just waking or dying?"
My flowers were decorated with bee statues this morning.
(bad photo unrotated itself, so did one down there. Drat! But I am letting them be)
bee cemetery, this one is dead, most truly and sincerely dead.
It was hard to tell how they were, they stayed so still, but when gently touched most would gently move.
I didn't know if they were just awakening, or slowly perishing.
Some other bees flew in from elsewhere, greeted the flowers (paying no attention to the still bees) and flew off.
One bee suddenly became activated and was merrily plunging into flowers, tucking into nectar (5th photo).
Most others stayed as still as stone.
An hour later I went back to check, and almost all had flown away.
so
Not dying but rising.
Still I wondered, winter is coming, what will happen to them? So I googled. It depends on what kind of a bee, a bee is. If a bumble bee then the queen alone (well with all her eggs, and nectar bread stash) survives the winter, by burrowing in sand, or taking up residence in a mouse's nest. Honey bees, on the other hand, all over-winter in the hive, releasing heat when they eat their stored up honey, keeping the hive nice and cozy.
I think I'd rather be a honey bee.
2 comments:
Sounds to me like they're slowing down for the winter. Mine are all as active as anything - can't keep still for all the nectar around!
I think the saddest thing regarding bees is the fact that they increasingly appear to be disappearing - the impact this will have on agriculture will be beyond staggering. We have a lot to answer for...
Vanilla,
Glad you and the bees are enjoying spring. :)
I thought the bee issue had something to do with mites (?). I don't know what roll we have or have not played in this, everything effecting other things in unexpected ways and all. I hope we can find a way to help without causing more problems. (I'm thinking of the wolves in yellow stone). We certainly need to produce produce.
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