This post is just me blathering on. No bee content really.
It is hard to believe I started life as a little kid who almost jumped from a moving car because a ladybird flew into the back seat with me.
I don't remember much from when I was very young so this must have been very traumatic; I can see it now, a tiny red "killer animal" walking up the old Dodge sedan's rear window!
My journey into liking insects and honey bees was helped along by my liking for books.
This Frank Lutz book is my favorite New England. It never failed me back before Google. While black and white pen drawings look old-fashioned...they are the easiest and best way to compare what you have to the text. Lately, I must admit, I "identify by consensus", using Google image search to describe what I have, then see what most people who had the same insect think it is. Usually in the bunch is a reputable source as well.
Honey bees are my current interest, sure, but insects have been a part of my life for a decade or two. I raise hissing cockroaches to give away to teachers for school science. Buckets or aquariums of roaches have graced my kitchen for many years Mu husband is almost used to them. Right now they live in a plastic bubble I found at the dump's trade shack. It used to be an aquarium, but it makes a great home for my colony, having a bit of "style"!I also became interested in all the insects around my house. Some were interested in me, or rather, my house; carpenter ants ate the floor joists out from under the kitchen before we knew they were anywhere in the house! I became very attuned to ants during that time.
Then there were the sand wasps, Bicyrtes quadrifasciata, out my back door in the sandy area that was waiting for pavers for 27 years. Those are so entertaining I am leaving a sandy area just for them if they can put up with a smaller plot. (I finally got the bluestone pavers of my dreams!) I was one of the hundreds of people who posted to YouTube videos of them digging their burrow. I think every year I fried my brains out in the sun and sand to photograph them, it is so interesting.
Lately carpenter bees have been excavating our workshop, leaving great sprays of yellow poop down the side of the building as they launch themselves into flight. If they would only use the fascia in the rear of the workshop I'd be fine with it...only the shop windows are under a couple nests! Yuck. We keep saying we have to screen the facia before they show up; someday we'll get it together...maybe.
The last insect invasion that was really cool was that of springtails. Totally harmless to me it was just so dramatic to see huge blankets of these little dudes covering the stone wall and everywhere else that year. If you got your ear down close to the leaves it sounded like mini-popcorn popping. Very nifty. This was back in the early days of the net and I was astounded at the support from ENTOMO-L at the time. My world expanded with a big bang!!!
This video was another more recent year.
Heck, I'll post all my videos I can find on my school YouTube channel for the last 6 years! I put them there for my students. I used to have a Bug Club.
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