencing a cold spell with much rain. The bees must bee so crabby, being cooped up this long. Between rain showers we see them out foraging, and also taking what looks to be orientation flights. These are small flights around the hive entrance and beyond, which allow younger bees to learn their surroundings so they can find their way home, as well as exercise and strengthen wing muscles for the rigors of foraging.

Since we won't be checking the hives, we thought we'd write about a few other things....

Our friend Sam visited the beeyard a couple of weeks ago. We didn't open hives, but he came to see the bees, ask questions....Sam is a benevolent and supportive presence, and a great lover of Rumi's poetry, as am I, and we meet in that kind of atmosphere. He is one of the most Divinely attuned people I know. He also has a great sense of humor. I playfully told him these were "eye-talian" bees, and he just as playfully pointed to our small statue of St. Francis and said how appropriate that was since he too was from "eye-talia." And what a beautiful presence to invoke when attempting to create peace and harmony among ourselves, among different species....doing so, very literally, begins in our own backyard.

Bee Trivia--Meeting the 3 Castes:

• The queen, the mother of all bees, is the most important member of the colony. Bee morale, cohesion, and life force depend on her. She is the only bee capable of laying the fertile eggs which produce worker bees. As the egg passes through her system, she is able to fertilize it with sperm stored in her spermatheca (Say that word fast, 3 times!) and place it in a cell. We all joke about the benefits of being "queen bee," and although she has attendants of worker bees for her every need (feeding, cleaning her, disposing of her waste, etc) she may never leave the hive, and her life is further limited to functioning as an egg-laying machine. Once she's up to speed, she may lay up to 1500 eggs per day! Every day.

• The worker bees (all females) emerge from their cells ready to work almost immediately and depending on her age and capabilities, the needs of the colony, and the time of year, there are a range of tasks to perform: cleaning brood cells, feeding brood, regulating hive temperature, removing the dead, guarding the hive entrance, attending the queen, capping cells, packing pollen, secreting wax, receiving and processing nectar, cleaning the hive, foraging, and producing honey for eager beekeepers. In a typical active season, a hive will contain thousands and thousands of worker bees.
  

• The drones (all males), bless their hearts, are born without the equipment to sting or perform any of the duties in the hive. Once mature, they will take mating flights, attempting to mate with a queen of a different hive--though hundreds, maybe thousands, of drones exist for every queen. If he does mate, he will lose his life in the process. The rest of their time is spent in idleness, and they gorge on the hive's bounty in the active season. However, because they are such a drain on the colony's resources, most are forced out of the hive when winter comes. In the active season, hundreds (rather than thousands) of drones can be found in a hive.

We are pleased with what we are learning so far!