What A Nice Surprise

The Versatile Blogger Award

What a nice surprise to be handed the Versatile Blogger Award by Ryan at www.ryanbakes.com.  I’ve enjoyed her delightful blog for a while now and am honored that she crowned me with this award.  Check out her blog – I look forward to trying her recipe for Mexican Chocolate Pound Cake – it has all the good stuff like chocolate, cinnamon and powdered sugar.  I’m sure you’ll find something you want to try too.

Now, for a little lesson about bees.  Recently my adoring husband had a conversation with a neighbor who asked if we’d heard about the demise of bees as a consequence of cell phone use.  Neither of us had heard about this theory.  The neighbor said that a study done in Switzerland determined that placing cell phones inside hives affected the bees in a negative way.  I had to google this and see what all the buzz is about after I made the mistake of carrying my cell phone with me when I went to watch the girls late yesterday afternoon.   I wander out to the bee yard almost every day, late in the afternoon to see what’s going on around the hives.  My bees have never been aggressive to me while I’m on my stroll around the outside of the yard.  I was expecting an important call yesterday and put the phone in my pocket, not remembering the conversation with the neighbor.  As I stood several feet away from the yard, enjoying the girls coming and going, one very angry bee came right towards my face and as I turned to walk away my phone rang in my pocket.  Realizing that an angry bee was on the loose I continued to walk away from the bee yard and answered the phone.  She stung me, and another came and tried to sting me and yet another got tangled in my hair as I walked, more like scurried away from the area near the bee yard.  Anyone watching from afar surely got a good laugh out of it.  I escaped with only one sting on my cheek, which I will say is minimal and not too bad to look at. OH!, then I remembered the conversation about the Swiss study and I had to do a little research.

The researcher, Daniel Favre, determined that the bees recognize a ring about to take place, and are greatly affected while the ringing occurs as well as while the conversation takes place.  He determined that the bees make louder than usual buzzing noises during the call, which is a signal to the hive that danger is near.  The study found that the bees’ buzzing increases ten times when a cell phone is ringing or making a call.  I don’t know if I can buy the idea that cell phone transmission is causing the demise of our lovely honey bees but after yesterday’s experience I certainly believe that the cell phone is not a useful tool near or in the bee yard!  I haven’t carried my phone out to watch the girls previously and I certainly will not carry it with me in the future.  I conclude a better choice is a nice chilled glass of wine.  Cheers!

The bees are having a field day in the wildflower pasture surrounding their bee yard.  The entire pasture is a profusion of wildflowers.  There are masses of wildflowers in red, orange, yellow and many hues of purple.  Enjoy these bee photos and check back soon for a recipe that is sure to leave your mouth-watering.