Just before I went to bed last night, I spotted snails outside. It had rained a lot and we had been blessed with cooler temperatures for the day. When I saw the snails, I thought of Sue’s grandson. These are for him, but you can enjoy them, too.
🙂
The Honey Bee in Australia
Before Christmas, I borrowed a couple of books about beekeeping from the local library network. I wanted to learn to identify the bees in my photographs.
books borrowed from the library (Nokia Lumia 520)
The universe thought I wanted a swarm of my own for on my next walk, down the lane by our house, I encountered a very busy hollow in a roadside tree. No thanks.
The first thing I learned was that…
“In Australia, the name European honey bee is used to denote the Italian, Caucasian, Carniolan and dark German races of bees.”
(Robert Owen: the Australian Beekeeping Manual)
The book has lots of stunning pictures but I found it is next to impossible to identify the bee on my lilac-coloured rose. The first European bees weres introduced to Australia in 1822.
Robert Owen goes on to say…
“While the original four races of bees often have a different colour and possess different characteristic, the Australian honey bee is a mongrel mix of the four races.”
came out of the flower when I disturbed it, but flew back for more pollen
seemingly looking for something – the heart of the flower, perhaps?
The Italian honey bee has more of a yellow or straw colour than either the Caucasians or Carniolan bees. Turns out that most of our feral honey bees are genetically linked to Apis mellifera mellifera – the dark German bee, which is actually native to large areas of Europe.
Anyway, specific identification is near impossible then.
nope, not there… (Nikon D3000)
I wonder if the second book encourages me to keep stingless bees for sugarbag honey – whatever that is. Sounds intriguing. I’ll let you know.
🙂
Last year, I purchased a potted Magnolia from the supermarket. It is a little frazzled about the edges from the heat and I’ve been watching the two flower buds with some anxiety – sure they would wither and harden. A few days ago, the first one began to loosen and, yesterday, the flower opened on one side. Its lemon scent is heavenly.
the lopsided flower with stamens fallen in a sepal.
stamens scooped in a sepal
I didn’t know about sepals until I was checking Wikipedia to make sure I was looking at stamens. On a magnolia, sepals are indistinguishable from petals so I’m guessing they are the first three at the base.
I moved overhead and looked down and saw more stamens piled in a second sepal. When I came back with the camera, the culprit was there, cavorting amid the stamens with pleasure.
cavorting in loose stamens
looking for juicy bits
yummy yum yum
Curious, I cautiously moved the stem so I could see the heart of the flower.
red stamen scars and curly topped stigmas and a bee, of course
As I watched, this bee took out another stamen and it fell down to join the others.
Today, the flower looks like it spent our very warm night in a pot of tea. Just as well I hadn’t planted the poor thing. I’ll see how the second flower fares in another position.
Inside the flower, the curly bits are gone – replaced by what looked like some spiky red things to my nearly 62-year-old eyes. Apparently, I have a colourful fruit to look forward to. There are several little green bugs lurking inside the flower, too, so I know what my next photography session will be.
I can’t believe it has taken me this long to have a magnolia tree.
On writing…
I have moved past the revision block I’ve had for weeks. I’ve been stuck on lesson 7 and it’s an important one to make sure everything in my novel’s setting makes sense. I had trouble identifying the different things I needed to see during a read-through.
I doubted myself to the stage where I thought let’s just chuck in this whole being a writer thing. But then I thought of my sister and the promise I made when she died. I will finish this. I will make this dream come true. Of course, I also thought of the money I had paid out to learn to revise in a productive way. I thank my lucky stars I chose to publish on Wattpad because I know some people already love my story despite its shortcomings. To paraphrase Holly Lisle – it’s already as crappy as it’s going to get.
So, after lots of false starts, some tears, and piles of crumpled worksheets, I decided to do the analysis differently. I put the settings and other elements on index cards instead of using the worksheets. Down to business,finally, and I found myself filling out the worksheets instead of the cards. Huh? Go figure. I know I’m not filling them out exactly right, but the lesson is going to work how it should as I already see how my story start hasn’t carried through to the end as well as it could have.
Progress, at last. A little daunting, as I have quite a few settings and magical explanations to think about and 91 scenes to explore.
Thanks for being part of my journey. ❤
Christine R 
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