First aid

 

First aid

Cross stitch waiting to be started

I wasn’t expecting to use the bee remedy I mentioned in yesterday’s post so soon, if at all, but this morning, Barry found a bee on the conservatory floor. He picked her up and took her outside away from curious cats and dogs.

I mixed a sugar water solution and fed it to the bee, which was very sluggish and disorientated. After several minutes I picked her up on a stem of herb robert (Geranium robertianum, wild geranium) and put her on a ceanothus flower. She is breathing and moving around, but not making any effort to fly, and it is now several hours since she was first found. It is also rather cool and breezy, not the best conditions for a weakly bee, so I don’t really hold out much hope for her, but at least she’s got a full tummy.

I don’t know what species of bee she is; all I do know is that she is not a honey bee. She is such a little creature, so fragile, so important.

Another cross stitch waiting to be started

As busy as a bee

 

As busy as a bee

All images courtesy Wikimedia Commons

There wouldn’t be sunflowers,
Wouldn’t be peas,
Wouldn’t be apples,
On apple trees,
If it weren’t for fuzzy old,
Buzzy old bees,
Dusting pollen
From their knees.

Aileen Fisher (1906-2002)

It has been a pleasure to see so many bees recently in the garden, flying from flower to flower, taking the nectar and filling their pollen baskets. 

 Honey bees usually sleep for up to eight hours at night-time in the hive, though they will sometimes sleep in flowers. Young bees may take frequent daytime naps.

Sleeping bees sometimes hold each other’s legs, but a single bee may fall over sideways, holding on with its mandibles to its sleeping post.

Some bees require emergency treatment. A bee that is not flying or collecting nectar is a bee needing help. The quickest way to help it is to find a flower. Otherwise, prepare a sugar water solution of one part sugar to two parts water, and offer it to the bee. Sugar water should not be left out for bees as a general rule, because it will not give them the nutrition they need and may prevent them from visiting flowers and pollinating them. One would think that honey would be a good thing to offer tired bees, but that is a way of introducing potential disease to a colony.

It can take as long as thirty minutes for a bee to recover sufficiently to gather enough energy to fly away.                                                     

However, if the bee does not respond and consume the sugar water, it is likely that she has reached the end of her life.

I have never seen a sleeping bee and the photographs I have included in this post show something I hope I will one day experience.

Busy, busy, busy!

 

Busy, busy, busy!

It was a sunny Friday afternoon in early October and everyone was making ready for the weekend. A good hostess is always prepared for the unexpected and it’s a poor hostess who has nothing delectable to offer her guests and so Marjory had set out with her friends to replenish her stocks. She and her chums always travelled together to the market. Each one had a good idea of where the best bargains were to be found. What one friend might miss, another would be sure to spot. That way they were confident of filling their baskets with the very best produce available.

When they arrived they were amazed to see how many others were already there, industriously searching. It seemed that the world and his wife were taking advantage of a lovely afternoon to make sure they were not the ones to be caught out with an empty larder. There was a pleasant hum in the air as friends and acquaintances greeted each other.

Stocks were plentiful – there was little chance of the shelves being emptied. Indeed, some customers had already loaded their baskets to capacity and had begun to make their way home, rather wearily, it must be said, for full baskets are weightier than empty ones.

Marjory set about her task with a will, buzzing from one stall to another, gasping with excitement at the wealth of choice before her. Before many minutes had elapsed, she had filled both her baskets and was ready to make the homeward journey. She was looking forward to a lovely cup of tea and a delicious honey cake. She felt she had earned a sweet treat.

Shadow Shot Sunday #127, Today's Flowers #116 Nasturtiums

This year the nasturtiums have been outstanding. The colours have ranged from cream through orange to scarlet and crimson. We are enjoying their final flourish before they finally succumb to the frost. We have had two or three heavy frosts in the last week and it is only the flowers in sheltered places that are surviving. 

The bees are still working hard.

This bee is using an alternative method of reaching the nectar. It's called 'robbing' because the bee approaches from the back to find the nectary, denying the flower the chance of pollination. The bee may probe between the petals or bite a hole through the flower.

Thank you to Tracy from 'Hey Harriet' who hosts this meme.

ABC Wednesday B is for Bee

My sister's name was Beryl but her husband always called her Bee. She was a very busy person, full of energy and enthusiasm. She met her husband at a dance and three weeks later they were married, rather to my parents' consternation. They need not have worried for the marriage was long, happy and fruitful and they were well matched though she was sometimes driven to distraction by his refusal to engage in arguments. They lived in a small caravan for a few years while he was still in the Royal Navy – no naval married quarters then! – and one day he so infuriated her that she threw a bag of tomatoes at him, one by one. Every one of them missed and she had to clean up the mess afterwards. Mick sat and laughed which made her even more furious.

Beryl was a beautiful child with dark curly hair and big brown eyes and grew into a striking woman but she was rather accident-prone. There are few photographs of her without a bandage in evidence. As she grew up she fell prey to various illnesses and mishaps. She had a tubercular gland in her neck which was removed, leaving a noticeable scar. When she broke her back, falling off a stool (!) she was encased in a plaster cast from chest to thighs for several months but this didn't prevent her dancing. She and Mick were very graceful dancers and were often complimented on their style. Beryl found the cast quite useful on the dance floor. If another couple carelessly barged into them she would make a point of crashing back, making sure the cast was felt, all the more surprising when it was not visible!

Beryl was fifteen years older than me and enjoyed taking me out at the weekends when I was little. Indeed, she would often ask her boyfriends, of whom she had a long succession, if she could bring her sister along on their dates. She would describe me, quite accurately, as a brown-eyed blonde, and enjoy the look of amazement on their faces at the rendezvous when a little girl appeared, holding her hand. Needless to say, I loved her boyfriends! I also loved watching her getting ready to go out – it all looked very exciting and grown-up and I couldn't wait until my turn came. Even now, I often enjoy the preparations for a formal evening out more than the event itself.

Despite her illnesses and accidents Beryl never complained, carrying stoicism to sometimes ridiculous levels. In her sixties she fell down the stairs and broke her wrist. Rather than call an ambulance or even sit down and wait for Mick to return home and help her, she carried on 'as usual', preparing their evening meal. When Mick arrived home some hours after the accident it was obvious she was in great pain and he took her to hospital where the surgeons had a difficult job setting her badly broken wrist. It was never the same thereafter, for it didn't heal straight.

Beryl was always a very slim woman. She was an excellent cook and enjoyed food, for her appetite was good, but she had so much energy that she burnt calories at a terrific rate. During her stays in hospitals she would be prescribed milk stout, rather like Guinness, to 'build her up' which she never drank but poured into the plant pots when backs were turned. The plants thrived!

Mick always bought her clothes and he had excellent taste, knowing exactly the style and colour and cut to emphasise her good looks. As a couple they were extremely good company, readily and frequently turning acquaintances into friends and living life to the hilt on a modest income.

For the last twenty-five years of her life she had cancer though none of us, apart from Mick, knew until the last three years when it became impossible to disguise or wave away. After several serious operations she finally underwent palliative surgery twelve years ago and spent her last months at home, being cared for by Marie Curie nurses, amazing her doctors by living longer than their expectations, and dying peacefully and as she had lived, with a smile on her lips. She was sixty-nine. She was Mick's soul mate and in the ensuing years he has taken great comfort from their three children and seven grandchildren. Their two daughters have her distinctive voice. His cheerful personality and natural optimism have ensured that he has never slipped into a slough of despair but there is no doubt that Beryl was his shining star as he was hers. It was a true love match.

 Thank you to Denise Nesbitt and her wonderful team who organise and host this weekly meme. To see more Bs please click here.

Camera Critters #110 B'zzz

This morning in the garden we saw a busy bee collecting pollen from the Ceanothus flowers. 

She looks almost drunk, her baskets full to overflowing and grains of pollen dusting her legs and the hairs of her body.Does that eye look sleepy to you?

Thank you to Misty Dawn who hosts this charming weekly meme. To see more Critters - and maybe join in - please click here.