Archives

The City Bee and the Country Bee

In a land – not so far away, there lived a hive (or 8) of honeybees.  These honeybees were known as “city bees”.

They were well-versed in finding the flowers, pollen and nectar that were planted around humans’ homes and parks.  They visited trees, flower gardens, vegetable gardens and all sorts of city-places to find the nutrients that they needed to live healthy lives.

One day, a group of city politicians decided that they wanted to spray the entire city with poison to kill one specific kind of insect.  (for those of you who are wondering – it was mosquitoes that were being sprayed for).  The poison that they chose to use was one that really didn’t care whether it landed on a mosquito, a honeybee hive, or on flowers and plants that all pollinators and insects need to live healthy lives.

The keeper of the bees decided that the group of politicians were dangerous to a healthy and diverse environment – and that it was time to move the “city bees” out to meet and live with their cousins in the country.

The beekeeper waited til night-time, when most of the foragers had returned to their bee-hive homes, and closed the hive doors, and loaded the bee hives onto a trailer.  That night the city bees took a trip to the country!  This was a very exciting trip.  At first they heard all their familiar city sounds of cars, planes, and regular city noises.  Then as they drove away from the city – it got quieter.  And quieter.  And quieter.

Finally the truck and trailer stopped.  It was still night time – but the headlights from the bee-keepers’ truck lit the new field in which the bees would live.  The beekeeper put his beekeeping suit on, and started unloading and placing pallets for the honeybees’ homes to sit upon.

Finally – at about midnight, the honeybees homes were in their new locations, and the beekeeper opened up their doors.

The next morning, the honeybees had new smells to get used to.  The smell of wildflowers, pine trees, mimosa trees, wild crape myrtle bushes, and HUGE gardens with all sorts of lovely flowers!  Not to mention the little flowers that humans never notice on the rattan vines and the wild grapes and blackberries growing on the country fence-rows.  I’m sure that the city-bees had never dreamed that such a place existed.  Their cousins, the country bees had been here since earlier this spring – so they were able to show the newcomers where the best places were to get water, and for the best flowers from which to get pollen and nectar.

Here is a picture of the city-bees homes – all lined up in a row – at Harmony Hollow Apiaries – where they are joining their cousins to be “Country bees.”

Leave a Reply