TO BEE OR NOT TO BEE!

  BEElieve it or not, we have a healthy gang of BEES already setting our front yard tree in full hummm. You’d think it was spring around here---temps in the high 60’s, sunny and mild.  But the humming tree has already started ---which is amazing to me.  Tiny buds are appearing on it, setting the BEES into a frenzy. 

Hubby Steve has wanted to start a BEE colony for years now, and is serious about capturing this swarm of BEES and having some fresh honey.   He put this sign out on the front gate to warn passersby of the BEES within.    Someone suggested he add the word “BEEware!”

(from www.benefits-of-honey.com):

It is the only insect that produces food eaten by man.

The honey bee's wings stroke incredibly fast, about 200 beats per second, thus making their famous, distinctive buzz. A honey bee can fly for up to six miles, and as fast as 15 miles per hour.

It takes one ounce of honey to fuel a bee’s flight around the world.

A hive of bees will fly 90,000 miles, the equivalent of three orbits around the earth to collect 1 kg of honey.

The bee's brain is oval in shape and only about the size of a sesame seed, yet it has remarkable capacity to learn and remember things and is able to make complex calculations on distance travelled and foraging efficiency.

A colony of bees consists of 20,000-60,000 honeybees and one queen. Worker honey bees are female, live for about 6 weeks and do all the work.

These are just some of the more amazing things I didn’t know about bees.  I’m not crazy about them---as they are a stinging insect, but I do respect them and try not to kill them.  But, I don’t think I could ever do THIS: