I have been spending a few days at the land of very slow Internet aka Te Awaiti Station. It's my family's farm and it also happened to be the subject of my year 11 folio which a certain art teacher described as 'Colin McCahon on Acid' I like using bright colours! Every year I spend time out there and every year I find a new way to make my own fun. There was the year when I read the first 6 Harry Potter books (the seventh wasn't out) about 5 times and came back to school a reflective shade of white. Then the was the year when I discovered that exploring is fun and I coincidentally discovered Camilla's Waterfall. Finally this year I discovered how interesting bee's can be due to Megan's enthusiasm towards the little, noisy insects with a tendency to sting you.
We've had bee hives on the farm for about 5 years now and it may shock you to discover that I've never seen inside one. Sure I've seen the hives and I've seen the honey comb and I've seen the bee's but I've never seen the cooperation between those three elements. Megan (my friend) was the guest so therefore I had to do everything that she wanted to do. It's the law or something. So when Megan asked if we could look inside a hive we were going to look inside a hive. At first I was reasonably apprehensive. I've never been stung by a bee before. Therefore I don't know how I react to bee stings and someone told me at a very young age that I'd probably be allergic to bee stings so if I got stung then I would die a very painful and very traumatic death. I'm no longer friends with that person but their warning has stuck with me forever and coincidentally I'm particularly wary around bees. So we suited up in the hot bee suits and warily approached the hives. I was happily snapping pics of the bees around us when I looked down at my camera case and saw an injured bee. It's legs were broken so there was nothing we could do. I was filled with remorse that this poor bee died on my watch. I dropped it into the hive (so the bees could drag it outside the hive like a funeral procession) and paid my respects. Unfortunately the rest of the hive didn't understand the concept of manslaughter as opposed to murder so they began to swarm around me and my camera case. I just closed my eyes and hoped that the onslaught from the tiny yet ferocious creatures would cease.
It did cease and I found it intensely curious how these little creatures worked so well together. Individually they were weak. They could barely put up a fight, barely make a difference. But together they were a swarm to be reckoned with something that could make me pay. The bees in the hive are the ultimate example of mutual cooperation. Instead of fighting out one another to get the best pollen and to eat the best honey they work together to have the best hive. We should all learn a lesson from these little yet mighty bees. That's my deep paragraph for the day.
Nicely Random?
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