Cherie's Place » Flower

Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week

CherryPie — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:01:28 +0000

Certainly, knowledge is a lock and its key is the question.

Ja’far Al-Sadiq (702 – 765)

Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week

CherryPie — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:10:14 +0000

If the only prayer you say in your entire life is – ‘thank you’ – that is enough.

Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328)

Tatton Park – Floral Views

CherryPie — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:01:17 +0000

PhotoHunt – Greasy

CherryPie — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 20:54:24 +0000

On closer inspection, perhaps it is just raindrops…

For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.

First Glimpse of Malham

CherryPie — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 19:19:29 +0000

Getting in Close

CherryPie — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:31:49 +0000

PhotoHunt – Near

CherryPie — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:52:03 +0000

For more of this weeks PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.

Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week

CherryPie — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 22:59:46 +0000

If you’ve got the truth you can demonstrate it. Talking doesn’t prove it.

Robert A. Heinlein

Cherie’s Place – Thought for the Week

CherryPie — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 16:53:58 +0000

Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

Robert A. Heinlein

100 Photos 81 :: Bees

CherryPie — Mon, 30 May 2011 21:45:37 +0000

The practice of keeping bees in hives dates back at least as far as the ancient Egyptians. The summer edition of the National Trust magazine has an interesting article entitled ‘The Beekeeper’ in which Emma Hill the head gardener for Dunham Massey treats the reader to some interesting facts about bees:

A bee society is predominantly female. There are three castes of bee: the single queen, who lives for five years and lays some 2,000 unfertilised or fertilised eggs a day in summer. The unfertilised ones become drones – stingless males, whose only job is to mate with the queen. The fertilised eggs become the smaller, female worker bees. Their roles include polishing cells with propolis (tree sap), guarding the hive, foraging and removing dead bees – they keep the hive spotless. During summer a hive can have 50,000 workers and a few hundred drones.

Emma has been studying bee behaviour and has observed that:

When their stomachs are full of honey (a worker bee has two stomachs – an extra one for storing honey) they’re happy and emit a low hum. A high-pitched buzz means they’re angry. I know when they’re going to sting me. A worker bee can fly two miles (3km) to collect nectar, pollen, propolis and water. They perform a waggle dance – a figure of eight movement – to show other bees where to farage and their excitement is visible.

Our bee population is threatened by the varroa mite which weakens their immune system. The bee keepers at Dunham Massey are using icing sugar to treat the disease. The sugar is sprinkled onto the bees through a fine mesh, this encourages the bees to groom which in turn removes the mite.