The Amazing Bumblebee

“Two-legged creatures we are supposed to love as we love ourselves. The four-legged, also, can come to seem pretty important. But six legs (like the Bumblebee) are too many from the human standpoint.” ~ Joseph W. Krutch

The bumblebee got its name from an old English word ~ “bomblen” ~ to boom; the dictionary describes it as a clumsy, unsteady or incompetent way; or to make a low humming or droning sound.

The bumblebee is a large, hairy insect, who trundles around the garden with a lazy buzz in a clumsy, bumbling flight. This black with yellow, sometimes orange striped insect is so important for glasshouse pollinating, that they are even sold for this purpose. Scientific trials have shown that with a Bumblebee hive of 400 workers, and a honeybee hive with 10,000 – 20,000 bees, it was the bumblebees who worked more hours per day, visited more flowers per minute and therefore pollinated more flowers.

Some interesting facts:

* The antenna (feelers) are like a nose and used for touching. Both front legs have a kind of notch, in which the antenna can be inserted, then pulled through – voila: inbuilt antenna cleaner! * Two pair of wings, operating together, work like a helicopter rotor: “reverse-pitch semi-rotary blades”. Enabled by a nerve impulse that twangs the muscle (like plucking a guitar string), bumblebees move their wings about 200 beats per second.
* Wings are connected to the thorax, which is like a box of muscles; the biggest, the flight muscles, take up almost the whole thorax volume.
* Three pair of legs ~ hairy with claws; only queen and worker’s legs have special baskets to collect pollen.
* 2 compound eyes and 3 ‘primitive’ eyes.
* The abdomen contains a honey stomach for storing nectar, which fuels them during the foraging flights. Some bumblebees fly back carrying as much as 75% or more of their bodyweight. Wax is secreted from between plates covering the abdomen. The fat body also functions as the nutritional store during the queen’s hibernation.
* Breathing: through spiracles (paired holes) at the down side of the body, that also has air sacs.
* The tongue, specialized to suck up nectar, is kept inside a sheath and folded under the head and thorax when flying or resting.
* The bumblebee is probably deaf but can feel vibrations of sounds.
* he heart runs down the entire body, where the blood sloshes freely, without veins or arteries.
* After mating, the queen stores the sperm inside her body; before she lays an egg she’ll decide either to fertilize it with sperm or not. Non-fertilized eggs became males; fertilized ones either queens or female workers. The females have suppressed hormonal activity for as long as the queen remains dominant. Only when the queen dies, the worker’s ovaries are stimulated, and new queens appear.
* Salivary glands produce saliva, which is mixed with nectar and pollen. It’s also used to soften the nest material.


”The pedigree of honey does not concern the bee, a clover, anytime, to him, is aristocracy.” ~ Emily Dickinson

The Seven Days of Mourning

In my historical novel “FIRST FRUITS IN JERUSALEM”, (presently at a British Publisher to be read) I describe the practice of the so-called Shiva, the seven days of mourning. In the story, because of the suicide, the parents are not allowed to mourn for the dead.
Mourning is the act of grieving over the death of a loved one. Jewish law and traditions provide a specific framework to guide mourners through their grief.
Judaism has a strong element of the acceptance of death and the seven days of mourning – Shiva – is a helpful tool by which people are not left alone in their grief, but surrounded by family and friends.

Jewish laws of mourning balance emotionalism and philosophic wisdom. Mourners are expected to cry, tear their garments and participate in the burial ceremony. However, they are not to mourn too much, nor for too long. The emphasis of the mourning period is to recover from the loss and to focus on the business of living.

In a Jewish family, after the burial the mourners return to the home where the shiva takes place and eat a meal consisting of bread and a hard boiled egg which is provided by others, as a sign of compassion and communal concern. In Orthodox families mourners sit on the floor on low cushions or benches. They won’t shave, bathe, go to work, or wear freshly laundered clothes. Some people cover the mirrors in the house of mourning.

In Sephardic communities visitors bring prepared food for the mourners, and offer consolation. In Ashkenazi communities bringing food is considered improper.
Visitors don’t greet the mourners, but speak in quiet, consoling words.

During Shabbat, a house in mourning won’t receive any visitors, as the Shabbat is seen as the Queen, and a day of rejoicing.

The Shiva ends on the morning of the seventh day, but the mourning continues in a lesser content through the 30the day, called the Shloshim.
Religious Jews don’t cut their hair during this time, nor shave, wear new clothes or attend parties.
The custom of marking the anniversary of the death is called the Yahrzeit.

Excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Judaism.