Day #563 Polly and the Honeybee

It was hard, turning in all my Citizen Fire Academy turn-out gear last night. I gave everyone in the class a copy of one of my mass-market paperbacks -- I had some promotional copies left over from the ones sent to me by World Wide Mystery. I’m not allowed to sell them, so I figured giving them to the class and the instructors would be a good idea.

A few days ago, Miss Polly settled in my lap and put her head under my hand. For sixteen years, e's know how to get a good scratch from a good scratcher when she sees one! My phone was sitting beside me so, one-handed, I managed this picture.

She spotted a honeybee on the outside of the picture window yesterday and spent several minutes watching it crawl around. The belly-side view is fascinating. I watched it with her. Wish I’d taken a picture, but this one from a previous blogpost will have to suffice.

I'm gonna miss her when she's gone. 

BEEattitude for Day #563:

       Blessed are those who take the time to SEE what they’re looking at, for they shall have wonders unfold before them.

_______________________________ 

The teeny details:

my books:  http://www.franstewart.com Please buy them from an independent bookstore or directly from my website.

my eBooks for Kindle:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Fran+Stewart 

Day #333 A Monkey Wrench in my Spokes

If you’re afraid of bees to begin with, you might want to skip today’s post.

I got stung again. Thursday morning, just one sting, on my left hand where the web of skin stretches between the thumb and first finger.

I was ready for it this time. Or so I thought. I came inside, took some Benedryl, and waltzed on through my day. The swelling just keeps spreading; it’s two-thirds of the way up my arm toward my elbow now. My whole hand, as you can see, looks like a stuffed sausage.

But then, Friday afternoon, one of the hives had eaten its way through the sugar water and needed to be refilled. Did I want a repeat performance? NO.

So I put on three layers everywhere:

>> long-sleeved blouse, winter jacket, AND my bee-inspector suit

>> two pairs of heavy-duty socks and my Wellington boots

>> slacks, sweatpants, AND those huge pants I bought at the Good Will Store

Before I went outside I wrapped a heavy scarf around my hair and topped it with – get this – a quilted, well-padded toaster cozy that’s patterned after a little English cottage. No, I did not take a picture of myself looking like that! Then I pulled the bee-hood over my head and zipped everything up.

Next I pulled on some heavy winter gloves – not easy over my swollen hand AND added my heavy-duty leather work gloves.

I looked like a cartoon version of the Michelin Man, but there was NO WAY a stinger was going to get to me.

Once I was ready, I took the fresh jar of sugar water outside, pulled off the empty bottle, replaced it with the full one, waited for the bees to stop flying around me, and came inside where I had to reverse the process. The gloves came off first, followed by the hood and the English cottage toaster-hat. And so on.

The good news is that, even if I looked ridiculous, I did not get stung. The good news where my hand is concerned is that, although I can’t flex three of the four fingers, I no longer have any wrinkles on that hand. That oughta be worth something...

BEEattitude for Day # 333:

       Blessed are those who aren’t afraid to look foolish, for they shall open whole new worlds.
 

__________________________

Green as a Garden Hose, the 3^rd Biscuit McKee Mystery,

is now available in mass market paperback

from World Wide Mystery, a division of Harlequin.

(Go to www.eHarlequin.com and search for Fran Stewart)

 _______________________________

Get Your Dog in My Next Book!

From now through the end of September, anyone who donates $10 to WAG, also known as the Walton Animal Guild, will be automatically entered in a drawing.

If you win, your dog will be in my next Biscuit McKee mystery!

http://www.wagwalton.com

The donate button is right on their home page

Every $10 donation is automatically entered in the drawing

See Blog #324 for the details.

Day #332 Hatch-Out

Look what happens when a whole slew of baby bees all hatch out on the same day:

On Tuesday I happened to look out the bay window and was, quite frankly terrified, thinking that something awful had happened to my bees. There were thousands of them boiling out of the entrance holes and circling the hives – both hives.

I called my mentor, Tommy Bailey, in a panic, but he calmly informed me that since I’d started giving them sugar water three or so weeks ago, the first eggs were all hatching right about now. Remember? the bees were starving and the queens weren't laying any eggs -- until I started feeding them.






I blogged about feeding them sugar water on Day #311 (Friday, August 19^th). The queen probably started laying a few eggs at that time, but she really went into production five days later on August 24^th. How do I know that? Well, as I explained in blog # 209, there’s a 3-6-12 rule in beekeeping.

3+6+12=21.

·         The brand new egg stays an egg for 3 days.

·         Then it hatches into a larva and stays like that, growing constantly, for 6 days.

·         Next the nurse bees pack that larval cell with lots of food and cap it over. The larva is now considered a pupa. It stays a pupa for 12 days.

As soon as a baby bee emerges from her cell, she lets her wings dry a bit, turns around and cleans out the cell she just came out of, and then heads for the front door to take a GPS flight, better known as an orienting flight. That happens 21 days after the egg was laid.

Voilà! 21 days after that first major egg-laying, I saw the

Hatch-Out!

That’s when each little bee sets its internal GPS system so it will always recognize home. It only lasted about 15 minutes, and then it was over and everybody settled down to normal. I wonder if there will be another one tomorrow for the eggs she laid just a couple of days later?

Hatch-outs occur pretty much every day during the summer, especially when there’s been a strong honey-flow, but because so many foragers were coming and going from the hive, it never looked like anything special. Little did I know. It took a drought to teach me a bee-lesson. 

Isn’t this amazing?

 

BEEattitude for Day # 332:

       Blessed are those who recognize the small miracles of life, for they shall live in wonder.

 

__________________________

Green as a Garden Hose, the 3^rd Biscuit McKee Mystery,

is now available in mass market paperback

from World Wide Mystery, a division of Harlequin.

(Go to www.eHarlequin.com and search for Fran Stewart)

 _______________________________

Get Your Dog in My Next Book!

From now through the end of September, anyone who donates $10 to WAG, also known as the Walton Animal Guild, will be automatically entered in a drawing.

If you win, your dog will be in my next Biscuit McKee mystery!

http://www.wagwalton.com

The donate button is right on their home page

Every $10 donation is automatically entered in the drawing

See Blog #324 for the details.

 Please forward this blog post to your friends!