Wednesday 29 February 2012

61st Blue Period

The pictures above and below were taken in or around Iford Manor last spring - during the Blue Period.

There is that time when the predominant colour for the early flowers seems to be a delicate blue, and I bet these flowers are amongst the most successful when it comes to pollination - bees and hover-flies seem to be extremely attracted to that particular shade of blue, which is why bee-keepers always wear white if they know what's good for them.

We are coming up to my 61st blue period, and I can't wait. I don't want to see the world through a bee's eyes, though. We think that summer slows things down to a lazy pace - the tempo of breath during a dog-day nap - 'summertime, and the living is easy...' Not for bees it ain't.

Seeing the world through a bee's eyes - the frantic search down long avenues of polarised light. The checking, checking, checking, to see who's been here first. A microscopic drop from each ultra-violet - ultra-violent - target area, then pay-back time and up and away, laden with pollen to the next objective.

Back at headquarters for a debrief - direction to, distance from, and abundance of the best source - all imparted in a solo line-dance before off-loading, cell by cell surrounding the fat queen - I've been wracking my brains trying to remember an amusing anecdote about this dance (and it doesn't involve Welsh smallholders). If it comes to me, I'll insert it later. Oh, I've just remembered it: They have discovered that even bees exaggerate by telling fibs about how large the food source is, how close it is to the hive and generally what jolly clever bees they are for finding it.

All this and the manufacture of fine wax too. How do bees make wax? In their ears, silly.

Almost every year, I find a bee which has utterly exhausted itself, and it crawls around too weak to fly, seemingly at death's door. If I am able, I mix some honey with water, put it in a teaspoon and coax the stricken bee's coiled snout into the mix. It sucks away, then after a short while seems to stop and think about things for a while, then - without warning - takes off into the air to continue working for the greater good, and I watch it fade into the distant summer sky with an intense feeling of satisfaction for a job well done.

I may make a honey-soaked bee-feeder (like people make humming-bird feeders in the countries where humming-birds fly) this year, then attach it to the back wall of our compact but adorable city apartment.


30 comments:

  1. Hello Tom:
    We are afraid to say that we know little about bees or bee keeping, but we do love Iford Manor. An amazing garden in such a delicious setting. A favourite of ours with just the right blend of the classical, the dramatic and the horticultural. The Ceanothus you show here is fabulous!

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    1. I am lucky enough to be friends with the head groundsman. He went from Crowe Hall to there - do you know Crowe Hall? Is that what that blue flower is called?!

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    2. Lucky indeed to be friends with the Head Gardener. No, we have not heard of Crowe Hall but shall certainly look it up now that you mention it. Yes, Ceanothus, a marvellously intense blue when happy and growing well. Usually hardy but it probably appreciates the shelter of the wall against which it is growing since the garden at Iford is quite exposed to the elements in parts.

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    3. He is a groundsman, I think, not gardener. Crowe Hall recently sold for about £6 million, but it was my fave Bath residence. I knew the owner, who sadly died too young.

      Yes, Iford rises to the extent of being as exposed you can be, on the south-facing valley in which it is. They wrap their statuary in the winter, but - frankly - some of it needs to be destroyed anyway.

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  2. We have all got to look after the bees, as there is a bit of a collapse in the bee population isn't there ? Our daughter looks after a hive where she works and our neice keeps bees and collects the honey.
    Reading between the lines in your posts, I've always thought that you were a kind old soul Tom, but you're an even bigger softy than I thought !!
    ....and, you can't beat a Ceanothus in Spring. We have three in our garden. Here's to a 61st blue period of magnificent proportions.

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    1. Thanks, Jack@. Those mites which they (who are 'they'?) thought were killing off bumbles actually do some good. They are unwittingly transported from nest to nest, and they eat all the infected shit of each nest, cleansing them in the process. The bee's demise is caused by an unknown virus, apparently.

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  3. Lady M recently bought and planted a Ceanothus here (it's one of her favourites), but I fear this last winter has claimed it. Not happy bunny. Congratulations on reviving bees; not everyone would do that!

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    1. But everyone can do that - it's a very rewarding experience.

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  4. An old softie is exactly what you are! I've the sweetest picture of you, gently nursing back the poor little bee, conjured up in my head. What a darling you really are! Ceanothus in Spring -- just divine. Reading this while listening to Beethoven's 6th -- how appropriate!

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    1. If I could control the environment in which everyone reads my blog, Broad, it would be whilst listening to Beethoven's 6th.

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  5. Bees. We raise bees. Or they raise us. Honey is the best and all we use as sweetener on our farm. I sell bottles of it in our small store and make soap with it, use it for cough control (there is NOTHING better)
    Bees. We love bees.

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    1. Does anyone here suffer from hay-fever? Want to know the palliative cure? Simply eat honey from no further than about 10 miles of your location, and your system recognises the pollen structure which causes your misery, and the antibodies automatically cope with them in the future. Simple.

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  6. I always feed a tired bee by putting out honey on a plate - they soon recover as you say Tom. Is blue their favourite colour - can they in fact see colour - or is it scent that attracts them?

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    1. In my limited understanding, bees see in a variety of ways, but sight is their main way of navigating. They observe light in a polarised way, which gives them a fix on direction according to the light from the sun.

      They also see in a spectrum which includes more bands than we can see, and this includes the ultra-violet one. Birds and butterflies see the same way, but butterflies and moths have a far higher sensitivity to pheremones and smells in general, so I am guessing that the perfume in flowers is mainly direct toward butterflies. Don't take my word for this, though.

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  7. Sorry everyone - I have been a bit sidetracked by RAZMATAZ (Chania), who has infiltrated my blog with about 100 blog posts by advertising agencies working for Google.

    I have blocked her now, but I will have to spend a while undoing the damage she has caused me, so please bear with me.

    She has pissed me off to the extent of not wanting to reply to all of your comments until I have sorted it out, and I really just need to have dinner before I do sort it out.

    Do yourselves a favour and block her too, before you get the same treatment as she unleashed on me. The trouble is she gets nasty when she drinks, and I guess she has been drinking.

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  8. OK, I think I have sorted it now - they emanate from 'Tracey's Crafty Scraps' - which emanates from Canada, where Raz emanates from.

    Block 'Tracey's Crafty Scraps' too, whilst you're about it. I have reported her for abuse as well, so let's hope that's the end of it, and good riddance.

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    1. oh dear...... well I guess the title BLUE PERIOD was right!
      I am surprised I always thought Razz to be rather sweet

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    2. Well, she is quite welcome to come on here and explain, but I'm not letting myself in for that any more. I lost track of the amount of Google Ad tutorials she posted under a false name, (Tracey's scraps) but it constituted an attack as far as I am concerned.

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  9. Wow ... well back to that blue. I love the way blue flowers change colour at dusk, with the magenta light, they turn violet. Enchanting.

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    1. Yes - there's a lot of red in it anyway, which you can see in the photo above. Blue is the last colour to disappear in the spectrum (for us) which is why you get 'blue horizons', and why paintings using the 'glazing' technique always start with a layer of blue before the rest of the colours are laid over.

      P.S. I may have over-reacted a bit to 'Tracey's Crafty Scraps' last night, but I am still not going to follow a blog which bombards you with so many Google Adsense features that it obliterates everyone else's posts under a mountain of rubbish.

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  10. Huh???? I am confused. Has my computer been sending junk mails? I have lost followers...what is going on? Tracey's Crafty scraps has no connection to me.

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  11. Also, I have even been in Canada for the past several days....I demand a retraction.

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    1. You'll get a retraction - and an apology - once I have established you have nothing to do with it, Raz. Please rest assured that it was only 'Tracey's' URL which I complained to Google about, and not yours.

      If I have jumped to conclusions, then I am sorry, but I could not see why all this stuff seemed to happen just after I had asked about 'AdSense' on your blog, but maybe someone had taken over 'Tracey's' blog at the same time. Some sort of hi-jack was involved.

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    2. Have Not been in Canada I mean

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  12. Tom, no worries. It was a co-incidence that I posted about ad sense. Ar first I wasn't sure it wasn't me because I am away in the Bahamas and thought maybe I had a virus back home. I was laughing over the bit that I drink at night and can be mean when drunk. I've had some weird comments advertising stuff on my last post about my boots.

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  13. Oh, I had left some nice and positive comments about your Frye boots, I thought. Maybe it's just dangerous to use blogs for advertising?

    Anyway, no harm done, I hope.

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    1. P.S. I will issue a notice about this business and how you have nothing to do with the real culprit as soon as I have finished my current story!

      It really was a hell of a coincidence, and I am sorry if I have caused you any material damage, Raz. Like I said, your URL was never mentioned, but the real URL was attached to someone with a completely false name, so I suspect some sort of hi-jack.

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  14. See, the thing that is wrong with this from the beginning is that on a website made up of bloggers from all over the planet and more than one of them being from Canada... that you openly accused someone , based on where they were from.
    You are welcome to your opinions and should rightly be annoyed with the spam, but to accuse someone with no proof other than someone from Canada ... is immature to say the least, outrageous and nasty in my opinion.

    Tom, it is not a hell of a coincidence .. I have spoken about ad sense .. a lot of people do .. it is part of blogging.

    Next time, I would suggest, finding out exactly what you are talking about before you go off blaming people for things that bother you, based on what country they are from.

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