Day #23 Scents and Scentsibility

For reasons I'll explain later, as I was writing yesterday, I meant to type the word centimeter, but it came out sentimeter. Before I corrected it, I connected it to sentiment. As I played around with the words (writers do that sort of thing) I came up with:

        Scentimeter: what a worker bee uses to distinguish her hive mates from outsiders
        Scentillate: the action of making bees curious by wearing a particular perfume
        Scentiment: the warm feeling I get when I recall my dad's Old Spice aftershave, hoping the bees would have liked it if they could have met him
        Scentient: really, really smart about figuring things out by using what they smell like
        Scentsibility: What inspired Jane Austen to write as she sat among the beehives in her family's garden.

Did Jane Austen have bee hives? I don't know. I can't recall her mentioning bees in any of her books, but I'm sure there are Austen devotees who could set me straight.

That's enough for now. If you come up with any other scentsible words, put your two-scents worth in a comment below!

Good news: Yesterday I took out my little plastic ruler with the inches on one side and the centimeters (see? I told you I'd explain my thought processes!) on the other. I measured the itty bitty hexagonal ridges on the foundation and found that they are indeed SMALL cell (as opposed to STANDARD size). That means I'll have a better shot at raising healthy bees who can naturally oppose the various mites and beetles that attack the larger honeybees raised by large honey-sellers.

Incidentally, STANDARD in this case means what the large corporate manufacturers and beekeepers have decided to sell and use, so they can push the bees into growing bigger and storing more easily-extracted honey. The bees had nothing to say about it. The bee standard is small.

BEEattitude for Day #23:
       Blessed are those who train their noses, for they shall avoid unpleasant surprises.

One thing I am grateful for:
       My various grandchildren, who delighted me and scared me silly with their Halloween costumes of ladybug, pirate, and ghouls, and who also shared some of their candy with me.

Day #21 Answer this Bee Joke

November? I never quite got used to February, and here it is the eleventh month already.

This time of year, beekeepers are usually feeding their bees sugar water. Does this have roughly the same effect as all the Halloween treats on human youngsters? I'd love it if I could have bees that gathered nectar most of the year and went into winter with plenty of honey and pollen stores made from abundant nectar plants.

JOKE TIME: How can you tell if a bee is hyper?
Send your answers to me fran@franstewart.com and I'll announce them in one of my upcoming blogs.

BEEattitude for Day #21:
       Blessed are they who avoid excess sugar, for they shall BEE calm. 

Today I am grateful for:
       Public Domain Photos that allow me to show you bees in their natural beauty,