Thursday, October 28, 2010

bees.

[photo credits: all me (image 1: necklace - erica weiner, compact - vintage)]

i apologize for my lack of posting over the past week! i've been trying to focus on writing and heather organized a "CAGIS" event on saturday of last weekend, so we helped her teach some young girls from the ages of 7-12 about local marine invertebrates! it was lots of fun!

on to the post! some of you might know that i've got a strange interest in bees. i really don't know enough about them to warrant this obsession, but i'm trying my best to learn! i've been reading a book called "plan Bee" by susan brackney, loaned to me by my friend amy (sorry i've had it for ages, even though its only a 200 page read).

some neat bee facts that i didn't know before i read this book:
1. "bees are responsible for pollinating 80% of all the plants on the planet."(i knew the percentage was up there, but i never really realized about how proportionally significant their role actually is...)
2. (i'd had a feeling, but didn't know for sure) - honey, if cured properly (low moisture content and low pH), will never go "bad".
3. martha stewart keeps bees. (now why am i not really surprised by that fact? oh martha... how i love you...)
4.  during the world wars, beekeepers were often allowed to dodge being drafted in order to maintain their hives. with the extensive food rationing in place, honey was a popular way to add flavour to the otherwise bland food available, and the demand for beeswax for waterproofing and lubrication of mechanical parts and bullet casings was high.
5. bees can be shipped through the US mail.
6. swarming is actually a non-threatening, natural process undertaken regularly by colonies of bees in order to divide a colony when space becomes limited. the bees prepare to swarm for weeks, as it takes time for the colony to raise a new queen to leave behind at the old colony site.  the old queen will leave with thousands of swarming bees and wait at a new location until scout bees report back to her with their waggle dance about possible new colony sites!

another thing i like to do, is collect deceased bumblebees during the spring (i've read somewhere that this is death after emergence from hibernation, and read elsewhere that they are males that have died after reproducing?). whatever the reason for their passing, i collect these bees and keep them in specimen jars on my desk at work. morbid perhaps, but i find them beautiful and peaceful to look at.  another thing i like to collect is bee jewelry/pretty things. i love my bee necklace by erica weiner, and my vintage bee compact that my mom bought me as my bridal shower gift. i like my bees.

4 comments:

  1. Your compact actually looks a lot like the Guerlain bee!! So pretty!

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  2. it totally does Natalie!! neato! when my mom bought it for me it still contained the original powder and puff inside (tossed immediately ;) and it seems to be by a cosmetics company called Yardley!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yardley_of_London

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