May 1 (Lunar calendar: March 12), 2023 Monday | Dawnxisoul393art
May 20 is World Honey Bee Day, a day set by the United Nations.
In the charming waters of lotus, the dew on the petals glitters like diamonds in the sun. Beautiful koi swam happily with the sound of rustling water. A beautiful and gentle lotus goddess came to the middle of the blooming lotus flowers. Around the goddess, beautiful little elven bees flapping their golden wings, like ten thousand golden dots of sunlight, radiated a shimmering light among the flowers. The sunlight was so bright, and each of them welcomed the bees who were collecting pollen from the lotus flowers with a smile. Like many flowers in nature, the nectar of lotus flowers is limited, but the pollen of lotus flowers is very abundant.
The bees happily gathered in the fragrant lotus blossoms like splashes of gold stars, which was breathtaking. When the warm breeze of early summer blows and when the first lotus flowers open, there are bees working hard in the lotus flowers. Bees remind us to work hard with a clear purpose and to find happiness and joy. We will find that if we do our best and achieve our best, we will have a sense of accomplishment. If we work hard, meet challenges and overcome difficulties, we will be rewarded and find beauty and enlightenment in our lives.
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When Daniel came to Hong Kong from England to do his doctoral thesis some years ago, he met many beekeepers in some villages in the New Territories. Daniel and his research colleagues at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology bought some honey from the beekeepers, They became friends with beekeepers, and had some knowledge about the beekeeping environment and the characteristics of bees. Honey bees have two pairs of wings, six legs, three single eyes, and one pair of compound eyes. The three single eyes are arranged in a triangular pattern and are used to sense changes in luminosity, the direction of the light source, and to form a rough image. Each compound eye of the bee consists of many small eyes, each of which has a set of light collection and sensing systems. The bigger the compound eye is, the more eyes there are, the more developed the vision will be, and each small eye can see a small area, and then combine the objects seen by so many small eyes to form a large area.
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The bees' habit is to move intensively on sunny days. Bees not only collect nectar, but also pollen. When they collect nectar and pollen, their bodies are motionless, but their feet are constantly moving. After collecting the pollen, they put the pollen on their two hind legs. In addition to eating honey, bees also eat pollen, and the protein in pollen is a necessary nutrient for the growth of bee larvae. The bee's feet are a good helper for them to collect pollen, the hindfoot of the honey bee has an extraordinarily enlarged tarsal segment with a groove on the outside, surrounded by long, dense hairs that form a "pollen basket". When the bee is busy in the flowers, the hairy feet are covered with pollen, which is then collected in the "pollen basket" by the "pollen comb" on the tarsal segment of the hindfoot. Finally, the pollen is fixed in a ball shape with honey.
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The process of nectar collection is very complex and has a clear division of labor. The role of the scout bee is to detect the nectar source, the role of the collector bee is to collect nectar and pollen from the nectar source, and the role of the house bee is to make honey from the nectar. During the nectar flow period, the colony sends out a large number of scout bees, which find the nectar source, collect a small amount of nectar and return to the hive. When the "detective" bees return, they flutter joyfully over the hive.
They tell their companions what direction there are flowers by using the figure they flitted to indicate the direction based on the sun, and the distance is indicated by the number of circles they flitted. Dozens of meters, hundreds of meters, or thousands of meters, all with a fixed number of laps. What is even more amazing is that bees in different regions have different dancing languages. This is how they communicate their messages. The worker bees in the colony responsible for collecting nectar are mainly collecting bees. After receiving information from the scout bees, the collecting bees will go straight to the nectar source.
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The nectar collected by the bees is temporarily stored in the nectar sac, when the nectar and pollen collection is full, the collecting bees will return to the hive. Once the bees return to the hive, they reprocess the honey they have collected to make the honey. It takes about seven days for the bees to produce a truly mature natural honey. Honey that has only gone through the two or three-day process is not mature and is not of high quality, or what people call raw honey. Bees don't usually sting, when the bee is attacked, it will use the tail of the needle into each other's body and release venom. If someone kills a bee unintentionally, they will be followed by a group of bees, which is the bees' revenge action. The poisonous needle at the end of the bee's tail is a self-defense weapon, which is attached to the poisonous gland in the body. After using its poisonous needle, the bee's body will be torn apart and die.
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Since ancient times, humans have been interested in bees. The ancients often poached honey from the hives to eat, which is not only delicious but also very nutritious, but it is not a long-term solution to get honey if you keep looking for and destroying the bees in this way to survive. So, humans started to try to breed bees, and, only cut honey once a year, just like in collecting rent, humans offer beehives for bees to live in, and bees produce honey for humans, which is the beginning of bees really becoming human friends. In fact, bees are a kind of cute little elves. The bee wins people's true love with its hard work.
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Bees have their own way of life, they have an electric charge in their bodies that creates a bio-magnetic field, which determines the direction of going out and coming back according to the magnetic field, and worker bees can also determine the direction according to the sun, so they can find their home no matter how far they fly. The bees will never ignore the value of some flowers because of their poor appearance. Moreover, bees do not only pick flowers of fresh flowers, but also flowers of other vegetables such as pumpkin flowers, loofahs, and even very tiny wildflowers.
After the research phase of the thesis, Daniel returned to England to conduct the data analysis of the thesis and the writing phase of the thesis. After that, we did not have the opportunity to go to the small villages in the New Territories to buy honey. Two years ago, when we went to the New Territories to do some sketching together, we went to those villages again, but we could not find any beekeepers. The villagers said that in the past few years, the beekeepers had stopped coming and they had all gone to the mountains to raise bees. Nowadays, there are more and more pesticides used on crops, vegetables, and fruit trees, whether it's weed killer or insecticide, it's enough to kill the little bees, they are not like pests, they can't stand the poison.
Now when we need honey, we don't know where to buy it. Some of our friends have had some experience, now some honey quality is poor, and even fake, including supermarkets sold. If people want the effect of sweetness, businessmen will add sugar or even saccharin. If people want the effect of thickening, businessmen will add thickener. Although the honey they make is no different from pure honey in appearance, it has no fragrance of flowers. In order to complete this article, we went to the nearby mountain to find the beekeepers we had known before according to the clues provided by the villagers. Although we did not find old friends, at last, we met some new friends and discussed some current situation of beekeeping with these new friends. In fact, beekeepers are facing a serious problem, which is also a problem in today's society. In the early years, beekeeping was a good occupation. At that time, as long as you mastered the beekeeping technology, not only the basic life was guaranteed, but also the income of beekeeping was relatively rich. In recent years, some businesses and honey processing plants process and produce concentrated and mixed honey, and then occupy the supermarket counter at a low price.
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Many consumers do not pay attention to how to identify the quality of honey, but only pay attention to whether the price of honey is low. Supermarket honey price is several times lower than pure honey even ten times. But such honey not only has no nutritional value but is also harmful to health after long-term consumption. Gradually, consumers have a bad impression of honey products, and the price of cheap honey has been deeply popular, which leads to the fact that honey of beekeepers who only do pure honey can not be sold out. Coupled with the lack of trust in honey among consumers, these are all about the future of beekeepers. There are fewer and fewer professional beekeepers.
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Fortunately, there are a number of amateur beekeepers who love beekeeping and protecting the environment. Most of these amateur beekeepers have a high level of education. They not only raise bees to take honey but also study bees. The amateur beekeepers in the new era are setting up a good reputation for the beekeeping industry. These amateur beekeepers bring new hope for the future of beekeeping.
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May 20 is the world bee day, which was determined by the United Nations, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) urged countries and people to take more action to protect bees and other pollinators in order to avoid the risk of a sharp reduction in food diversity. Bees are friends of mankind, and human breathing is based on oxygen on earth, and oxygen on earth is made by plants. Without bees, most of the plants on earth will be extinct. Without them, there will be no oxygen, and humans will not survive. FAO noted that, in the absence of bees and other pollinators, agricultural products such as coffee, apple, almond, tomato, and cocoa would be almost extinct. More than 75% of the world's crop varieties depend on pollination to some extent to improve yield and quality. Bees help pollinate flowers, increase pollination rate, increase fruit yield and increase the probability of hybridization. Bees and flowers are symbiotic.
Lotus Goddess tells us that the golden stripes on bees are like brilliant sunlight. Bees are the symbol of the sun. If we don't have this natural light source, we can't survive. Lotus Goddess also told us that bee has made a great contribution to human beings. We should take care of bees, protect bees, and support beekeepers!
Original by dawnxisoul393
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