Do B A Good Bee......

"Aerodynamically the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it, so it goes on flying anyway." ~Mary Kay Ash

I have finally located some bees that were motionless long enough for me to sit and watch them at work. The more I watch the more fascinated I have become with them. They are such diligent workers that not even my photo-taking disturbs them.

I have found out that there are two main types of bees in this area; bumble bees and honey-bees, but I have not worked out which are which just yet. Apparently bumble bees are much less aggressive than honey bees.

Generally they will not attack a human (thank god) unless their life is under threat. So if you do not wave your arms around wildly and instead stand calmly and let them smell that you are not a flower with pollen they will move gently away.

Apparently honey bees are not as amiable lol. Currently there are some poppies in the garden and to my amazement the bees are regular visitors. Because poppies are such an open flower it is easy to watch the changes taking place.

Daisies are another open-type flower that makes it easy to monitor bees in. The flower petals seem to attract the bees, which come along and actually take the nectar in the center of the flower.

If you stand and watch them patiently, you can actually see them sipping the nectar. While they do this they tread through the pollen which gets stuck on various parts of their bodies.

The bees then go to another flower and some of the original pollen gets transferred to the second flower. This was pollination taking place in front of me lol. The pollen was stuck on their bodies and legs and yet they continued undisturbed.

But have a look at the flower after the bee has left it and see the mess he/she makes, you can actually see where they have stompt through it. I once read that if we destroyed bees completely it would have a catostrophic effect on nature, beyond anything mankind could imagine; we would not survive.

"The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee, a clover, anytime, to him, is aristocracy". ~Emily Dickinson