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Two Bees or Not Two Bees?

10/29/2015

I got in the shower the other day and felt a sharp pain on my leg. A wasp was apparently trying to find a winter home in my shower. I would have immediately taken care of the sting (I did take care of the wasp) but I have a memory block every time I have to deal with a sting. Are bee stings acid — treat with baking soda? Or are they alkaline — treat with vinegar…or is that wasps? I have to look it up every time. Since it’s that time of year when wasps are cranky, I thought it would be worthwhile to check it out. Again. However, when I checked online (instead of my usual book) I was dismayed to find that it doesn’t even matter.

The traditional remedy is: wasp sting venom is alkaline so its effects can be neutralized with vinegar to reduce the pain; bee sting venom is acidic and so its effects can be neutralized with baking soda.

But wait…now they say these old remedies are obsolete!

While it’s true that bee venom contains formic acid and wasp stings are alkali, there are other active ingredients in their venoms that contribute to the pain. Furthermore, the sting experts add, neutralizing a sting with either vinegar or soda is unlikely to be effective because the venom from wasp and bee stings is injected into the skin and spreads deep into the tissues. Applying an acid or base to the surface of the skin will not reach the venom under the skin to neutralize it. Bummer.

The current suggested treatment is still to first make sure the stinger is not imbedded in the skin. Then apply a cold compress to reduce swelling and a topical anesthetic that contains benzocaine to lessen the pain. If it itches an antihistamine or a steroid cream might help. I guess I don’t have to try to remember which is acid and which is base anymore (just when I was starting to get it!)

But as long as I was reading about them…did you know there are more than 20,000 species of bees and more than 100,000 species of wasps around the world? Both bees and wasps are found on every continent except for Antarctica. And although they are both members of the suborder Hymenoptera, they are quite different.

Honeybee and bumblebee on a coneflower

Wasps are more slender and have a narrower “waist.” Wasps also have a smooth body. Bees are more hairy and plump. Bees’ legs are flatter than wasps and have little pollen “baskets.”

A bee’s stinger is barbed and attached to the end of their digestive system. When a bee stings the barb stays in the skin and rips out the bee’s internal organs causing the bee to die. A wasp does not have a barb and can sting repeatedly which is unfortunate since wasps are more aggressive. Bees are by nature more mild-mannered.

Bees feed on nectar from flowers or sweet foods. While some adult wasps feed on nectar they are, for the most part, carnivorous predators and eat other insects. Many people plant flowers to attract bees because they are such good pollinators as they fly from flower to flower dining on nectar and transporting pollen on their hairy little legs. I do like bees. I do not like wasps but for next year I’m checking into plants to attract a specific wasp that will parasitize the larva of the spotted wing drosophila fly who feast on my raspberries every year. Depending on how well they do, I might even learn to appreciate some wasps.

Bumblebee

Honeybee

My dad always talked about yellow jackets so I checked them out, too. Yellow jackets and hornets are just two different varieties of wasps. Hornets have a larger head — especially behind their eyes — than yellow jackets…should you want to look that close.

I found the description of wasps' behavior to be incriminating. Wasps get more aggressive in the fall. Shorter days and cold nights upset me, too. Wasps also switch their menu from protein to carbohydrates as winter draws near. Yup, I can also empathize with an obsession with carbohydrates as the weather cools down. However, I draw the line at their choice of sweets. While wasps are attracted to compost and garbage, I prefer to find mine at the bakery counter.

Wasps make their nests by chewing up wood and mixing the pulp with saliva to make a nest out of “paper.” Hornets’ nests are found hanging from the side of a building, under eaves or decks, or from tree branches. Although some yellow jackets hang their nest, most of them build their nests under ground, in hollow trees or in a hole in a building’s structure.

Each fall a new wasp queen appears. After she mates the old queen and all the workers die and the nest decays over the winter. In the spring the new queen emerges and builds a small nest to lay her eggs. The newly hatched workers expand the nest. Bumblebees also die in the fall leaving only a new queen to begin the next season.

Honeybees on the other hand, store pollen and honey during the summer to consume over the winter. They cluster together around the queen to keep her and the eggs warm during the winter. The bees generate heat by vibrating their abdomens. They can also detach their wings from their muscles, allowing them to move their muscles without moving their wings. On the outside of the cluster the bees pack together to form an insulating shell. The outer shell must never fall below 43° because at 42° a bee loses it’s ability to move and will fall off the cluster. In the rest of the hive outside of the cluster the temperature is the same as the outside temperature but the temperature of the brooding area stays around 93°.

Individual bees will press their abdomen to the cells to warm the developing larva. Raising the temperature of a cell to 95° rather than the normal cell temperature of about 93° will produce bees that are more inclined to prefer foraging jobs over housekeeping ones. Those that develop at 93° prefer housekeeping. It’s incredible that they are more inclined to perform a specific job depending on their cell temperature as they develop. I keep thinking there should be a human application for this. If only my mom had been warmer (or colder) when she was pregnant with me perhaps I’d enjoy housework more or be a better speller or an athlete or...

Honeybees make neatly arranged, tightly packed combs of wax. They can nest in tree cavities but most of them live prefabricated hives.

Bumblebees (my favorites) build their nest in any dry dark spot they can find and will build in cavities in trees or even abandoned rodent holes. Unlike the honeybee, the bumblebee nest, looks messy and disorganized. Perhaps if it had been cooler in the hive while they were developing they would be better housekeepers.

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Indian Summer

10/23/2015

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With all the discussion these days about being politically correct I’ve heard a lot of people asking about the term “Indian summer,” so I decided to do a little digging. I learned that “Indian summer” refers to a spell of warm, calm, dry, hazy weather brought in by southwesterly breezes. Indian summer days are warm and the nights are clear and chilly. However, it is only a true Indian summer if there has been a killing frost preceding the warm weather. It is usually late October or early November.

The first recorded use of the term, “Indian summer” appeared in a letter written by a French-American soldier turned farmer named John de Crevecoeur dated January 17, 1778. In his description of “Mohawk country” (upstate New York) he wrote, “Sometimes the rain is followed by an interval of calm and warmth which is called the Indian summer; its characteristics are a tranquil atmosphere and general smokiness.” Since he wrote, “it is called the Indian Summer,” it would seem the term was in popular usage by that time.

Not long after de Crevecoeur wrote his description of Indian summer the Farmers’ Almanac, added a proverb to their publication, “If All Saints’ Day [November 1] brings out winter, St. Martin’s Day [November 11] brings Indian summer.”

By the 1830s “Indian summer” had taken on a figurative meaning to describe later life. The poet, John Greenleaf Whittier referred to the later years of love as “the Indian Summer of the heart” in his poem “Memories.” Thomas de Quincey described death as “Indian summer creeping stealthily over his closing days” in 1855 and Oliver Wendell Homes mentioned “an Indian summer of serene widowhood” in his story, “The Guarding Angel,” written in 1867.

Although several theories have been suggested no one really knows where the term originated. The most popular theory is that mild hazy weather would encourage animals to come out and the hazy atmosphere gave hunters an advantage on the prey. This weather that extended the Indians’ hunting season became known as “Indian summer.”

Other people claim it comes from the early Algonquian tribe who believed that the good weather conditions were a gift caused by a warm wind sent from the court of their southwestern god, Cautantowwit.

Another theory is that the name came from the country of India since the term, “Indian summer” reached England in the 19th century during the heyday of the British Empire’s involvement in that region. Author H.E. Ware noted that ships crossing the Indian Ocean heavily loaded their cargo in the calm fall weather. Some ships had an “I.S.” painted on their hull at the maximum load level giving rise to the belief that the name came from the Indian Ocean and the fair weather of the season. However, this theory is highly unlikely since the term was already used in America many years earlier.

Other suggestions are that a spell of warm weather after the first frost was first noted in regions inhabited by Indians, or perhaps because the Indians first described the season to the Europeans. These suggestions are probably not the origin since the same weather patterns were identified by other names in Europe much earlier.

In England as early as 1591 a period of unseasonably warm weather in the fall was called St. Martin’s Summer after St. Martin’s day (November 11). Or, depending on when the warmth arrived, it was sometimes called “Little Summer” or “St. Luke’s Summer” (after St. Luke’s Day, October 18) or “All-Hallown Summer” (October 31).

Other European countries had their own names for this type of weather. The equivalent of Indian Summer is called “Old Wives Summer” or “Old Women's Summer” in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and many Slavic language countries. In Russian and Croatia it is known as “Grandma's Summer” and in Bulgaria, “Gypsy Summer” or “Poorman's summer.”

An author named John Galsworthy made the term familiar in Britain when he published a book in1918 titled, The Indian Summer of a Forsyte.

By the 1950s “Indian Summer” had replaced the older terminology throughout most of the United Kingdom.

The bottom line is that it is impossible to discover the origin of a term which was in common usage more than 200 years ago, but universally it is not thought to be in any way a derogatory term and perfectly acceptable in polite society.

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The Pause Button

10/18/2015

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Every night I make a “to-do” list for the next morning. I love crossing things off my list. In fact, I often add things I’ve already done to my list just so I can cross them off. The down side of this is that I am often so busy scurrying around to finish off my list that I forget to enjoy the day.

Last week I encountered a detour on my way home from work — a semi truck had rolled over on the highway. Fortunately, no one was injured. The policeman on the scene directed me to turn south on a side road. I drove south about four miles until I came to a T in the road where I turned back to the east, my original direction. I drove east a couple of miles and came to a major country road going north so I turned to the north hoping to get back to the highway. Apparently I had driven in a triangle and came out on the highway within sight of where I’d first been directed to turn south. The policeman stationed at that corner directed me to just cross the highway to continue my unofficial detour to the north this time. He told me they’d set up traffic cones but someone stole them so I should just drive north until I get to a county road and then turn east again.

After randomly driving around on the south side of the highway, I was now on a tour of the countryside north of the highway. At first I was mildly irritated at the disorganized detour, the delay and the extra gas I was burning but as I drove I was struck by the beauty of the back roads. After I’d passed this little country church I had to stop, turn around, and park in the lot for a few minutes just to enjoy the view.

I don’t often slow down unless something forces me to do so but I know that sometimes an unwelcomed detour — whether on the road, via the telephone, at the front door or just a glitch in my carefully scheduled to-do list — is there because I need to hit the pause button a few minutes and just enjoy the gift of life, loved ones and health in a beautiful world.

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Asian Invasion

10/13/2015

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Remember when ladybugs were cute? With the infestation of the look-alike Asian beetle beginning in 1994 they have pretty much lost their appeal. This last weekend they showed up in droves because on the first warm day (65° or more) following freezing or close to freezing nights, the beetles swarm to find a place to spend the winter. In their native habitat in Asia, they all flock to cliffs and rock outcroppings. Here in Minnesota they are drawn to sunny sides of tall buildings with light and dark contrasting paint, close to wooded areas. That exactly describes my house. Their attraction to my situations is confirmed by the vast numbers covering my house, my dog and me. Our door opens in…those that can’t find an opening just swing in with the door and drop on the floor of the entry way. From their make their way to the bathroom, a favorite nesting place.

Asian Beetle (not cute)

Lady Bug (cute)

The way to tell the difference between those cute little ladybugs and the stinky Asian beetles is to look closely at their heads. The Asian beetles have an "M" on them (for "menace," I think).

Baby Wrenn in costume (Cute as a bug's ear!)

Irritating as they are, like the ladybugs we all knew and loved as kids, Asian beetles eat aphids so they are a good thing for agriculture. In their defense, they don’t eat into wood or fabrics or food. They say they don’t damage property, but they do sometimes leave a trail on walls. On the other hand, besides being everywhere and in everything, they stink. They secrete a yellow fluid from their legs that not only stinks but will stain light colored clothing and surfaces (and from the one that got in my drinking glass in the night, I can tell you it tastes pretty bad, too). They also bite. The extension office assures us that they are not known to carry diseases, nor do they inject any venom. They say they are biting just to see if we are food. And that’s supposed to make us feel better? I’d say it’s fodder for a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock’s, The Birds (which terrified me).

I’ve always heard the infestation was a result of a Dept. of Agriculture intentional release in Wisconsin. It was an intentional release but much farther south. Apparently, the U of M extension agency gets a lot of calls and complaints. The website is very careful to point out, “Multicolored Asian lady beetles were never introduced into Minnesota through deliberate releases, although they did move into the state from nearby areas.” In fact, the website seems perhaps a bit defensive. Later in the same paragraph in bold font it reiterates, “These lady beetles are not and never have been part of any release program in Minnesota. (http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/insects/find/multicolored-asian-lady-beetles/)

The best thing you can do to keep them out of your house is to seal every gap greater than 1/8 inch — around doors, windows, cracks in the siding, roof and soffit vents, kitchen and fan vents. If they do get in, your most effective weapon is the vacuum cleaner, just make sure you seal the bag and take it out of your house because vacuuming only captures them, it doesn’t necessarily kill them.

They are a nuisance this time of year, to say the least. I’m all for them eating aphids in the garden in the summer, but I wish they would go find a cliff in the fall to spend the winter rather than in my house.

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Scarlet Runner Beans

8/3/2015

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I planted scarlet runner beans on the guy wire of the hoop house to remind me not to run into it. I have a thing for being able to eat what I plant and I heard that the scarlet runner bean would not only climb and identify the wire but that it was both attractive and edible. So now that it is producing, I decided I should learn about it.

The scarlet runner bean is not only good for attracting butterflies and hummingbirds (and protecting humans from crashing into guy wires), it is also said to be the most productive of beans. Interestingly, they are perennials. In their native Central America, that is; the winter kills them here. They were actually planted as an ornamental annual in English and Colonial American gardens as early as the 1600s.

Not only are the scarlet runner beans edible, but the starchy roots, young leaves and even the flowers are edible. Some people even eat the immature pods raw before beans develop but it is safer to cook them. Like most beans, scarlet runner beans contains small amounts of lectin phytohaemagglutinin which can be toxic in large amounts. Dried beans need to be soaked and then cooked a long time to eliminate the risk. The older (harder, dryer) any bean is, the longer the cooking time required.

My beans are forming pods. To keep them blooming and prettier, I should be deadheading the flowers. But, since I like edible landscaping, even though the flowers are edible, I think I’d be more apt to eat the beans than the flowers. One site suggested eating them as “haricots vert.” I had no idea what that was…maybe some French recipe. I looked it up. “Haricots vert” is “the unripe fruit and protective pods of various cultivars of the common bean.” In other words, it’s the proper term for green beans (aka string beans, or snap beans), who knew?

So you can enjoy the flowers (and munch on them while enjoying the beauty) or eat the leaves as an herb. When they are young (before the seeds develop) you can cook the pods as can be cooked as green beans. Or, you can let the inner beans mature and cook them fresh (like lima beans) or allow them to dry and used them like kidney beans. When you are all done you can dig them up and cook the roots and eat them, too. This just seems like an amazing plant. How come I’ve never heard of it before?

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July 15th, 2015

7/15/2015

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A Lesson from the Peas

6/14/2015

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I decided to try a “Florida weave” trellis for the peas this year. As the peas grow I add another row of twine and “weave” it between the plants to support them. I went out the other day to add another row of twine but some of the plants were very uncooperative. They just didn’t understand that the twine I was putting around them was for their own good, to help them stay safe and to grow properly.

Some of the peas insisted on lying on the ground, rejecting the restrictions of the twine altogether. Sadly, they were occasionally accidentally stepped on and bruised.

Others peas were dragged down by the tendrils of the rebellious plants close to them. It was painful to separate them; some of the tendrils had to be torn apart.

And no matter how carefully I tried to correct the contrary peas, some of them resisted and suffered broken branches before I was able to put them back into the safety of the twine trellis.

It occurred to me that perhaps that is how the Master Gardener sees us when we resist the guidelines He gave us for our own good, complaining that they are too restrictive. In our rebellion we may end up getting bruised. Sometimes we hang out with those who would drag us down and we may have to have a painful break in a relationship before we get back on track. And often we resist His gentle correction and are broken.

I want to be like the pea plants that stay safely in the twine, growing strong and being productive.

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One of the things I enjoy most about gardening is the solitude. It is a place to escape the noise and busy-ness of the day, to quiet my soul and listen to the birds, to bask in the beautiful creation and worship the Creator.
Sometimes the mood is serious and awe inspiring but other times it's
the delightful
entertainment of a silly chicken or a pensive toad.
I invite you to join me in this journey of discovery and re-creation.
Donna

Two Bees or Not Two Bees?

Indian Summer

The Pause Button

Asian Invasion

Scarlet Runner Beans

July 15th, 2015

A Lesson from the Peas

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