Day #193 Bee Footprints

You do recall, don’t you, that the package bees went into the rubber-duck-yellow hive I’d bought way back last October? And that the fully-functioning hive I brought home (along with the 3-pound package of bees) turned out to be white. Because that one has been functioning as a working hive for long enough for the bees to build up their comb and fill it with pollen and honey and eggs and larvae and pupae and those cute little emerging baby bees, there have been a lot of bee trips in and out of the front entrance, which is simply a hole about an inch in diameter.

As I sat watching the bees late yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the entrance hole on the yellow hive is still as bright yellow as the rest of the box, but the one on the white hive is – well – rather grungy-looking. It didn’t take long to figure out that I was looking at countless bee footprints.

Imagine your kitchen floor, newly scrubbed. Now imagine a virtual hoard of family members tromping in from outside, where they’ve been cavorting barefooted in the grass. And they each walk across the floor not once, not twice, but thousands of times.

Get the idea?

BEEattitude for Day # 193:

       Blessed are our house bees, for they keep the hive cleaned out – except for the footprints, which we don’t mind.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The leafy green of my back-deck potato plants growing up to the sun   

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #186 How Many Queens in a Hive?

Dr. Jim Ellis asked us that question, and we all got it wrong.

Another myth exploded.

Everything I’ve ever read has told me that a queen bee will kill all her rivals (any other queens). But Jim asked us this:

Why does a beekeeper think there’s only one queen in a hive?

Answer: Because the beekeeper stops counting when s/he finds the first queen.

Well, doggone it. That’s right. Every time I’ve seen beekeepers looking for their queen, they find her and say, “There she is – now let’s close up this hive so we don’t disturb her too much.”

Jim’s researchers at the Honey Bee Lab at the University of Florida don’t stop looking when they find the first queen. Sometimes, they say, there are two or even three queens in a hive.

Amazing, isn’t it?

BEEattitude for Day # 186:

       Blessed are the queen bees, for they are our mothers.  

Forty-two-thousand things Fran is grateful for right now:

       The bees I’ll be picking up TOMORROW!   

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #184 Ask the Expert

They’re right – a little knowledge IS a dangerous thing.

Tuesday evening, the Gwinnett Beekeepers Club hosted Dr. James Ellis, from the University of Florida. He brought his boundless enthusiasm for entomology, and a Power Point show so we could visualize what he was talking about.

All those things I’ve been telling you about small cell foundation – absolutely no scientific basis to it at all. Jim said that most of the beliefs about honey bees are based on hearsay. “This is what I hear, so I’ll say it again” . . . and suddenly it’s believed to be scientific fact. His department tests all sorts of things about honey bees, so he ought to know.

Still, I cling to the belief that small cell foundation is the way to go – simply because it’s closer to the way the honey bees would build their comb if people weren’t interfering. So, I’ll use the SCF, whether or not it encourages the bees to be more happy and healthy than they would be on the super-duper size.

At least Dr. Jim said I wouldn’t hurt the bees one way or the other. Good!

I didn’t happen to mention to him about hearing that singing to the bees keeps them calmer. If I’d told him that, he probably would have rolled his eyes. I’ll just do my singing anyway, but I’m not going to tell anyone – except you – that I’m doing it.

BEEattitude for Day # 184:

       Blessed are those who sing to us regardless of what the experts say, for happy singers are always blessed.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The Atlanta Pen Women, who met in our nature garden at Stone Mountain yesterday and wrote lots of haiku. We also laughed a lot.

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #166 Hive Autopsies

I’ve been reading about how to do a hive autopsy—that’s the process for figuring out why all the bees in a hive died off.

I hope I never have to use this knowledge. Natural Beekeeping, the book I bought recently, has a chart (I love well-organized charts) with all the symptoms in the left column and the probably causes in the right. The last symptom on the list, caused by pesticides or chemical poisonings is: “Sudden collapse of the hive. Numerous dead bees lying around in front of the hive with their tongues sticking out” (p. 61).

If that image isn’t enough to stop you from using pesticides on your lawns and gardens, I don’t know what will. The thought of all my brave little worker bees dying, gasping for air, with their little tongues flailing, brings tears to my eyes – and I don’t even have my bees yet.

BEEattitude for Day # 166:

       Blessed are those who refuse to buy pesticides, for they shall contribute to the health of Mother Earth, and the world will be a better place for them and for us, the bees.  

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Cowan’s Book Nook in Ellijay, where I signed my books yesterday. They’re having to close that store (not enough sales), but they will keep their store in Blue Ridge GA open.

FRANattitude for Day #166

      Blessed are those who buy books from real bookstores, for they shall help keep that breed alive and well.  

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #161 More jobs for bees

We left off yesterday with the little nurse bees feeding the larvae for six days. At that point, slightly older bees move in to cap off the larval cell so the pupae (that’s what they’re called at this point) can continue growing for 12 days into a baby bee. Those babies emerge and start cleaning cells.

Meanwhile, the nurse bees have gone on to other jobs. Up until they’re about 20 days old, they’ll be capping cells, constructing new comb, tending the queen, guarding the entrance to the hive, fanning the hive to heat or cool it as necessary, accepting nectar and pollen brought in by the forager bees, and packing it into cells, and curing the nectar into honey.

During their busy days, they also have to find the time to take orientation flights, circling the hive until they can recognize it from any angle. Gradually their flights get longer, so they can always find their way back home.

All this in three short weeks.

After that, the glands that produce wax and larval food have shriveled up, so the bees become foragers, traveling up to five miles from the hive to find nectar and pollen.

And it takes twelve bees to make one teaspoon of honey. If you’re ever lucky enough to get some Bees Knees Honey, you’d better appreciate all the work that went into it!

BEEattitude for Day # 161:

       Blessed are those who do their jobs well, for their hive shall thrive.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The pole bean plants that are beginning to twine up and up.    

http://www.franstewart.com

Day #104 Smelly Feet

Queen bees have smelly feet, and that's what keeps their workers happy.

(c) Yelloideas Photography

The tarsal glands on the queen's feet ooze with pheromones (chemical substances) that ebb and flow. The mandibular glands in her mouth do the same thing. Nobody’s figured out precisely how many pheromones are present, but it is known that they are precise indicators of the queen’s health. Changes in the balance of pheromones let the worker bees know what shape their queen is in. If she smells right, she’s okay. If something goes wrong with her, her feet change their smell and the workers know they have to do something.

Public Domain Photo

The attendant worker bees constantly groom the queen, and this spreads the queen smell throughout the hive. The bees are so sensitive to the smell of their queen that when a queen is disabled or is removed from the hive, the workers all know it within minutes and spring into action to correct the problem.

As any bee can tell you, you gotta have those wonderful, informative, smelly feet!

BEEattitude for Day # 104:

       Blessed is she who knows (nose) what’s she’s doing, for she shall, like us bees, be productive.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The New American Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta, where there’s a marvelous production of Twelfth Night during January. 

Day #101 To treat or not to treat

This is so cool! I went back to do some re-reading in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beekeeping, and found yet another reason—very clearly expressed—for why it’s not a good idea to feed bees sugar water (except when the bees are getting first established).

Bees apparently self-regulate the size of their colonies based on the amount of food available. When there is less food (in the form of nectar and pollen) the queen slows down on the egg-laying. When they stop rearing brood for a time, it interrupts the life-cycle of the diseases and parasites that grow in the brood chambers.

When beekeepers feed the bees constantly from early spring to late fall, the bees never get that “message” that it’s time to slow down, so the parasites keep right on multiplying. Then the beekeepers find it necessary to treat with antibiotics like Terramycin  and Fumadil.

Do you really want to eat honey that has antibiotics in it?

Even the use of so-called natural treatments (like dusting with powdered sugar) interferes with the microbial culture in the hive.  Just because something is natural, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea. As Stiglitz and Herboldsheimer wrote in The Complete Idiot’s Guide, imagine “using the oil of the poison ivy plant as a massage oil.” Hmmm.

I’m more and more glad every day that I’ve decided to let my bees simply BEE.

BEEattitude for Day #101:

       Blessed are they who let us BEE what we want to BEE, for they shall help populate the world with healthy pollinators.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       My new wood carrier, a birthday gift from my massage therapist, Karen Krotz

http://www.franstewart.com/
My ebooks are on special sale now (only $3.99)

Day #86 Explaining the joke from Day #83

In the #83 blog I promised to explain that final joke, which was:

What did the proctologist say to the tired bee?
Answer: "All you need is a cleansing flight."

I hope you have a strong stomach if you're eating breakfast right now.

Try to imagine what would happen to the floor of a beehive (whether it's in a hollow log or in a beekeeper's wooden box) if all the bees pooped indoors all the time? Not a pretty thought.

So, bees poop on the fly, and usually each little summertime contribution is so tiny we'd never notice it. But right after winter? That's a different matter. Think about it. Those poor little critters have been clustered inside the hive all winter long to keep themselves warm, and they haven't -- er -- eliminated anything.

So imagine the first warm day of spring, with bees pouring out of the hive. Now imagine the ground around the hive as those bees take what is euphemistically called their "cleansing flights."

BEEattitude for Day # 86:

       Blessed are those who raise vegetables near our hives, for they shall benefit from our fertilization.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The new garden plans I'm putting together so I can take advantage of bee fertilizer! I hope they fly over the garden more than over my deck... 

Day #62 The joy of a good heater

My car has one.
My house has several.
My bees . . . ? Well, they have each other.

Now, you know I don't actually have the bees yet. But my imagination is rife, and I can practically see the little ones flying in and out of the hives right outside my bay window.

But not on a day like today. Brrr ! ! ! ! !

The bees cluster together and shiver, thereby generating heat. One bee alone can't possibly keep itself warm by shivering, but when they all group together, the heat-to-bee ratio goes way up, and they can keep a hive at a comfortable temp, as long as nosy beekeepers don't open the hive on the first sunny day to "check on" the bees.

BEEattitude for Day # 62:

       Blessed are the beekeepers who leave us alone most of the time, for we shall reward them with great sweetness. 

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The space heater next to me. 

[All photos are from the public domain unless noted otherwise.]

Day #59 Art by Grandkids and Bees

As I write this, I'm looking at two pictures drawn by my grandchildren. The bright colors and the sheer imagination -- all of this delights me.

I think bees draw pictures, too. The queen bee lays her eggs in a beautiful spiral pattern, like the seeds in a sunflower. This means that as the eggs go through their various stages, those cells change in the same spiral pattern, each of them progressing from an open cell with a single skinny white egg at the bottom of it to one with a growing pupa, and on to the point where the workers pack the cell with honey and pollen for the larva to eat as it continues its growth. Eventually the workers "cap the brood," covering it over with a yellowish-brownish wax cap.

Like an artist picking different oils (or, in the case of my grandchildren, crayons and pens), the bees choose a different color wax to cap the honey cells. That's how a beekeeper knows for sure which frames hold the white capped honey.

Of course, as the baby bees mature, they emerge in that same spiral pattern, the first-laid at the center and the newer ones progressively outward. Finally the queen goes back to the center and starts over again with yet another first white egg in a newly-cleaned cell.

The fact that they've been doing it this way for 140 million years doesn't make it less artistic. It's beautiful. Do they do it because they "have" to? Well, yes, I suppose so. But maybe each queen considers her options and says, "Spirals! That'll look gorgeous!" And we have a continuous wax canvas in front of us.

BEEattitude for Day # 59:

       Blessed are those who choose to see beauty around them, for they shall be uplifted. 

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Hot oatmeal on a cold morning. 

Photos are from the public domain.

Day #51 Drone Facts and Philosophy

1. Adult drones, unlike worker bees, have no stingers, so drones can't sting. Worker bees, with their barbed stingers, die when they sting someone or something. But drones are so fat and sassy they don't need to sting anyone. Their danger zone comes about when an unmated queen flies up to a drone gathering. She'll mate with 20 or 30 drones -- and the poor guys literally explode at the end of the mating process.

          It's never failed yet: whenever a man hears that fact, his comment (following a chuckle) is always, "Well, at least they die happy."

2. In a natural bee hive, drone cells (the ones that are larger than worker cells) are grouped around the bottom and sides of the hive frame. When a queen is ready to lay an egg in a large cell like that, she chooses a non-fertile egg. Yes, she can tell the difference. That non-fertile egg grows into a drone. The eggs for the worker bees are laid in a spiral pattern starting near the center of the frame. Some beekeepers think the bees waste too much energy creating all those drone cells and drone larvae, and some go so far as to cutt off the drone cells. But, guess what? The workers will just build more drone cells. Why?

      Well, I've read that if a predator breaks into a hive, it will generally start eating the comb at the edges. Voila! The drones are there to serve as sacrificial hive-savers so the worker larvae are more likely to survive.

3. Drones in the late fall are a sorry lot. You see, each drone eats an inordinate amount of honey, and a hive couldn't survive the winter with the non-productive fellas eating up their food stores, So, as the weather turns colder, the workers force the drones out of the hive and dump the drone brood (the unhatched baby drones) out the front door. And I thought A Slaying Song Tonight was gruesome! It's nothing compared to this mass murder.

4. The good news is that as winter comes to a close, the queen begins laying eggs for both workers and drones that will mature shortly before the new workers are needed for the upcoming spring nectar and pollen. The drones that emerge get to eat a lot and go flying around, where they gather with other drones and buzz-buzz-buzz about guy things, until along flies a brand new queen. And then . . .well, they die happy.

BEEattitude for Day # :

       Blessed are the drones, for they shall contribute to the survival of the hive. 

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       The rain that is filling the pond near the corner of GA-20 and Old Peachtree Road. 

Day #49 Heteroskedasticity

I wonder what a doctoral dissertation for a bee would involve?

As part of my work as a free-lance editor, I work with people from all over the country, editing their dissertations. A couple of days ago, one of the dissertations mentioned "heteroskedasticity-consistent tests."  Try to say that six times really fast. I will say, in defense of the doctoral candidate, he hadn't used the word himself. It was simply cited in his reference list as part of an article title.

Not only did I have to look it up so I'd know whether or not it was spelled right (you can apparently substitute a c for the k and still be correct), I was curious as to what it meant. Once I knew that, I began to wonder what words a bee would use to sound really important in her thesis. Here are a few I came up with:

• Nectargrination: flying all around the place to find some flowers that have enough nectar to be interesting.
• Queenification: the process of eliminating a weak queen and producing a new one.
• Beebreadify: To bring bee bread (a rich mixture of pollen and various liquids) down from the storage cells and feed it to the baby bees.
• Cleansidepoopifidumpification: Taking the queen's waste products away from her and depositing them outside the hive.
• Scrubbadubbadadeck: What Frannie will have to do next summer  after a lot of cleansidepoopifidumpification has been going on.

The next time I edit a master's thesis or doctoral dissertation for a bee, I'll know whether or not these words are spelled right.

BEEattitude for Day # :

       Blessed are those who spend their whole lives learning, for they shall either be a fountain of wisdom or a fountain of trivia.

One thing Fran is grateful for right now:

       Sesquipedalian words that make me laugh 

Day #39 Beetles for Breakfast?

Here are some things I'm thinking about:

1. bee types:
Italian Cordovan honeybees are gentle, and they make great honey.
Russian honeybees frequently have an attitude, but they make great honey, too.
Still, why would I deliberately choose grumpy bees?

2. beetles:
Bees in a hive that sits slightly elevated above a concrete slab have a better chance of defending themselves from SHBs (small hive beetles), since the housekeeping bees can grab the beetle larvae as they hatch and throw them out where they will proceed to roast on the sunny concrete (rather than burrowing down into the soil and  multiplying).

3. breakfast:
I apologize if you're eating breakfast while reading this blog entry. You see, I write murder mysteries, and I have a cast-iron stomach when it comes to discussing poison, knives, bullet wounds, and other such gore over a meal. I have to watch myself in a restaurant lest the people at the next table call the cops after hearing me brainstorming about ways to kill off a character. So even something as awful as SHBs (and they are awful, considering what they can do to a hive of bees), is fair game as I sit here writing this post that will be published at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow. Whoops! Did I forget to mention that, as I type away, I'm eating Greek yogurt (from Cabot Farms) with cinnamon on it?  And wondering . . .

Hmm . . . Beetles could add some protein . . .

p.s. Did you read Day #18? It's all about cinnamon and honey.

BEEattitude for Day # 39:

       Blessed are they who eat a good and varied diet, for they shall be healthy. 

One thing I’m grateful for right now:

       My adventuresome spirit and my openness to new ideas.

Day #35 More than eight thousand acres

I keep getting more and more impressed with bees.

If foraging worker bees fly out two miles from their hive, the circle indicated by that radius encompasses 8,042.5 acres. That's a lot of pollinating.

Of course, if they can find ample nectar sources within 100 yards of the hive, The Beekeeper's Handbook says they have six and a half acres to cover. I'm making lists of the kinds of plants I can plant in my yard. We're at the end of the planting season here in Georgia, though, so my little bees are going to have to spread out a bit when they get started in the spring. I hope I can spread good bee-safety-energy around a few thousand acres.

Do bees have guardian angels?

BEEattitude for Day # 35:

       Blessed are they who plant good food for us near our hives, for they shall have longer-lived bees. 

One thing I’m grateful for right now:

       Oatmeal for breakfast

Day #31 Guard Bees

I thoroughly enjoy the meetings of the Gwinnett Beekeepers Club. Tuesday evening I learned that a hive's first line of defense is the Guard Bees. Sounds terrifying, doesn't it? Read on and you'll find out that it's NOT so scary.

When guard bees get alarmed -- say you're approaching their hive too fast--do they sting you? Nope! Remember, if they sting you, they die. So instead, they go through this little routine of head-bumping. That's right. They fly right at you and run into you -- usually on your forehead.

That ought to be enough to warn you off. It sure would make me decide to wait until another time to check the hive. Luckily, I'm not going into this as a business, so if I can't harvest honey one day, I can wait until another day when the bees are calmer and it's no big deal. If I were using the bees as an income-producing work force, I might have to go ahead and open the hive even though I'd been head-bumped a number of times.

After the head-bumping, if the person isn't smart, the guard bees get more serious. Hope I never run into that situation . . .

If you want to check out the Beekeepers Facebook page, here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=100550333343398

BEEattitude for Day # 31:

       Blessed are those who learn our language, for they shall be sting-free (pretty much).

One thing I’m grateful for right now:

       Geri Taran, who is a bee-buddy of mine.

Day #27 My azaleas will have a new life

Well, my handy man came by today (Saturday) to dig up the azalea roots that had stymied me. If you'll remember, I cut them down to prevent my bees from gorging themselves on toxic azalea nectar, but I was left with huge masses of thoroughly entrenched roots that my poor shovel and I couldn't get anywhere with. So, my handy-dandy handyman, whose business is called All Things New, came with his son and dug them up for me.

I figure that was quite a sacrifice. Look what I lost:

I tended to be happy when I was sitting beside the azaleas in the spring. I even color-coded my turtleneck to match them:

But Mark is taking them home to plant in his yard. They get a new life! I'm not a murderer! His yard is, he assures me, farther than five miles from my house, so I won't have to worry about my bees eating these azaleas or any of the others that, according to him, cover his yard from one end to the other.

Not that many of my neighbors have azaleas, either. In fact, in the spring, my yard has always been the one really bright spot in the neighborhood. What on earth am I going to plant that can take their place? If you have any ideas, I'd appreciate them! They have to be plants that thrive in Georgia, though.

BEEattitude for Day # 27 :

       Blessed are they who save plants (even if we bees shouldn't eat them), for they shall live surrounded by beauty.

More than one thing I’m grateful for right now:

       The men who cut down my dead trees Friday, the inside plumber who installed a new (NON-LEAKING!) toilet Friday, the outside plumber who will come on Monday to replace the old blue line from my water meter to the inside of my house, my son who helped me shred up a driveway full of dead azalea branches Friday. People (not things) are what matter.



Day #16 "1,340 stings"

Well, this is good. I just read that a lethal dose of venom would come from getting ten stings for every pound of body weight. For me, that means 1,340 stings. Guess I'm safe, because I just can't imagine that I'll make that many bees feel threatened.

On a happier note, bees beat their wings at a rate that's about half-way between mosquitos and grasshoppers. Aren't you glad to know that? I'm just glad that bees don't whine like mosquitos. I think that would drive me nuts. Instead, I'm looking forward to lazy mornings sitting on the deck listening to the hum of the bees as they work while I sip tea and write. The cats can look out the window, if they'll get out of their paper bags first.

Life is good.

BeeAttitude for Day #16:
      Blessed are they who respect all animals, for they shall be more aware of what we can teach them.

Day #15 "More Fun Bee Facts"

I used to think I worked hard at caring for my children when they were babies. All those wide-awake nights, all those feedings, all those diapers (cloth, not disposable!), all those little hand-sewn outfits...

Well, I don't know what dinosaurs had to go through to rear their babies, but we humans have an easy job compared to bees. Before the queen bee can lay an egg, 25 to 30 bees work about 41 minutes to prepare the cell for her. Then, once the egg has become a larva, 1,300 bees visit it, doing baby-tending stuff. In fact, each larva will get 7,200 bee visits during its stay in the cell. Once it hatches, 60 bees work at cleaning the cell to ready it for the next egg.

Once again, I took these facts from The Beekeeper's Handbook, that was loaned to me by an experienced beekeeper who belongs to the Gwinnett Beekeepers Club. I think this link will get you there: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=100550333343398. Beekeepers are generous people, willing to share their expertise. I'm going to have to get my own copy of that book, though, so he can loan his copy to somebody else.

One more fact: One bee can collect anywhere from 250,000 to 600,000 grains of pollen at a time. I keep being amazed by these little critters.

BeeAttitude for Day #15:
    Blessed are they who advise brand new beekeepers, for they shall help us bees get better treatment.

Day #14 "Ever seen a corbicula?"

Okay - I'm better today. No more sniffing in my tea.

   

Do you know what a corbicula is? Neither did I until a few minutes ago when I read it in The Beekeeper's Handbook. I think I've read about it before this, but it only this minute sunk in. A corbicula is a pollen-collecting "basket" shaped like a flattened depression surrounded by curved spines of the outside of a bee's hind legs. Worker bees have two of them, one on each back leg. When they're fully loaded with pollen, the bee looks like it's toting a pair of cute little yellow saddlebags.

I looked for a photo of a corbicula, but the closest I could find was a butterfly bush with a yellow butterfly (in my daughter's yard).

I can't wait to see my honeybees all yellowed up.Only six more months until I get the bees. Then, who knows how long it will "bee" until I see the corbiculae filled with golden particles. Reading about it sets up some glorious anticipation. Temple Grandin, in her book Animals in Translation says that anticipation is often more satisfying than the end result. I saw the movie Temple Grandin and was so impressed I'm reading her books. So far, though, she hasn't said anything about bees.

BeeAttitude for Day #14:
     Blessed are they who respect us for who we are and what we do, for they shall be satisfied with their lives.

Day #13 "I'm wondering if I can stand it"

If you're looking for a funny blog this morning, this one won't be it. Come back tomorrow, when I promise I'll be brighter.

Last year, between the end of October and the middle of December, I had to have three of my beloved older cats put down. Waldo had battled kidney disorders for several years; Harley developed an enormous brain tumor; and Jazzminka had squamous cell carcinoma.

All my cats have been rescues, but often I felt that they were the ones who had rescued me. Jazzminka cured my thyroid, for instance. I'd given them all a good indoor life, with as much affection, brushing, and holding as they wanted. Twelve years ago Waldo wandered into my garage bleeding and starving, and never wanted to go outside again as long as he lived. I could leave a door open, and he wouldn't approach it. They had plenty of exercise, for they all loved to run up and down the cat trees and ramps that grace my house. But then, one day, for each of them, it was time to let go.

At beekeepers meetings, I've heard of people who've lost entire hives. There are so many ways in which honeybees can be threatened. The fact that bees have, as a species, survived for countless years (a lot longer than the dinosaurs lasted), still does not guarantee that the hives I'm planning for my back deck will make it.

As with my cats, I can give them as much nurturing as I'm able, and something still may happen that will doom the hive. Right now, I'm wondering if I can stand it. At least with my cats, I was able to hold each of them as they made their transition across the rainbow bridge. But it's hard to hold a bee.

Worker bees in the summer have a life span of five or six weeks. But a hive, the social unit of the bee, can last for years and years. Until pesticides or inept beekeepers get in the way.

I'm going to go make myself a cup of tea and sit in my rocking chair, where Miss Polly or Daisy will find my lap. Purrs help combat sadness. So do sunrises and writing and farmer's markets and singing and reading and having lunch with friends and . . .

Maybe I'm not so sad after all.

Beeattitude for Day #13:
    Blessed are they who love without reservation, for they shall have full hearts.