Friday, December 17, 2010

I'm not a winter hater!

That’s it. I’ve had it with these freezing cold temperatures.

Now, ok, I’m aware that I am a wimp. For all of you well-adapted Northeasterners, this weather is perfect for beach picnics and sand volleyball. However, I maintain that even though I appear to be perfectly human, I’m either part reptilian or I am the only ectothermic human, ever. Either of these hypotheses perfectly explains my inability to keep myself warm in the winter.

If only my body could sustain itself with a heartbeat of 20 beats/ minute; it would be fantastic! I could eat massive quantities of delicious fatty foods for months and get hugely fat (that would be awesome). And then, I could sleep through the freezing cold months and wake up super skinny. Not only is this the best diet plan ever, it’s the perfect way for me to hibernate through the cold.

Please don’t get the idea that I’m a winter hater. That’s not the case, cross my heart. There are so many wonderful things about winter (most of them are snow related) and I am admittedly overwhelmed with childlike joy at the sight of snowflakes falling. The sound that shoes make crunching through accumulated snow is exciting and the way that I can see through the bare forest gives me a whole new perspective of the landscape. Recently, tracking animals has started interesting me. After a light dusting of snow, it’s a game to deduce which animal left the track, where it was going and what it was doing. I’m like Sherlock Holmes! (It’s not weird, it’s cool) In fact, when there’s snow, I almost forget about the cold entirely.

All I really need to do to help myself stay warm (and therefore more fully appreciate the beauty of winter) is recreate my circulatory system to mimic that of penguins and certain other waterfowl. They have a brilliant counter current heat exchange blood flow in their lower extremities. So the arteries and veins are located next to each other so when the warm blood flows from the heart, the heat is transferred to the colder blood flowing in the veins, helping to warm the blood entering the core of the body, thus preventing a drop in body temperature due to horrible horrible stupid freezing cold.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Fall's Fading Fast

Every morning, rain or shine, I go walking. It’s a good time to reflect and have the glory of a rising sun start my day. One morning, as I strolled across the empty parking lot on my way to the trails, a large flock of Canada geese flew over head. Their unique honking interrupted the usual morning chirping and I got goose bumps (I swear I didn’t intend for that to be punny). The sound caused me to stop and I realized that I was alone with the season.
Standing in the middle of the parking lot, it smelled like fall; the smell of cold and of decomposing leaves. The bitter taste of black tea still in my mouth and my breath was visible in the air. My ears tingled with the chilly breeze. Those moments are my favorite moments of the whole year. The light was even different. The sun was coming up through the changing leaves and everything appeared yellow. This light was unbelievable and gorgeous. It’s unclear to me if it was the sound of the geese, the cold temperature, the rich smell and the changing light, but I felt like this morning was all mine. It belonged to me.
I don’t know why a sense of ownership was adopted. I certainly can’t be the only one who claims possession when no one else is around to dispute the claim. (For example, what about the change in the couch? Certainly no one stands up and says “who lost 18 cents in the couch?” before putting it in your pocket.) And what I realized is that if I actually owned something in nature then I have a responsibility to it. (Just like I have the responsibility to put the 18 cents toward my next pack of gum) The more I thought about it, the more I felt that it’s time for everyone to take responsibility of their moments and connections in nature. So get outside, and take pleasure in these last, lovely days of fall. It’s too short of a season. Listen to folk music. Make hot cocoa. Zip up your jackets. Enjoy!

Love,

Anna

Friday, October 22, 2010

Autumn Part One

We clung to summer for all it was worth this year, but this week nature seems to have finally put away her flip flops. Retail stores would have us skip the next season in line and go straight to winter with Christmas decorations already outnumbering Halloween candy. But autumn is fully upon us and with all the lovely things this season brings to the Northeast, I think we should pay fall its due, starting with the birds.

My recent bird lists at the nature center are full of fall with hints of the colder season to come. Our resident Mallard pair glides across the back pond looking quite content that they are once again a pair instead of a family of ten. Flocks of White-throated Sparrows are kicking up the fallen leaves and just starting to call, “Old Sam, Peabody Peabody Peabody.” Ruby- and Golden-crowned Kinglets flit around the overgrown fields. A Great Blue Heron lumbers across the sky on its way south with hundreds of other migrating birds. The flash of white feathers on the outside of a Dark-eyed Junco tail makes me think of snow. And just last weekend an enormous white chicken was spotted by many visitors dodging apples in the field behind the Sugar Shack, a site definitely reserved just for special days in the fall.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

85 Degrees by 9:00 a.m. in May


The first Saturday in May turned out to be a hot, humid Saturday - a surefire way to put the cranky in my breakfast.  I spent the morning as usual, helping to set up for the four birthday parties we would teach that day, checking on the animals, answering phone calls and emails, and whining about the fact that it was 85 degrees by 9:00 a.m. in May.  I left the Visitor Center around lunch time to take sandwich orders and noticed something amiss in the observation hive.  My first thought was that the bees were being robbed of their honey and pollen by the larger, stronger outdoor hive - but something wasn't quite the same as the previous robberies.  Honey bees were completely filling the clear entrance tube and exiting at an alarming rate (rather than the obvious West Side Story style rumble of a robbing).  Outside, a tornado of honey bees swirled just outside the entrance hole, growing by the second as more bees poured from the opening.  The frenzy of the bees began to make me feel a little frantic until I suddenly realized I was standing smack in the middle of a swarm of honey bees.

Swarming is a natural way for honey bees to expand their genetic range and make more room in a crowded hive.  When they swarm, half of the hive leaves and takes the old queen with them.  The remaining bees raise a new queen and start the cycle over again.  We knew this hive was going to swarm soon, all of the signs were there.  First and most obvious, there were so many honey bees in the hive you couldn't see the frame through them even when foragers were out on nice days.  When too many bees crowd a hive, ventilation is a problem.  Condensation on the inside of the glass was another hint that this hive would swarm.  The surefire sign of an impending swarm though is the development of queen cells along the bottom of the frames.  Queens are bigger bees with a more developed reproductive system so they have to have bigger cells to form in and more nutrient rich food than the other brood.  These cells look like peanuts and if you can get a glimpse inside, the larvae are literally floating in a bed of royal jelly.

Knowing swarming bees are relatively gentle as they have no honey or brood to protect, I stood in the middle of them unprotected without fear of stinging.  The bees continued to fly as if I wasn't there, bumping into me occasionally and buzzing so loudly I couldn't hear my own laughter.  At some point, maybe a few minutes later, the realization that I had no idea what to do punctured, but did not dampen, my excitement.  I rushed inside to call a more experienced beekeeper and was advised on the ways of catching a swarm.  By the time I finished with him and called several staff members to come and witness, about ten minutes, the bees had already completed their exodus and had clustered on a low branch of the magnolia tree beside the Visitor Center (which is terribly convenient for us, especially considering my friend a few miles away had a swarm the same day that clustered 30 feet up in a hemlock tree).  While they are in a cluster they keep the queen in the middle and scouts fly out to find a suitable home.  Several scouts fly in all directions and come back to report their findings.  They give this report by waggle dance.  Once a bee has convinced enough scouts (after much waggling and trips to the new place) that their find is the best find, the cluster flies again to set up their new home.  Our goal was to make sure they thought our hive box was the best real estate in town. 

We had heard that you could stick your bare hands into a cluster of swarming bees without fear of stings so of course we all had to try.  We rounded up a step ladder, and much to the amazement of on looking nature center visitors, took our turns gently pushing our hands through the mass of solid, but giving, bees.  This was not simply hundreds of bees we were looking at and feeling, it was one giant being made up of smaller ones.  Once inside, many bee feet, antennae, tongues, and fuzz tickled the hair on our hands.  Honey bees prefer to be in the 90s degree-wise and the heat inside the cluster was notable.  We took picture after picture of each of us with the bees - standing under the cluster, hands in the cluster, in the tree with the cluster - for bragging rights on our Facebook pages.  Finally it was time to attempt to convince these bees that our waiting hive box was prime land. 

We started with Colin holding the hive box above his head while I ascended the step ladder to scoop some bees.  Did I mention we were doing this with bare hands?  I gently pulled a scoop of bees off of the cluster, paused a second for a picture, and dropped the ball into the waiting hive.  Claire then stepped up to do the same but something didn't please one of the bees and she received a sting on the tip of her finger.  We removed the stinger quickly and gave her plantain to chew and pack on the sting site.  Several minutes later she reported feeling good and hours later she couldn't even tell she had been stung.  The bees were getting a little rowdy at this point so Colin donned a pair of gloves, we got a cart for the hive box, and Colin began scooping and dumping bees into the box until we noticed little bee abdomens high in the air, emitting a scent to call the remaining bees down.  We left the box where it was and within the hour, all of the bees were settling inside.  We waited until after dark to be sure all of the bees were tucked in for the night and rolled the hive out to the bee yard.

Without a doubt, standing amongst hundreds of swirling, buzzing bees was one of the highlights of my life.  Just as working the bees can bring me peace, standing inside this whirlwind brought me Christmas morning joy that could not be shaken by 85 degrees by 9:00 a.m. in May.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Why Keep Honey Bees?

I thought it would be appropriate for our first honey bee blog of the season to answer the question, "Why Keep Honey Bees?"  Many people who have never kept bees think the answer to this question is obvious - honey.  The more a person digs into beekeeping, they will see the benefits of honey bees as pollinators for their gardens or for commercial crops. Some people become interested in bees for their other products such as wax, pollen, propolis, and venom.  When you begin to learn more about bees, you might be interested simply because they are so absolutely fascinating.  It wasn't until I conducted my first solo hive check that I realized why I would never tire of keeping honey bees.

I start my time with the bees sitting on a bench outside the greenhouse and get the smoker started.  I haven't found my perfect mix for keeping the smoker going (all beekeepers will tell you something different), so this part of the inspection is still an experiment.  I add newspaper, wood chips, burlap, leaves, whatever I have readily available that day and set a match to it.  The smell of the smoke is different depending on the fuel, but it always leaves the same summer campfire smell on my clothes.  I grab a hive tool and a veil to go with the smoker, and start walking to the hives.  Along the way I note wildflowers - purple, yellow, white - most of which I vow to come back and identify later and many of which are sporting busy honey bees.  I greet them as I continue to walk to their hives.  The boardwalk brings a dappled sun in contrast to the bright path I've just left.  The boardwalk path is surrounded by ferns and jewelweed growing in soft mud dotted with the tracks of raccoons and moles.  Beyond the edges, insects and birds dart in and out of the tall grasses and flowers in the marshy field.  Looking up I am surprised to notice individual trees rather than the wall of green I used to see before I started my daily walks to the hives. 

When I reach the sunny part of the boardwalk off of which the hives reside, I put on my veil and step into the bee field.  I begin my inspection by marveling at the bees on the "front porch" of the hive.  Some bees are sitting out on the porch to greet the many bees that are coming in with bellies full of nectar and legs full of pollen.  A few bees are waving their abdomens in the air to send a scent that draws the foraging bees back home.  Sometimes on a very hot day many bees crowd the entrance to take a breather from the 95 degree core of the hive.  I open a corner of the cover, and the propolis the bees have lined the hive with gives with a crack.  I puff in a little smoke to move the bees further into the hive so I can open it without any casualties.  I pull out each frame, one at a time, carefully, deliberately.  When handling the hive, I cannot think about things that have happened that day or things that I need to do later.  I must be present, aware of where my fingers land, aware of where I move my feet so I don't trip and drop a frame full of bees, aware of the proximity of the bees around me, aware of their mood.  I pull out each frame and look at it closely with the sun to my back.  I smile when I see eggs and small shiny larvae because that means the hive is healthy.  I am amazed at the many different colors pollen comes in.  I sneak a taste of honey fresh and hot off the comb.  It feels like a privilege to find the queen, marked with a blue dot to make her easier for the beekeeper to see.  I carefully put each frame back where it came from and ease the whole thing back together.  I gently slide the covers on, take a step back, and suddenly realize that the world is still there.  I have been so engrossed in the hive that everything else around me has fallen away.  I wasn't grumbling about my bad morning or mulling over the things I have to get done before 4:00.  I wasn't worrying over the oil creeping up to our southern coasts or the terrorist that tried to bomb Times Square.  I was there, in the moment, taking part in the work of the honey bee that has been perfect for thousands of years.  And when I step away from them I realize why I keep coming back.  It is simply for the feeling that blankets me when I step away from the hive and look back at the trees, the tall grasses, the ferns, the flowers.  Peace.