My Bumble Bee Hat

They say that a pair of rabbits will multiply to a million in just two years or so and remarkably, sixty nine million in five years! Now that’s a lot of bunnies, but Henry breaks the cycle by regularly popping a few off and he reckons shooting them or leaving them alone does not seem to make a jot of difference. If you shoot a pair of rabbits you will stop sixty nine million arriving five years down the track doesn’t work out in Henry's experience.

There was a tale that Chairman Mao told all of his country-folk to kill a blowfly a day – and they did. Henry wouldn’t have a clue if there was any truth in this but it was supposed to reduce the population of blowflies. So would it change the course of history if everyone a single blowfly? Unlikely.

Henry has a flytrap. A twenty litre bucket that he baits with a dead rabbit. Pretty soon the blowflies are attracted to the stink of the rabbit but soon the stink of dead blowflies attracts even more. The bucket needs emptying every there weeks, causing Henry to wear a screwed up face, but it does not seem to reduce the population of flies – they just keep on coming!

Despite the knowledge that Mother Nature works her own miracles, Henry likes to save Bumble Bees. He has an imaginary Bumble Bee Hat that he wears when he’s doing it! It’s a bit like a fireman’s helmet with a sort of halo and wings just like ones on the side of Asterisk's helmet.

There is a serious concern for the worldwide dwindling population of honey bees, which is due to disease and environmental issues.
Henry shares those concerns. But hang on a minute, honey bees are not the only pollinators. Staples like maize, sweet corn, wheat, barley, rye are pollinated by the wind. So are conifers, grasses and many other plant species. It is not entirely true to think we will all starve because honey bees are in decline but it does limit our food options.

Ecologically New Zealand was doing quite well without honey bees because there are plenty of insects, indeed our own indigenous bees and birds evolved  do the job as well.

At the nursery, Henry and co tried growing runner beans as a cash crop during the off-season in the big tunnel houses. Of course they knew that bumble bees are the best pollinators of runner beans and the sourced little boxes with bumble bee colonies in them, so they distributed these boxes through the tunnel houses with remarkable success.

The beans were destined for the Japanese market and the quality required made the project uneconomic. It was the shape of the bean that was important. The client specified  just one bend at the bottom end but not sharp like a hockey stick. To Henry it was obvious that by imposing such high specs, they did not really want them – after all, a bean is a bean! It still becomes a turd, no matter the shape or who happens to eat it!

Bumble bees are docile creatures and do not normally sting. Henry’s mate, Bert was stung though! He had the theory that if you can get all your fingers into the flowers of a single foxglove spike, your wish will come true.! The only thing was that when he demonstrated, there was a bumble bee up there! Old Bert did a rant!

Henry's wife, Mags bought these bins for the recycling, three of them, one each for tin, plastic and glass. They are little blue elephants. Now then, bumble bees are attracted to blue but Mags unknowingly sits the blue bins in their back conservatory, which has no door. So the poor old bumble bees, attracted to be blue, become trapped in the conservatory and can’t find their way out.

So it is Henry to the rescue in his imaginary Bumble Bee Hat!  He catches the bees and releases them. Sometimes they run out of energy and flop to the floor exhausted, so he sits them in the sun outside and when they revive they fly away!

Beside Henry’s small tree nursery, he has a plastic drum which he keeps full for irrigating his trees. The drum happens to be blue so regularly he finds bumble bees unsuccessfully learning to swim! Some reckon they shouldn’t be able to fly, but Henry knows for sure they can’t swim! So its on with his hat and he rescues them! It seems to Henry that it takes a while for a bumble bee to drown!
After fishing them out, Henry finds a place to sit them in the sun because they need to warm up before they can fly and most do survive.

One day Henry ran over a bumble bee with the lawn mower which buggered its wing!  Henry knew he should stomp on it to put it put of its misery! But the brave creature, even though it couldn’t fly, itt set off walking, he took pity and lifted it onto a blue viola – give it a chance, he thought even though he knew very well the outcome.

If you are wearing blue, don’t be frightened when bumble bees buzz around to check you out, they are just looking for food – not looking to attack.

Extra: Sadly, our friend, Beatrice was cremated earlier this week. Her daughter rescued her prosthetic knees with the intention of mounting them and fixing a label – Bea’s Knees.