About Me

My photo
Hi, this is somebody who has taken the quieter by-lane to be happy. The hustle and bustle of the big, booming main street was too intimidating. Passing through the quieter by-lane I intend to reach a solitary path, laid out just for me, to reach my destiny, to be happy primarily, and enjoy the fruits of being happy. (www.sandeepdahiya.com)

Thursday, May 30, 2019

The Firebrigade squad in a beehive

Thirsty neighbors beg for a sip of water. The surroundings are almost on fire. The temperature in shade
is 46 degree Celsius. Everything is on fire. It's matter of fight or perish for the honeybee hive in the
marua and wild rose thicket around the compound wall.
As it happens everywhere, the bravest take up the challenge and volunteer to keep the chances alive by
collecting water. So the “water collector” bees scout for some water source. In this case it happens to be
some buckets left around our tap and faucet in the yard corner. I started to keep a bucket of water all
day to help them in this struggle for survival but found that quite a lot were drowning in their extra
effort to retrieve water. So I tried my level best to keep the water full to the brim so that they perch on
the edges and take sips. Even this wasn't helping much though, so now I have put a cloth on the bucket.
They sip on the moisture and there is less risk of drowning. So as of now they seem to like the water
source and give a happy, excited buzz to slurp up as much as possible. Just imagine the scale of the fight
to survive. These water couriers fly back to the scorched hive and regurgitate water so that the bees
there suck it up. The latter in turn spit it out over the hive. All this is to cool it down.
As per the intangible laws of the existential forces, the water collector bees come to know and detect
the problem when the colony is under the threat of scorching, killing heat. Water collectors are the
itinerant types. The adventurers. They are extroverts and don't lie lazily when the brood-nest in under
threat of heat. They are just on the look-out for water deficit symptoms and straightaway start
collecting water to maintain the hive's temperature
This seems to be lesser sacrifice as the bees are even known to commit suicide to save the colony from
dangerous mites.
Researchers have found that when it becomes unbearable under extreme heat, the worker bees start
soliciting by “walking up to the face of another bee, contacting the bee's antennae with her own and
then extending her tongue between the mouthparts of the other bee.”
This distressed water seeking puts the water collectors into action. So they scout for a suitable water
source and get busy in water-retrieval efforts to manage the hive’s temperature. All this of course is
done to maintain their survival as honeybees collectively, not as individuals. They lessen the
temperature below the deadly threshold which can dehydrate the bee larvae thus killing them.
Researchers have found that the effort to survive is never enough for them. Apart from the water which
gets spread over the hive, some extra cautious and wise honeybees stockpile additional moisture in the
brood comb. And to take it further on the scale of management, some of them store water in their
bellies. Their life and living is at the collective level unlike us.

Sunday, May 5, 2019

Little winged tools of cosmic love-making

Let them live! They are Nature's love-making means to self-sustaining procreation through pollination. They share the bond between two flowers eager to meet, love, create flower and fruits. These little winged Adam and eves are the Angels of creation. Their buzzing sings the song of love and procreation. Their flights symbolize the dancing of two flowers eager to brush against each other, pining to pollinate and procreate. Look deeply into nature. This is the same energy following countless pathways. And love and procreation hums deeply at the cosmic frequency.
PS: These are honeybees and yellow wasps, unnecessarily ill-famed for giving bulbous swollen noses and lips to humans. If you don't mean to be an intruder they are unmindful of your presence, like mine just a couple of feet away. Even the angriest of them always follows the rules of the game, never attack till attacked. So even if an angry one happens to perch on your nose, it won't bite unless you get panicked, and transfer your fear to the tiny helicopter on your nose by taking a swipe at it. Then it becomes a question of flight versus fight scenario. Even in forests animals basically attack only after our panic gets hurled at them through our scared eyes. It lets loose a tiny chaotic storm in the tea cup which may result in swollen lips, bloody screeches on skin or even the end to dear life.