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#152065 09/18/03 06:42 PM
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Chipmunk
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This is from today's edition of the Kortright Conservation Centre's newsletter, written by its director, Allan Foster:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"When a Bee Dies

This week I received in the mail a gift certificate for $200 which can be applied to the cost of my funeral if I pre-plan and pre-pay. It was a bit of a shock so I went outside to watch my bees.

Death is much simpler for the honey bee. Some worker bees serve their community as "undertaker bees." Their task is to remove from the hive any bees who die within the hive. They are not very busy in fact because very few bees actually die within the hive. The community of bees has evolved a hygienic way to dispose of its dead.

A worker bee who became an adult about six weeks ago is approaching the end of her life span. I don't imagine that she regrets this. She must be very tired. She has worked herself to the bone for her whole life. She has flown upwards of 400 km. She has visited thousands of flowers. She has contributed several drops of finished honey to the community.

You can pick her out from her younger sisters when you examine the hive because she is a bit dusty looking. Her bristles have lost the luster they had when she was a young bee. Her transparent wings are slightly torn and worn around the edges.

One morning, she walks slowly to the entrance of the hive, jostled by the younger bees that are rushing past her to get outside. When she gets to the entrance slit, she peeks out to make sure the sun is up. If it is, she is right on time. She limps to the landing board just outside the entrance and gingerly lifts off, listing slightly to one side. She no longer fires out as if shot by a slingshot. Once in the air, she measures the angle to the sun, calculates the distance and she zeros onto a patch of white sweet clover flowers that she still remembers from yesterday. The flowers are loaded with nectar and they are less than a kilometer from home.

The sun is shining brightly overhead and every clover flower has responded by providing a tiny drop of sweet nectar. The bee loads up with treasure until she can hardly fly from one flower to the next. Her wings move less air than they use to. It takes more effort to lift off so she walks from flower to flower on the flower spike and continues to load up.

When she is completely full, she attempts to fly but cannot. She drops slowly, ungracefully to the ground. She wanders around briefly beating her wings in vain. She is too full to make it home. So she perishes by herself, in a quiet space completely surrounded by the flowers and stems that has sustained her and her hive.

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#152066 09/19/03 01:19 PM
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Gecko
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Shelley, this paints quite a picture. Given time and not having any computer crashes, I might be able to come up with some "human" thoughts on this. Just the way my twisted mind works. I'm going to copy it into my word processor and see what I can come up with at a later date. You have awakened the amature psych in me yet again. LOL

Rose

#152067 09/21/03 08:00 AM
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That almost made me cry. Sometimes I think I know exactly how that worker bee feels. I think this week I'm a little torn and worn around the edges too. Bees are very interesting creatures and I think I would enjoy reading a book about them. My husband used to keep bees "in his other life" (during his first marraige when his children were young). He says he may keep them again. Last weekend was the Honey Festival here in Parkersburg, but I didn't get to attend, had other matters to attend to.


Mmmmmmmmmmm....Baps
#152068 09/21/03 08:09 AM
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I don't find that sad at all. It's quite beautiful. If only we all could go that way, loaded up with sweets, surrounded by flowers.

Marian
:love:

#152069 09/21/03 08:15 AM
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Chipmunk
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Lois, are you ok?? Are you in a part of Virginia that was hit by Isabel??? I sure hope not, or if so, I hope you have survived it without too much damage!! Please let us know! <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" /> I've been thinking and wondering about you (I'm not quite sure of where you are located on the map)

Shelley

#152070 09/21/03 09:35 AM
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I thought Allan Foster's "When a Bee Dies" piece was beautiful, too. I also loved your view of it Marian, breaking it down to the real nitty-gritty and giving it a real positive spin. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I feel blessed to have so many bees in my garden although there seem to be more bumblebees than honeybees. Do I get the feeling that the honeybees are more highly revered than the bumblebees, and if so, is that because of their role in producing honey for human consumption? Both species seem very busy in my garden going about gathering pollen from my flowering plants and shrubs.

I know in recent years I had read of declines in the honeybee population and don't know whether that was a localized problem or one that was affecting bees nationwide. At this point I'm not even sure whether it was some kind of parasite, a virus, or something else entirely that was killing them off. Anyone out there know anything about that? I know I've talked to some locals who complain that they hardly see any bees in their gardens. That makes me wonder whether my pesticide-free garden has made a difference.

Now yellow-jackets (wasps I believe) are another story entirely. While my honeybees and bumblebees go about their business without disturbing me, those dreaded yellow-jackets are always appearing on the scene and annoyingly getting into food and drink whenever we eat our meals outside.

~~Leequi

#152071 09/22/03 06:49 AM
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Things of beauty often make me want to cry. The bee's death was a beautiful death, but still emotion rendering because she worked up to her very death, life the constant struggle. I saw whales on "Survivor" the other night - that made me want to cry. Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that I was PMSing at the time.

Shelley, we are fine here. I'm not in Virginia. I'm in West Virginia, and I'm in the western part of West Virginia. The mountainous areas of WV were supposed to get heavy rain and some flooding, but I didn't find out if it came to be. Here we got some light wind and rain for a day and a half, then sunshine that evening.


Mmmmmmmmmmm....Baps

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