In the creation story of the Kalahari Desert’s San people, a bee carries a mantis across a river. The river is wide, and the exhausted bee eventually leaves the mantis on a floating flower. The bee plants a seed in the mantis’s body before dying, and the seed grows into the first human.
Archive for the ‘Beetwixt & Beetween’ Category
The Creation Story from the San people
Posted in Bee Lore, Beetwixt & Beetween on September 26, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Prehistoric Ape-iarists?
Posted in Bee Lore, Bee Present, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on September 26, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Apparently chimpanzees hunt honey in Africa in the same way that people do. They follow the honeyguide bird to where the bees are. The males then go up the tree first to collect the honey and they even use tools such as stones and sticks to get at the honey!
One wonders whether the practice of apes collecting honey is more ancient than even our oldest history books give account? What is Bee Lore without the written word? Perhaps it is a story that has been handed down (and distorted) through many generations? Or maybe just a thought about something that is Bee Present like this one?
Autumn feeding….with all of this year’s honey for the bees!
Posted in Bee Present, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on September 26, 2008| Leave a Comment »
The weather has been good over the past week and I have visited the hives twice……
Two of the hives are not going to make it over winter – the last two swarms that were caught in late June (Kilndown and Hawkhurst). However, we should get Joy, Harmony, Faith, Grace (weakest of these five) and Prior’s Heath through the winter with a bit of luck….which would be good considering we only had one colony at the start of this year. That is the good news.
The not-so-good news for those of you who have had honey from us in the past few years is that I have decided to leave all the honey on the hives……we could have taken two supers….but would have left Grace and Prior’s Heath without enough winter stores…..and I am not sure that they would have packed-down enough stores by simply feeding them syrup.
Grace and Faith also showed signs of verroa…..with bees quite diseased flying in and out…..so hopefully the treatment will work on them.
Strange with the credit crunch. It is somehow that the bees themselves are keeping their liquid assets in the bank and that there is no dividend or bonus for us this year. The analogies between the bee world and the human world remain fascinating to me as I start a new venture. I might write more on this. I am inspired to even write a new section of this blook! Watch this space!
The Properties of Bees
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Lore, Bee-ology, Beetwixt & Beetween on August 25, 2008| 1 Comment »
The properties of bees are wonderful noble and worthy. For bees have one common kind as children, and dwell in one habitation, and are closed within one gate: one travail is common to them all, one meat is common to them all, one common working, one common use, one fruit and flight is common to them all, and one generation is common to them all.
From: De proprietatibus rerum
A Share of Divine Intelligence
Posted in Bee Lore, Beetwixt & Beetween on August 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Some say that unto bees a share is given
Of the Divine Intelligence, and to drink
Pure draughts of ether; for God permeates all –
Earth, and wide ocean, and the vaults of heaven –
From whom flocks, herds, men, beasts of every kind,
Draw each at birth the fine essential flame.
From: The Georgics by Virgil
Computer Model on the Hive Mind
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Present, Bee-ology, Beetwixt & Beetween on August 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Extracted from New Scientist 16 August 2008
“Given a choice between two different flower beds, how can honeybees hunting for nectar be sure they’ve chosen the best patch? A new computer model may provide the answer, as well as insights into the workings of a “hive mind” that could be used to guide swarms of robots.
To test this hypothesis, Ronald Thenius of the University of Graz in Austria built a computer simulation of a hive containing 5000 independent virtual bees. Each forager started out visiting one of two different flower patches, but would switch destinations if it had to wait too long to be unloaded or was being serviced by too many receivers.
The idea that bees glean information from the number of unloadings is new, says Francis Rietnieks, a bee expert at the University of Sussex in the UK, but it needs to be verified in the field. “If their simulation suggests a novel means of information transfer, ideally they will devise a suitable experiment that can test the model’s predictions,” he says.
Thenius says the work could prove useful in controlling swarms of tiny robots for sensing and surveillance applications. Such robots could use a similar method of incidental communication to arrive at group decisions that could maximise resources. The system would be robust because it would rely on very simple observations, he notes.
The results, presented at the Artificial Life IX conference in Winchester, UK, last week were promising. The virtual bees moved to the better nectar source at similar rates and in similar proportions to those observed for real bees. “It’s like a new pub has opened with cheap beer: everyone’s trying to find it,” says Thenius. “The hive can gain up to 20 per cent more nectar this way.”
Full article at: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/mg19926696.200-computer-model-of-bees-probes-the-hive-mind.html
Also from: http://www.clipmarks.com/clipmark/06C4E037-2CE5-4F6D-83F1-7E36BE29FF8E/
Bee Dances
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Lore, Bee Present, Bee-ology, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on July 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Bees have devised a very effective method of communicating information about sources of food using a ROUND DANCE and a WAGGLE DANCE (or figure of eight). The dances do not appear to indicate the height of the food above ground level and in most cases this is not important since to a bee the source will be obvious.
Round Dance
This is used when the source of food (nectar or pollen) is less than 100 metres away. The bee dancing goes in a circle on the comb first one way, she turns round and then the other way round the circle. Food is passed from the dancing bee to those watching and following giving information about it’s taste and smell. The round dance does not appear to tell the bees in which direction to go to the food source just that the food “is close to the hive and tastes and smells like this”.
Waggle Dance
For food supplies more than 100 metres the waggle dance is used. The bee will run in a direction on the comb which indicates direction relative to the sun’s position. The bee uses the force of gravity (vertically downwards) as the position of the sun and if say the food is 30 ° to the left of the sun then the bee will dance 30 ° to the left of the vertical on the frame. Whilst the bee is indicating direction she waggles her body from side to side to indicate distance to the food source. The more waggles the closer the food source is to the hive.
The waggle dance gives both direction and distance to the food source and by tasting the food the bee knows what to look for.
From: http://www.cheshire-bka.co.uk/Beekeeping/beedance.php
A Swarm Arrives and Settles in our Roof!
Posted in Bee Present, Beetwixt & Beetween on June 5, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Today at about 15.00 a swarm arrived outside our back door and settled in the eves between our neighbour’s roof and ours. It was not a very big swarm – and is possibly a cast thrown from the large apiary that is about 500 yards from our house.
Having wondered whether or not to dislodge the bricks, smoke it and catch it and then put it in our apiary, we decided to leave it. Coincidentally (though the bees probably worked this out already), the next door neighbour has just had a baby boy – and he arrives home tomorrw with his mother. What good fortune for us all! Double luck! A new baby and a new swarm of bees.
Two Thousand Year Old Advice on Siting an Apiary
Posted in Bee Lore, Bee Present, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on May 28, 2008| Leave a Comment »
First find your bees a settled sure abode,
Where neither winds can enter (winds blow back
The foragers with food returning home)
Nor sheep and butting kids tread down the flowers,
Nor heifer wandering wide upon the plain
Dash off the dew, and bruise the springing blades.
Let the gay lizard too keep far aloof
His scale-clad body from their honied stalls,
And the bee-eater, and what birds beside,
And Procne smirched with blood upon the breast
From her own murderous hands. For these roam wide
Wasting all substance, or the bees themselves
Strike flying, and in their beaks bear home, to glut
Those savage nestlings with the dainty prey.
But let clear springs and moss-green pools be near,
And through the grass a streamlet hurrying run,
Some palm-tree o’er the porch extend its shade,
Or huge-grown oleaster, that in Spring,
Their own sweet Spring-tide, when the new-made chiefs
Lead forth the young swarms, and, escaped their comb,
The colony comes forth to sport and play,
The neighbouring bank may lure them from the heat,
Or bough befriend with hospitable shade.
O’er the mid-waters, whether swift or still,
Cast willow-branches and big stones enow,
Bridge after bridge, where they may footing find
And spread their wide wings to the summer sun,
If haply Eurus, swooping as they pause,
Have dashed with spray or plunged them in the deep.
And let green cassias and far-scented thymes,
And savory with its heavy-laden breath
Bloom round about, and violet-beds hard by
Sip sweetness from the fertilizing springs.
From Georgic IV by Virgil written c.29 BCE.
The Busy Bee has no Time for Sorrow…..
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Lore, Beetwixt & Beetween on May 28, 2008| 1 Comment »
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
Extract from Proverbs of Hell by Willam Blake
Bee Lore 