Bees

I check on my little bee friends today to see how they were doing. The 1st picture shows a good view of one of the frames. All of the little sealed hexagons are larvae that should hatch in about a week or so. You can see the younger pupae around the capped cells (if you look close you can see it in the last picture as well)- they are little white wormy looking things. If you click on the picture and look closely at the cells next to them you will see tiny little whit things which are the eggs most recently laid.

It didn't turn out very well, but in one picture that I didn't post was a bee or two that was carrying some pollen that was bright orange. A lot of it comes in bright yellow. It's really been interesting to learn about bees and how they do what they do. It's truly amazing to think that there is no boss bee telling them what their jobs are. The other thing that makes me smile is that they are almost all female bees. Only the drones are male and after they do their "duty" - they die. When winter comes most of them are pushed out of the hive to die.

Humans on the other hand seem to be quite the opposite. If there isn't someone breathing down a workers neck things don't get done. Put a whole bunch of women in the same buisness and soon enough they will all hate each other and be talking behind each others backs. Humans also favor the males as the backbone of society.

These are all things I've witnessed myself and if you are offended reading them - too bad this is my blog. I'm mostly joking here, but seeing how bees work and comparing them to humans is what I do when I can't sleep or when I seemingly have nothing better to do.

The current flu problem is much like what honeybees have to face. This flu outbreak, and the deadly SARS outbreak are much like people who are allergic to bees. Most of them don't really have life threatening problems. There are some that do but there is a pretty good chance a honey bee didn't sting them. More likely it was a wasp, bumblee bee, hornet, yellow jacket or some other aggressive bee species. Honeybees for the most part are very gentle and only sting to protect themselves as a very last resort. The only two stings that have happened in the last year have been once when one got stuck in the netting around my head and the other was when I picked up a fram without gloves and accidentally had one under my finger.

A much, much bigger problem is the mosquito - in this country how many people get bit 100 plus times a summer? Not a big deal - well tell that to someone from Central America or Africa where Malaria still kills thousands every year. Remember that when you hear the total worldwide death count from the dreaded "Swine flu" that is probably going to be about 300.

Not too much else is happening on the farm. I'm getting ready to start planting - but once that is done I just stare at black fields for one more month...