Tuesday 11 January 2011

Weather forecasters


1. What do the earth worms know that I don't. Yesterday morning we discovered that they've moved up inside our compost bin in numbers  - sitting above the compost on the wall of the bin and up to where the lid sits on the rim. We've never seen them do that before. And yesterday and today we experienced a heavy rain event with associated high humidity. It rained (not showered) steadily all day. The clouds are moving from north-west to the south-east instead of the more normal south-west to north-east and we usually get heavy rain when that happens.

2. Last week my father, an amateur beekeeper, noticed some bees going into a hole in the top of an old disused hive he had stored in his shed. He kept an eye on it and the activity continued. That evening he expected to see, and did see, increased activity. There were a large number of bees flying about in his suburban back yard and they settled in the old hive (presumably the queen was with them). Next day he moved the hive out to a better spot in the garden and set it up properly and the bees are now busily constructing new honeycomb. The mystery is how the exploring bees found the hive in the first place.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Boobook,
We have always had worms in our compost, on the walls and under the lid. We assume because we are in the affluent leafy green outer areas of Melbourne's East that the worms are vacationing in different parts of their world.
Other than that perhaps Warrandyte worms have a propensity for extended travel.

Regards
Black Sheep.
PS it appears that blogging is getting a bit passe based on your (very) infrequent updates

Denis Wilson said...

Hi Boobook
Treasure your bees, as they are in trouble world-wide, according to some environmentalists. blaming the chemical companies for a new line of pesticides - Neonicotinoids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoids.
I had a colony of ants move into a Shipping Containers which is being used to store building materials. Nothing much to eat there, but dry. Wet outside.
They're smart those little critters.
Denis

Anonymous said...

Lorraine,
I think bees can smell where there used to be wax and honey. Maybe that's how they discovered the disused beehive (box).
Helen.