Quickening

 Dear Reader,

Did you read a story about honey bees dancing this week?  Well if you didn't I looked it up as I thought it was so funny and here it is.

Baby honey bees learn to "waggle dance" as it is called which is a form of complex communication that they must learn and adopt in order to signal to their nestmates where the best food is.  The dance, where bees circle around in figure of eight patterns while waggling their bodies, is performed at great speed as each bee moves a body length in less than one second.

These moves, it has been discovered  also inform about food, direction, distance and type and quality of the meal.  The moves are learned by watching more experienced mates.  Apparently passing down this shared knowledge from one generation to the next is a "hallmark of culture", a behaviour well recognised in humans but also observed in animals.

Bee colonies were monitored until young bees took part in their first waggle dance. Observed 20 days later, it was found that their dancing was far more accurate and contained significantly less errors than when they made their initial attempts.

Well we should learn something new every day, it is said.  I thought bees just buzzed about and busied themselves making delicious honey, so I was wrong, not knowing about their dancing.

 

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From Gilberts White, 1793, March 14th, in Hampshire

'Papilio rhamni, the brimstone butterfly, appears in the Holt. Trouts rise, and catch at insects.  A dob-chick comes down the Wey in sight of the windows, some times diving, and some times running on the banks.  Timothy the tortoise comes forth, and weighs 6lbs, 5oz.'

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Quickening

I want the pulse of life that has been asleep
to wake, embrace me, put on the light.
To hear the thrush, song-repeat, to keep
my trust in God to hurry icy winter's flight.
I want to glimpse, under sodden leaves, green shoots
to announce life's circle, its beginnings have begun.
I want to run barefoot, abandon boots,
to walk through primroses paths, saviour the sun.
I want to take off winter's dress, change its season,
to see the coloured petticoats of spring bloom
and show us mortals nature's reason
to start afresh, admire the peacock's plume.
Cellar the coal, brush ashes from the fire,
I want to intertwine, my love, quicken, feel desire.

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With very best wishes, Patricia