Day #304 Kisses from Two Very Different Critters

Awright, I know this may sound weird, but this morning, when Miss Polly woke me up by gently touching her paw to my cheek, I couldn’t help by think about a fly that got in the house a couple of days ago and ended up landing on my cheek – not for very long, of course, since I batted it away.

But the fact that two such very different creatures both touched my cheek led me to wonder what a fly looked like close up. I had already taken a picture of Polly’s paw as she snoozed on the couch, and I located (on the  MicroAngela website, the same place I found the microscopic photo of a honey bee head for Day #294) this picture that was labeled “Fly Kiss.”

Copyright by Tina (Weatherby) Carvalho - MicroAngela

Polly Paw

Thought you’d like to see the two side by side:

Given a choice, I'll take the Polly Paw anyday.

I wonder what a fly looks like to a honey bee?

BEEattitude for Day # 304:

       Blessed are those who think of fun analogies, for they shall entertain themselves.

Day #294 Scanning Electron Microscopes

I found the most amazing group of websites the other day. I’ve been reading Beyond the Body Farm by Dr. Bill Bass, who founded that research facility, and Jon Jefferson, who takes all the stories Dr. Bass has about the Body Farm and turns them into books.

The theme of this particular book was the many ways in which technological inventions have changed the science of forensics in the years since the Body Farm was established. One of the goodies they talked about is the SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope). They can use it to find a minute fragment of metal, for instance, in a tiny cut on a bone to prove that the long-deceased owner of that bone was the victim of a homicide.

They also show a lot of COOL bugs!

You can Google scanning electron microscope SEM image gallery

Here’s a bee from a fully copyrighted website called MicroAngela (it took me a few minutes to figure out the pun): http://www5.pbrc.hawaii.edu/microangela/

I have written permission from Tina (Weatherby) Carvalho to use this incredible image.

Copyright © 1996-2000 Tina (Weatherby) Carvalho...MicroAngela

Note the hinged antennae. I talked about them last month (June 20^th) on Day # 240.

Just think, every single one of the 60,000 or so denizens of my back deck hives has this kind of artistry built in. And with a tongue like this, no wonder my fuzzy ladies can gather so much nectar.

Ain’t life grand?

BEEattitude for Day # 293:

       Blessed are those who like to SEE what they're looking at, for they shall be astounded by the wonder of it all, especially the wonder of us bees.

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