The Bumbling Oaf

  Home repairs and yard work both rule my days when weather permits.  Today, I painted.  Since the Little Bayou House sits up several feet off the ground and since I prefer not to have raccoons, coyotes or bobcats prowling about under that house, we installed lattice panels from the house to the ground.  This lattice is an ugly "cedar" color.  Trust me when I say, it is not cedar color at all.  It is orange.  This would be all fine and dandy if I painted the house black and had orange lattice as I could claim that the Little Bayou House was decorated for Halloween year round!  But, it is not so the orange stood out like a sore thumb.  Most of it now matches the house color which is a vast improvement.  

  It was while I was painting that I inadvertently did something that made me feel like a bumbling oaf.  While improving our place, I managed to do great damage to a friend's place.  When I was moving to a different spot, I threw the doormat (I was using as a kneeling pad) right smack-dab atop a ground bee's hole!  Oh, my goodness.  The little bee was not happy.  She did not attempt to sting me but frantically searched for her hole.  It did not take me long to jump up and move the mat once I realized what I had done.  My poor, sweet friend could not find the hole because the mat had scraped dirt over it.  Ok, after apologizing profusely (yes, I did go there), I gently blew the dirt off of her nesting hole so she could repair any damage and go about her business.  Her little "saddlebags" were laden with pollen so I knew she had to hurry about her work.  Geez!  I felt terrible!

  I admit to not being up on all of the some 70,000 species of bees but was told that this particular bee is called  a "polyester bee" or a Colletes inaequalis.  Sounds strange but, hey, I am good with it.  The female bee supposedly lines her nesting hole with a polyester like substance.  She fills this with pollen and a glandular liquid and then lays a single egg at the top before sealing the polyester sack.  The little one hatches and feasts upon the nectar left behind for it.  Mama Bee digs many such nesting holes and fills each one.  The dad does nothing after the initial mating.  He goes off to eat a bit, while away his remaining days and die.  Little Mama does all the work.  This bit of information made me feel even worse than I already did so from that point on, I was extremely careful where I put the mat and my feet!  The sweet little bee could keep digging her nests without worry about me.  I apologized again.  I absolutely hate it when I disrupt my critter friends.  Be kind. folks, even to the tiny critters of the world. We are all in this together.