I have posted a few pictures of sleeping bees. In fact, I think it would make a great coffee table book: pictures of sleeping bees from all over the world. Or just from my garden. There seem to be a lot of sleeping bees this time of year. Actually, lately I haven’t seen as many. Maybe it’s getting just too cold. Maybe the shorter daylight hours signal them. Maybe like the Baltimore city workers, they are preparing for the change from Daylight Saving Time.
Whatever the case, I think I may have a hibernating bee in my kitchen window. At first it was inside the house, clinging to the chains that pull the window up. Then it worked its way back out to between the window and the storm window, where it’s been sitting for a week. Will it stay there all winter? It will be interesting to find out. Just where DO bees go in the winter? I’ll have to do some research. To the Internets!
Poor little guy. Why don’t you build a little bee bed for him so he’ll be comfortable? Or set him free?
That bee looks frighteningly large! I think he was the star of a bad B-movie I saw recently. (sorry)
I found the answer to your hibernating bee question at http://www.bbka.org.uk/faq.php.
Do Bees Hibernate During Winter?
No, bees over winter as a strong colony clustered together and using their bodies to generate heat. This cluster is about the size of football, with bees taking turns to be on the cold outside.
Now, recall that the insect that many in Maryland refer to as a bee is actually a wasp, yellowjacket. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowjacket). Not this critter, of course, who could never be mistaken for a wasp. The wasps die, fortunately, although the queen (I have a choice word for her…) hibernates beneath the leaves.
There, everything you didn’t want to know about these nasty creatures that live just to sting me.
Maybe it’s hard to see in the picture, but this is a bumble bee. If this is a queen, she will overwinter somewhere like the wasps do. But it won’t be my kitchen window. The bee came inside today, so I had to scoop it up and put it on a dahlia outside. If it isn’t a queen, it’ll just die. Bye bye, bumble bee.
Awww…. he’s kind to bees. Thanks, Brad!
Bye… Go find your bumblebee friends!
Oh, this reminds me of a song my sisters taught me. If you know it, sing along!
I’m bringing home a baby bumble bee,
Won’t my mama be so proud of me,
I’m bringing home a baby bumble bee,
Ouch! He stung me!
I’m mashing up my baby bumble bee,
Won’t my mama be so proud of me,
I’m mashing up my baby bumble bee…
And it goes on and on.
I have one girl scout who could sing this all day!
Again with the Girl Scouts! They are so annoying! If they aren’t selling cookies, they are singing all day!
(FYI – I don’t mean to bash Girl Scouts – I was one. I still have my sash with all the badges.)
I have mine too! I used to pick the badges I wanted to achieve by how pretty they were (not what good thing I could learn). Did anyone else do that?
My girls do it ALL the time!
It’s all about accessorizing – so yes, I picked the pretty badges too.
This coming from the girl who just bought herself a mens sweater from Old Navy – I love mens clothes.
I don’t know, Michelle, I think there’s some deep-seated girl-scouts issue in there… maybe for therapy you could come camping with us sometime!
Only if we can sing “100 bottles of beer on the wall.” Kidding – I would love to come camping with you. My last camping experience involved vomitting in a Happy Meal pumpkin bucket after drinking blackberry brandy. It was around this same time, but YEARS ago. Good times.
You drank blackberry brandy in the GIRL SCOUTS?!? Cub Scouts wasn’t anything like that. We mostly just had cookies and juice.
No silly! It was when I went camping with some engineer friends and their families. I was a big girl … a big stupid girl!
I would have stayed in girls scouts longer if I could have had some blackberry brandy when we went camping. I hate camping. Passionately.
I think it’s the fingernails, Beth. You can’t keep gorgeous fingernails while you’re camping. I know. I’ve tried.
But then, I really can’t keep gorgeous fingernails any time, unfortunately!
That is certainly part of it…I do love my fingernails…but I also love showering; and using a toilet; and sleeping in a bed; and eating at a table that isn’t covered with lichens and splinters; and having a real roof over my head…
Yea, I hate camping…