Then one year the back yard was chosen for the annual Easter egg hunt. When the youngsters were turned loose to hunt the hidden eggs they rushed to all the most likely places before spying the old tub lying nearby, slightly tilted with one edge a few inches off the ground.
The little egg hunters rushed in a herd to the tub. When someone lifted it there were no eggs– instead a hive of angry honey bees. The kids learned their little legs couldn't outrun an angry bee and got a few stings. All were soon forgotten as the hunt for more eggs continued. The bees quickly regrouped into a tight swarm and left to form another hive in a safer place.
Bees are important pollinators and today they are in trouble because of something called hive collapse.The cause is unknown, but a widely used insecticide is suspected. Can we help? Maybe. Buying organic fruits and vegatables could help, but the price is often prohibitive. Another way is to contact your congressperson. We can also encourage the growth of wild flowers such as blue bonnets, cone flowers, sunflowers and goldenrod.. Also lantana, butterfly weed and redbud, to name a few. The bee requires a balanced diet just as we humans do.
Assuming that you’ve forgotten your nigh school biology just as I have, the hive consist of three classes of bees: the queen, whose only duty is to lay eggs, the male bees called drones and the worker bees, all female. Besides foraging for pollen which they carry home in little baskets on their legs, and nectar which is carried in special glans, sometimes making ten trips daily, these little females also serve as guards at the hive’s entrance and have hive cleaning duties. It’s no surprise the they seldom live longer than six months.
The more I learn about a hive’s society the more I admire the little bee–.even its grim custom of forcing the drones out of the hive when cold weather arrives.
