Mrsroadrunner Photography | Honey Bee Coming In For A Landing
Hope your weekend was a good one?! Meet the Honey Bee. Many people know the Honey Bee!! The flower of this series is the Poppy Flower. The Honey Bee's do like the Poppy, specially the red Poppy!! Or the salt and pepper shaker flower!
The Honey Bee for being the size it is, does the work of several humans just buzzing around doing their thing! If it were not for the Honey Bee in part (pollinators in general), I would not have the seeds nor the food we grow here!
These photographs were taken in my garden on 8/10/2014. I have had conversations in the real world and on the computer, and phone with Honey Bee keepers, scientists ie with the professional Honey Bee keepers. Picked up a little information of this incredible insect!! Found out from those I will call them "die hards", the Honey Bee Keepers really are fond of their Honey Bee colonies ie hives as we our say as fond of our cats and dogs!
One thing I learned pretty quickly from those who know so much more then I about the Honey Bee is? The word "Honey Bee", is a catch all phrase for a species of Bee who turns their hard work into Honey for themselves. As with any species some day I will dive into the names, characteristics of each sub species of Honey Bee. For now those that come to my garden and the other places I go to are in two categories, the wild Honey Bee and the Domesticated Honey Bee. I can only tell the difference from their behavior at this point.
I recall running into one of these Honey Bee keepers in Condon Oregon. I love talking about any creature! This man new so much about Honey Bee's and a pacific kind of Honey Bee he blew me away!! I can talk about most things, though I admit some folks talk way over my head, therefor I try and just listen. If say the person wants to talk about whatever, I am in heaven. Though sometimes the people too are trying to gather information. I felt rather badly for my information was rather limited compared to his!! Of course my Honey Bee photography started that whole conversation and this is a typical conversation starter in my world.
Our garden here is rather small compared to some gardens. Our place is not big!! So Guy is my other half, and he is the one who plans out what, mostly in his head. Pretty much every inch of our soil is used up! So to some folks this may seam like we have a big garden?? To others well.... we live in a area where there are farms and ranches. I had 20 acres which is considered a small area here. I was going to turn into a wildlife place. Unfortunately this economy hit us as it had done to millions of folks here in America. So, we talked it over and turned this place into a mini place!! We have so many Honey Bee's here at times it is interesting considering we are not a big place!!
In fact we have so many Honey Bee's and other types of insects who can sting I will ask parents of kids and the parents themselves if they come here if they are allergic to bee's! Insects who visit here get rather used to me, that is I do the same old, same old. Such things I feel can get used to us just like we get used to them. Here at the house I have been stung one time. That is pretty good odds considering I get right up and close into their business!! We also do not allow them to set up shop here! That is make nests. As if I would know if the smaller species have nests here for instance, the ground nests.....Strangers I notice get checked out by the bee's. The bee's even the Honey Bee's check out the visitors that are with me on our place. Perhaps this is due to the perfumes, soap,chemicals the person is wearing?? That whole topic of chemicals people wear and what it does to big and little things like insects is another topic haha!
We do have new neighbors who have kids , they seam to be respectful of my garden. Lets hope it stays that way? Another neighbor is not so respectful!! I had to go to her son (who btw I think is older then I am haha), and ask him to please talk to his mother about just walking onto our place like she does cutting my flowers and peaking through windows, the dog fence etc.. She wont listen to me I informed him. You got to love small , rural towns hahahaha
With all that said, and my rambling added in..... the Honey Bee is a pretty docile Bee. The domesticated ones who show up by the thousands by train to our area (I was told they come here from California), they are the most docile away from their hives. Dont go walking up to their hives while they are awake and you are not prepared haha, I know I found out hahahahaha!
The wild Honey Bee are a little more..... on edge is a good way of saying it ? We have a "bug dog", here. He has to be told not to go after the Honey Bee. Otherwise ...... I have turned his attention to the ants which he can get all he wants to!!
We do have the domesticated Honey Bee show up here who are sick. They fall to the ground in mid flight. They will fall over, sometimes going into circles before falling over. We ONLY water with fresh water! I tried watering with our ag. water we pay for however, even though I am on the list of people to call when chemicals are applied (the water lines get clogged etc.. and they put chemicals in it to clear out the clogs, clean the lines) ... I am not a big phone answering person. So this is my fault, so I just assume not use that water, which is not for flowers, ponds, food gardens etc. anyways. I feel that water is for grass. Facts are much of the water in the USA is used for plan old grass ie lawns. I hate lawns for this fact. Folks like that green lawn..... dose not produce flowers or food, but it does keep down the dust , soil erosion. Leave that with something positive.....
I recall as a child (oh 6yrs old??), I came up with this brilliant idea.... and of course my younger sibling followed right along! We were going to catch the Honey Bee's and drown them!! Gosh we were both real little ! So we were doing our thing, I dropped the lid of the jar into the bucket of water! Well, I did not know any better and reached in and grabbed the lid, along with oh half dozen Honey Bees? Ya I got stung A LOT!!
Couple things I learned, one the Honey Bee is a bee who will die if it stings. So the Honey Bee is not going to sting for nothing!! Two, that was a pretty crummy and stupid thing to do!! Three, I was not allergic to Honey Bee's. My father after this went and got some honey from somewhere? All us kids got to have some , and I learned about the Honey Bee first "hand"!
Thank you for coming by , hope you liked my photography! I have more photographs and more to come! I have this in the
insect album if you want to take a peak?
Hope your monday has started off well? We woke up to snow, which is not all that surprising haha! I will be over in
twitter here soon enough,stop by and say Hi if you got the time! If I am still there live and kicking I respond rather quickly :)
