Today was a sultry southern summer day, blue sky, white clouds. The sun was blazing and the air thick with humidity. My cucumbers and squash had a sinking spell and fainted in the heat. A few gallons of water revived them and the porch flowers. When I cleaned the bird baths, I couldn’t believe how hot the water was. One of the bird baths looked like it was having a bee and wasp reunion. I was careful picking up the solar water aerator. Didn’t want to make anyone stinging mad.

I counted nine different kinds of stinging critters. I could only identify the honey bees, bumblebees, red wasps, dirt daubers, and paper wasps. One of the bees was really furry. Looked like it had on a tutu from a rusty colored lion’s mane. I researched awhile on Alabama bees but never could identify it. Maybe it’s time to add a bee and wasp field guide to my collection of guide books. Haven’t seen any butterflies much lately. They hide under leaves and seek shade on days with high temperatures. Love this bee quote. “Anyone who thinks they’re too small to make a difference has never met a honey bee,” Anonymous. Makes me think of the power of a single candle in the darkness. All the darkness in the world cannot dim the light of one little candle.

I’ve found some beautiful quotes about bees to ponder on tonight. “The bee and the wasp feed on the same flowers; but they do not produce the same honey.” We all face the same circumstances and opportunities in life but we create different results based on our fundamental character. The bee collects nectar and pollen to feed the hive and produce honey. The wasp feeds on the honey for immediate energy rather than storing it. Fabrizio Caramagna writes, “The bee is just a tiny insect yet it manages to build a hive that has the capacity of a barn and the geometry of a cathedral. His teaching is this: if you do what is possible, of possible in possible you will arrive at the impossible.”

Kahil Gibran wrote, “Go into the fields and in your gardens, and you will see that it is the pleasure of the bee that makes her collect honey from the flower, but that it is also the pleasure of the flower to give the bee its honey. For a flower is to the bee a source of life, and a bee to the flower a messenger of love; and for both the bee and the flower, giving and receiving pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. [… ] Be in your pleasures like flowers and bees.”

This quote makes me think of watching the glorious bees and butterflies that visit my zinnia and sunflower garden. “The bee stitches invisible threads from one flower to another and sews the meadow of light. And the pollen he carries with him, if you look closely, is a gold dust similar to stars, only that instead of galaxies creates the spell of honey,” Fabrizio Caramagna.

“The life of bees is poetry of love mixed with work.” — Kahlil Gibran