Bees and Robins

Roger is washing my arm, Snowbelle is on the opposite side, and I may become the salami in the middle of this sandwich, as they both hate each other.  Haaaaate.  And cat hate is immense hate.  You haven't been hated until you've faced the slitty glare of feline malevolence, it's like getting sliced by a laser into deli ham.  No resolutions have been broken for there were none to be allowed, the last peal of the last New Year's Day bell rang deaf on feline proclivities.

A wild hive of bees had swarmed to the side of a building next to my pharmacy, this happened maybe ten summers ago, and found a small entryway, a hole, in the cement block chosen by the queen.  I was in the parking lot when the swarm arrived, the air filled with bees circling, looking for an adequate place to land.  They were still swarming when I left, a dome of bees forming around the entryway of their new digs.  It was soothing to be a part of it, I felt no fear which may have been stupid, but these were honeybees, and they are pretty docile and efficient in that they just want to get on with their lives.

A few had landed on me, confused, or I was in the way, and were shaken off to rejoin the excited moving in day.  I was thrilled to see honeybees on the lower west side of the city, where most trees had been cut down, homes boarded, and poverty weighed on shoulders.  Few bees were still errantly swarming here and there by the next day, and bee business began; I hoped that the humans inside the block building wouldn't spray their newest tenants.

At home, I looked up apiarists and sent emails out, hoping that one would come and coax the insects into proper bee management, but not one answered.  If anyone wished to eliminate them, there could have been enlisted assisted murder by city pest control; to save them was not something I could do alone, so I just watched.  Years went by, and they weren't exterminated or pestered, I wondered how much honey was accumulating in the wall, were the humans aware of the situation, and were these an escaped hive?  I felt safe when I saw the bees, and imagined the Bee Patrol saving me in case I was mugged in the parking lot.  My little brown, stripey friends.

In reality, I enjoyed watching them through the seasons, the warming of spring, the slippage of summer into fall into winter.  How long would they last there, it has been ten years with no sign of them being disenchanted with their home.  Well, something good is taking place, for last week, there was a white box sitting on a newly installed ledge which seems to be a container for bees.  I am guessing that finally, an apiarist has landed with hopes of snagging the hive and what, relocating?  Assimilating?  Bees have been having a hard time lately, with entire colonies wiped out...what has kept this one going for a decade?  That just may be what needs to be found out, why this colony has survived when many have not in regards to the climate change and use of pesticides.

Tuesday, I heard a robin, or so I thought.  Living next to a highway blurs the everyday sounds from the trees and sidewalks so that a heavy snowstorm is welcome, it's the only thing that quiets the roar.  The next day, I startled four robins that were turning over last fall's leaves in search of what they mostly eat, bugs and worms.  It was so good to see them, yet I worry that they arrived too early and may be caught in a late ice storm.  There is a flock that lives year round in Delaware Park, savvy enough to forage the zoo for edibles, but the ones I saw in the maples were new, sleek from their long trip up.  Nothing like that orange-red breast to cheer a Northerner's heart.

Buds are swelling, Easter candy is out, crows are calling, gulls fill the air over the Niagara corridor above the river, appearing as a squall of snow dipping and diving, yelling their heads off.  Gull experts come from around the world to study them, as we may have the most species of gulls appearing in the same vicinity at once during migration, interspersed with mergansers, scaups, grebes, loons, cranes, teals, mallards, wood ducks, buffleheads, coots, geese, wigeons, quicks, quacks, and paddywhacks.   Even without the green that my more southern friends are enjoying, life is burgeoning.  Waking up.  Staggering to the kitchen for coffee.  The groundhog needs to adjust his timing, for in spite of the six weeks more predicted, we are forgoing thick layers of down for maybe just a scarf to run out to the car.

Yesterday turned into morning into today, and will do so until the sun ceases to be, and time extends into whatever planetary rotation humans have leapt to.  Will we ever live on Mars?  No doubt that explorers will get there, what will they do with that extra 39 minutes and 35 seconds compared to Earth's straight 24 hour day?  I am telling you, it will drag.  No where to go, an average of  -81 degrees, all carbon dioxide with some water vapor.  The year is near twice as long.  New holidays need invention, a corner oxygen bar constructed, and greenhouses that convert the CO2 into O.  Two moons, though.  That would be pretty.  Get that red dust ground into your clothes, people would know what planet you've been playing on.

The light lasts longer, doesn't get pitch dark until 6, more reasonable than 3:30-4 meaning that Vitamin D is being produced in our sorry winter hides.  When the buds do open into leaves, that will mean more oxygen is produced, giving us that spring freshness bordering on happy insanity.  You will bounce, guaranteed.  Then after a day of gadding, of hanging sheets out on the line, of flinging open the windows and enlisting family to dust and haul out, have supper and check latches.  Test the doors, put out candles and turn in; think of Pisces swimming through the waters of Aquarius, with Neptune at the apex of the water-bearer.  Little fish weaving in schools through the starlight, nebulae, clusters.  Good night.