Dumbledore means bumblebee
I was getting ready to do my morning thing of editing my most recent attempt to write but found to my dismay that the "priomh naidheachan" - top stories text was missing from the BBC-Alba site. While bumbling along to see what was considered important enough to talk about across the Pond (it helps in trying to remember what the words I hear on Raidio nan Gaidheal mean I found this about the survival status of the British Bumblebee.
I don't know how many of you know this, but the honeybee is in dire straits here in the US of A. A parasite has been killing off the hives for at least the past 20 years - most crops requiring bee pollination depend on transient hives - which are scrupulously policed for health by the beekeepers.
I'm a bit barmy on the subject of bees. At the age of 3-4 (a summer before we left for Okinawa) my immediately older sister, my tormentor, was stung on the bum by a bee.
I was thrilled.
From that point on, I considered bees - all kinds of bees - to be allies, if not friends. I learned how to approach a bee and stroke its back (can't do that now!) and I've never been stung by one (yellow-jacket, yes - but they are born angry).
There used to be a saying about British beef - I can't remember it exactly but it was something about 'The young men go abroad (to settle or fight), leaving young women to become spinsters, spinsters keep cats which kill mice so the mice don't destroy the beehives and the bees can pollinate the clover providing feed for that cattle that are killed to provide meat for the soldiers fighting for the empire.' Oddly enough, I think that was in a RA Heinlein book - Farmer in the Sky.
I don't know how many of you know this, but the honeybee is in dire straits here in the US of A. A parasite has been killing off the hives for at least the past 20 years - most crops requiring bee pollination depend on transient hives - which are scrupulously policed for health by the beekeepers.
I'm a bit barmy on the subject of bees. At the age of 3-4 (a summer before we left for Okinawa) my immediately older sister, my tormentor, was stung on the bum by a bee.
I was thrilled.
From that point on, I considered bees - all kinds of bees - to be allies, if not friends. I learned how to approach a bee and stroke its back (can't do that now!) and I've never been stung by one (yellow-jacket, yes - but they are born angry).
There used to be a saying about British beef - I can't remember it exactly but it was something about 'The young men go abroad (to settle or fight), leaving young women to become spinsters, spinsters keep cats which kill mice so the mice don't destroy the beehives and the bees can pollinate the clover providing feed for that cattle that are killed to provide meat for the soldiers fighting for the empire.' Oddly enough, I think that was in a RA Heinlein book - Farmer in the Sky.