A day in the life.........

How many times do we take for granted, all the small things in the world around us.

I was gardening at the weekend, quite a rare occurrence at the moment due to the weather but it was warm and overcast and as I worked I gradually became aware of the number of bees around me.  There is one particular bush near to the kitchen door and it is covered with tiny white flowers which the bees seem to particularly like and I stopped to watch them as they carried on regardless of my interest - and the subsequent memory they reminded me of so vividly.

Three years ago I was busy weeding the veg patch  when I became aware of one or two bees floating around nearby, I didn't pay them too much interest but carried on until very gradually over a period of about an hour, they were joined by four or five others.  It was almost as though they were sussing me out and reporting back.  In the end I stopped to watch them and found that they were investigating an old, rotten bird table that I had stored, meaning to recycle when I had time, and were in fact going in and out of the nest area at the top.  Over the following few days I continued to work in the same area and each time was joined intermittently by a number of bees until by the end of the week they had obviously decided I was no longer a threat and started to treat me as a potential food source instead.  It was a particularly dry and sunny month (hard to imagine I know) and I started to put a small container or sugar water out for them (you might also remember that bees were dying due to a mite infection and their numbers were falling at an alarming rate) and took great pleasure in watching them feed.  In then end they decided it was a good place to call home and stayed for the summer........returning for two subsequent years.  I have since found out that they are called Solitary Bees and often make their home in one place for many years unlike many of their species.

 and finally, some interesting facts about bees I'd like to share:-

One in three mouthfuls of food we eat is dependant on pollination

A bee can fly as little as 1mile or as much as 5 miles a day for food

Bees can fly as fast as 15-20mph when flying to a food source - but only 12mph when laden with nectar, pollen or water


Bees can see colour

Bees collect about 20kg of pollen every year

and finally...........

Honey Bees fly about 55,000 miles to make just 1lb of honey  (that's the equivalent of one and half

times around the world).  

Worth remembering when you have honey on your toast tomorrow morning!