Bugging You From San Juan Island

Bee Colony Rescue Helps Promote Sustainable Farming on San Juan Island.

Her Highness Takes Flight!.

Housekeeping, kickboxing and the marionette dance!.

Bee Drama! A Queen Flies the Coop!.

Combining the hives! June 4, 2012.

I went out on the deck today to relax.  Had one of my beekeeping books in hand, my floppy hat, reading glasses….and do you know what?  I had just gotten comfortable when the warriors buzzed over me all a-twitter.  Flashes of green and red whizzed by, suddenly high, then low, and all of them congregating at my hummingbird feeder.

Now backing up just a little….yesterday they were out of syrup.   So a friend of mine asked me about what I fed them and I’ve read that they need vitamins in their diet.  I’m no bird expert, but I started out feeding them a mix bought at the store.  All I had to do was add water and stir.  It had all the added vitamins but the sugar ingredients were vague.   I am always skeptical of some of these mixes, expecially sweetened mixes, since high fructose corn syrup is laden with chemicals that are unhealthy.  This is on my radar because I keep honey bees (see my honey bee blog at http://www.talesfromthehive.com).  Corn syrup has recently been found to interfere with honey bees’ ability to navigate back to their hive.  They leave home, get confused and end up lost.  Could it do the same thing to the hummingbirds?  Well, I soon switched (out of concern) to making my own syrup from organic cane sugar and water.  No added vitamins, but hopefully no harmful chemicals in the mix.  Yesterday though the vitamin thing got to me and I thought I’d supplement one feeding with the mix to make sure I wasn’t depriving the birds of needed nutrients….

Big mistake!  They turned their beaks up and wouldn’t have a drop.  I thought I could outwait them and maybe they would change their mind.  No such luck!  I found myself putting out my home recipe again this morning and within minutes they were back…all 15 or more of them.  I actually have two feeders outside, but they seem to prefer one over the other….and they fight.  We are talking wars going on.  The chattering and twittering would undoubtedly translate into all kinds of unprintable material!

And me?  Well I never got my reading break.  I went back inside to get my camera.  You can see for yourself they weren’t very nice to each other.  This poor little guy got his feathers pulled.  He was pretty ruffled after that!

Can you say headache?

I’m reminded constantly of the need to take my life one day at a time.  To turn off the worries about what is out of my control and try to find moments of peace and gratitude for the beauty around me.  To treasure the friends that offer kind words and support when life sends you sour lemons and to know that sometimes those lemons spark your culinary skills into mixing up the best lemonade ever. 

Using those hurdles in life to make your muscles stronger.  Turning obstacles into opportunities for stretching yourself into a hardier opponent…so that in the game of life, you don’t give up and quit before you even get started.

They say that creativity is born out of necessity.  Sometimes out of absolute desperation, but often in the quiet moments when, feeling depleted, we sit down to rest.   Listening to the birds and breathing in the fresh air can restore us to a place where we can begin again.  Savoring the sunshine in the morning or taking our lunch break outside with a midday stroll.  Accepting that not every day will be the same and that the challenges actually help us to appreciate the days when things are “perfect.” 

If we never cried, could we find the joy in sharing laughter? Perhaps life’s meaning is discovered in the experiences, good and bad, on our journey…one day at a time.

The bees are “bee-coming” my new obsession.  I have had them for 13 days now and my morning routine has incorporated a new daily “buzz” along with my cup of coffee.   Listening to them waking up as the spring rays of sunshine warm their home and watching as a brave little forager peeks out and flies off into the sky…soon to “bee” whereabouts unknown.

Thus begins my new worry!  I found a little bee outside the hive this morning.  She was still alive, but obviously affected by the chill air.  I scooped her up in my hand (no, they don’t sting unless they feel threatened) and took her inside to give her a dose of sugar water in hopes it might revive her.  Watching her closely though, I became concerned as I noticed she seemed to have difficulty moving her back legs – almost like they had become partially paralyzed.  She also kept wiping her antennae and face, going over and over her eyes again with her forelegs like she was trying to clean something off that I couldn’t see. 

Sadly, I placed her in a plastic dish with some tissues and set her in a warm corner of the kitchen.  Fearing that my efforts to help her were in vain, I set out for a morning walk to get some fresh air.  The sun was out, hopefully forecasting a good day

Rounding the last corner in my neighborhood walk, I noticed a strange odor in the air and saw someone spraying a driveway.  Taking a detour to investigate, I asked the people working what they were spraying.   The lawn company owner told me it was “a generic brand of Round-UP. “  He assured me that it was totally safe and wouldn’t hurt anything.  “Everyone uses it!”  But I wondered more about this as I walked home.  The driveway angled right down to the ocean.  Even if the active ingredient, glyphosate could be stable in soil, what other ingredients had been mixed in to act as a wetting agent.  Often times, these supposedly “inert” ingredients are as harmful or more harmful than the active ones.  Some mix the glyphosate with surfactants which are very harmful when they get into marine ecosystems and dangerous for bees that might come into contact with them. 

Back at the house, I thought more about these chemicals in our environment.  What about my little bee that was sick?  Had she visited a site where someone had sprayed toxic chemicals?  I probably won’t know where she traveled (they can visit area between 5-8 miles from their hive) or what made her sick, but I felt awful that she was obviously in distress and there was nothing I could do to help her.  Maybe though, someone reading this will change their habits and help out our friends, the bees.  But not only bees…birds, fish, and other living things that share our environment will benefit when we begin to change.  Weeds in our driveways will seem silly one day when we don’t have fruits or vegetables to eat or clean water to drink.