The North Wind

 

The North Wind

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will poor robin do then, poor thing?
He’ll sit in the barn
To keep himself warm
And hide his head under his wing, poor thing!

This little rhyme originated in 16^th century Britain and was first published two centuries later in collections of nursery rhymes. It has three additional verses, not regularly taught, which build on feelings of sympathy and compassion for those less fortunate.

The second verse is about the swallow.

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will the swallow do then, poor thing?
Oh, do you not know
That he’s off long ago
To a country where he will find spring, poor thing?

Swallows migrate to warmer countries for the winter. Any that attempt to remain usually do not survive. This is made clear in Oscar Wilde’s heartbreaking tale of the Happy Prince, a story I can never read aloud to children.

In the third verse, the children learn about the tiny dormouse.

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will the dormouse to then, poor thing?
Rolled up like a ball
In his nest snug and small,
He'll sleep till warm weather comes in, poor thing!

Verse four tells of the honey bee.

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will the honey bee do then, poor thing?
In his hive he will stay
Till the cold is away
And then he’ll come out in the spring, poor thing!

Referred to as ‘he’ in the rhyme, it is only the females, who are the Queen and the worker bees, who survive the winter. The workers cluster round the Queen to keep her warm and alive. The drones are only of use for mating and as there is no mating in the cold months they are pushed out of the hive and either starve or freeze to death.

A fifth verse was added later.

The North Wind doth blow
And we shall have snow,
And what will the children do then, poor things?
When lessons are done
They’ll jump, skip, and run,
And that’s how they’ll keep themselves warm, poor things.

We woke up to snow this morning, which settled briefly on the roofs and trees. At present, we have a north wind blowing. The forecast tonight is -3˚Celsius (26.6˚ Fahrenheit)

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.

The bee’s knees

 

The bee’s knees

This expression has been in use since the 1920s, along with similar phrases, like the cat’s whiskers or the gnat’s elbow. All such idioms are used to describe something superlative.

I wondered, ‘Do bees actually have knees?’  In fact, they do. Not only that, they have hairy knees, the hairs being an intrinsic part of collecting pollen. The knees do not form the pollen baskets but are the joints between them. Only the females collect pollen, which is pressed into pollen baskets. Male bees don’t collect pollen; they visit flowers solely to drink the nectar for immediate energy.

The pyracantha bushes are in full flower now and a rich source of pollen. There is a gentle humming of many bees, a relaxing backdrop to a sunny day. The honey bees are very industrious, collecting pollen and drinking nectar.  

They regurgitate nectar to cover the pollen and form pellets which they take back to their hives. The pollen pellets are then formed into bee bread, which is a mixture of pollen, nectar, honey and bee saliva. It is the main food source for adult honey bees and their young, and is stored in cells to feed developing worker and drone larvae.

Newly-emerged worker bees have the job of making beeswax for the colony. Special cells on the bee’s abdomen produce small scales of wax. Bees constantly groom themselves and each other, taking the wax and chewing it with honey and pollen to create the hexagonal wax cells of the honeycomb.

Honey is made from nectar mixed with proteins produced in the bee’s mouth. The resultant mixture is stored in the honeycomb until the water content has been reduced. 

Honey bees are the major producers of honey. Bumble bees make small amounts of honey, but do not live in huge colonies like honey bees, so their honey production could never become a commercial enterprise.

Humans have been benefitting from bee products for about 9,000 years. Ancient pottery artefacts from Europe, the Near East and North Africa have carried traces of beeswax, which suggests that the first farmers kept bees.

Bees originated in Asia around 300,000 years ago and spread rapidly across Europe and Africa. Today, honey bee colonies are under threat across the world. Colony collapse disorder (CCD) was first reported in the USA in 2006. When this happens, the majority of worker bees in a hive disappear and the Queen and remaining young die because they are not being serviced by the huge army of workers that they need to survive.

The causes of CCD are not fully understood and are still being researched. However, it is believed that pesticides, parasites, disease and loss of habitat are major contributory factors.

There are several suggestions that bee-keepers can try in their bid to prevent CCD. One proposal is to replace the old honeycomb with a new one every two or three years to avoid a concentration of harmful chemicals. Stress is not good for bees so it is helpful to make sure there is good ventilation in the hive and also that there is access to plentiful appropriate food.

A parasite that only breeds in honey bee hives and contributes to CCD is the Varroa mite, an external microscopic mite that attaches to the bee and feeds on it, weakening it. It also transmits diseases like deformed wing virus (DWV) to bee larvae. It is the most serious pest for honey bees across the world.

Bees pollinate a huge variety of crops but the bee population is declining and it is imperative to protect it. Our landscapes and our lives would be unimaginable without the intervention of these little insects.

The Bee's Knees

White-tailed bumble bee (Bombus lucorum) on veronica longifolia

‘They think they’re the bee’s knees’ is an expression used rather disparagingly to describe people who think they have achieved something that sets them above others. Avid followers of fashion, otherwise known as fashion victims, may consider themselves the bee’s knees because they are up to the minute, following the latest trends.

Honey bee (Apis mellifera) on ceanothus

Where did the expression originate? Do bees have knees? They must have feet because they have inbuilt crampons. If they have knees do they have ankles as well?

Bombus lucorum on nasturtium

Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable informs me that it is ‘said of something or someone outstanding.’ It is believed that a US columnist, T.A. (Tad) Dorgan first coined the phrase in the early 1920s. It may refer to ‘the pollen containers on a bee’s legs (the process of removing the pollen involves much bending of the bee’s knees and is performed with great precision), or maybe it is simply surreal (as with such contemporary synonyms as ‘ant’s pants’ and ‘cat’s pyjamas.’

Bombus lucorum on pyracantha

With my anthropomorphic turn of mind I can imagine boy bees eyeing up girl bees and judging them by the relative merits of their limbs.

Boy bee 1: ‘Nice turn of ankle, but her pollen baskets are a bit thin.’

Boy bee 2: ‘She’s got nice knees. Nice eyes, too.’

Boy bee 1: ‘Slender waist – almost a wasp waist.’

Boy bee 2: ‘I couldn’t fancy a wasp, though. They’re quick to anger and then you really feel the sting.’

Boy bee 1: ‘What do you think of her antennae?’

Boy bee 2: ‘Not bad. I’ve seen better on a moth.’

Boy bee 1: ‘Given the choice, which would you go for – bumble bee or honey bee?’

Boy bee 2: ‘Bumble bee every time. I like a bit of substance.’

Boy bee 1: ‘Honey bee for me. Hard-working, nice smooth skin – you’d never go hungry with a honey bee.'

Apis mellifera on ceanothus

Boy bee 2: 'Look at the knees on that!'

ABC Wednesday Y is for Yellow

Yellow is such a cheerful colour in the garden particularly after the often dreary winter days when daffodils bloom in Spring . . .

 . . . followed by Kerria japonica which often flowers again in summer

Yellow Archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon ) is a wildflower native to central and southern England and common in Europe. It is a plant of ancient woodlands and old hedgerows, its yellow flowers in May and June bringing brightness to damper, darker areas. It grows well on chalk or heavy clay but can be invasive in the garden. Young leaves and shoots and flower tips can be eaten when cooked. In herbal medicine it has been used to treat sores and ulcers and to stop bleeding. It is rich in nectar and attractive to bees.

Yellow nasturtiums and marigolds also attract bees

Yellow pansy

Yellow courgette flower followed by green or yellow courgettes

Yellow honeysuckle

Yellow roses

Yellow honey bee (Apis mellifera)

We saw very few of these in 2011. I hope there will be more in 2012.

Yellow sunflower. 

Until last summer I thought all sunflowers were yellow but there are some very pretty red ones.

Click here for more Wise Ys

ABC Wednesday H is for a Host of things

H is for a Host of things in my garden.


In spring there are Hyacinths . . . 

. . . and Hazel catkins . . .

Corkscrew Hazel (Corylus avellana contorta) which gives sweet Hazel nuts

Our Helleborus niger - Christmas rose - flowers in March!

Our Holly tree (Ilex'Golden King') flowers in early spring . . .

. . . attracting the Holly blue butterfly (Celastrina argiolus)

. . . here seen on Ivy (Hedera)

Holly berries are greenish-white in early summer . . .

 . . . ripening in early autumn . . .

. . . and providing winter food for blackbirds and thrushes, particularly the redwing.

Heathers, pink and white, offer nectar early in the year to provide sustenance for early bees.

Heather or Winter Heath (Erica carnea)

Before the winter, Honesty flowers and will produce transparent seed pods, attractive to flower arrangers. Honesty (Lunaria annua) is known as 'Money Plant' in South-east Asia and 'Silver Dollars' in the States.

Honesty (Lunaria annua) self-seeds freely

Honeysuckle gives fragrance to the garden and attracts many insects . . .

Late spring and summer bring Hordes of Hoverflies . . .

Hoverfly(syrphid fly or flower fly) on pyracantha . . .

. . . and occasionally a Hornet (Vespa crabro)  a large social wasp wasp that looks frightening but is much gentler than its smaller cousins.

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) have been scarce this summer. Normally we see dozens at a time collecting nectar . . .

 . . . like this one on Ceanothus (Californian lilac)

Day lilies (Hemerocallis) add colour and interest . . .

 . . . and so do mophead or lacecap Hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla)

My final H is for Hanging baskets, in which grow a variety of plants, from lobelia and petunias, to pansies and strawberries and tomatoes.

To see more Hs from around the world please click here.