Day 348
It’s past the middle of January so I can now safely put up my Valentine’s Day decorations without feeling too weird about it. Nothing like pushing the holidays/seasons a bit. I don’t care … the sooner winter ends the better. I heard we are to be 11 over the weekend. My spring fever is so bad I think I have a real fever as my head is buzzing.
In any case … with the decorations still in a bin in the basement my thoughts turn to bringing them up and all things Valentiney and late winter. Late winter makes me think of spring … which makes me think of flowers … which makes me think of bees. Hence the buzzing in my head!
So … in thinking all these things I could say … (a bit early) … Bee Mine … or Hey Honey … or What’s buzzing?
I read an article the other day about honeybees. I have this quasi-fascination with them. I like bees but hate (hate!) wasps and know (just KNOW) that someday I will have some hives. I don’t want to be the bee-keeper (or apiarist) … I just want to be a landlord – as in provide housing for bees and let someone else take care of them and collect the honey and beeswax.
In fact, I like bees so much that my laundry room (this one and my previous) are decorated in a bee motif – complete with tiny straw skeps and painted bees on my walls. (The Queen even has a glittery tiara on her head … how else would I know she was the queen?!)
Anyway … there were some interesting facts which amazed me – such being that bees have to fly 55,000 MILES to produce ONE POUND of honey! That is farther than going around the world … TWICE!
The White House established a beehive in 2009 and two years later it produced 225 pounds of clover honey. Do the math people … that’s 12,375,000 miles that those bees had to fly!
Wow … I certainly will cherish the liquid gold that is housed in that plastic bear in my cupboard from now on! No wonder honey was once used as currency.
Archaeologists have discovered the remains of clay and straw hives that date as far back as 1000 BC. So, though said not to spoil … I’m not sure I’d like to try 3000 year old honey on my English muffin!
Without bees there would be far fewer plants, flowers, fruits and vegetables … due to pollination, of course. Certain plants not only rely on bees but exist solely due to bee pollination. Peaches and plums rely 70% on bees, apples and avocados rely 90% and almonds wouldn’t exist at all as they rely on bees a whopping 100%! I would imagine with the dying off of bee colonies in the US these past few years the almond growers are mighty nervous.
I always thought that bees were bees … but when doing a little research on them, I found that there are over 20,000 species of these little buzzers!
In any case … I like bees. I think (no pun intended) that they are sweet … or just their honey is! And soon (oh, hopefully soon) spring will be upon us and we’ll be seeing the first flowers of the season popping up and the bees will once again take flight after their long winter of clustering together in the hive keeping the Queen warm and snug.
I know I’ll be looking forward to seeing them. But for right now, with cold temps still around us and no bees in sight (at least where I am), I think I’ll go make myself some tea with honey and cozy in a bit.