Scott Homes

Today you were supposed to get a blog from Pat Bergford about orchard mason bees.  Pat usually writes articles about the gardens around Scott Homes (which are lovely). But Pat is frolicking at the beach. She left me with a rough draft about orchard mason bees which I am supposed to share with you. Which I am not going to do because today is National “Look up at the Sky” Day and I’m in the mood to celebrate.

Plus it segues nicely into a story about being wantonly assaulted by orchard mason bees.

“Look up at the Sky” Day is to encourage people to lift their faces and spend a little time looking at clouds or birds or oncoming asteroids (you just never know). Working in my basement office, I look up at the sky a lot as it’s about the only thing my little window shows.

This week was a good week for sky-watching at chez Scott Homes. We had the first comparatively warm day Olympia has had in a while. Outside my basement office window, the plum blossoms were practically exploding open against a clear, spring sky. In the branches, birds and squirrels were duking it out.  In the distance the peacocks sang their songs of unrequited love (CUuuRAAAGH!!!).

It’s weeks like this when a crusty office worker’s fancy turns to escaping the desk. What excuse could I generate for a few (or several) minutes of sky watching in actual, real-life sun and air?

Perhaps pictures for an article on what early pollinators — like orchard mason bees — pollinate in the early, fleeting spring. Perhaps I could get a good shot of a bee itself. That’s work related!

I arose Persephone-like from my basement underworld (yes, I always talk like this). The sky was bright, the air was warm, the scent of hyacinths and plum blossom washed over the garden. The warm hum of bees vibrated from under the porch roof. There was a lot of industrious buzzing; those bees had a lot of time to make up.

Oh, those BEES! I stopped four steps below the landing so I could look skyward, watching the bees above me.  I have always liked bees. I appreciate them for their sterling work in the fields of honey and apples. They have a nice hum. Their indignant buzzing when they get stuck in a foxglove bloom cracks me up.

However, orchard mason bees are not the drowsy, cuddly honey bees that seem to enjoy their work, the kind of bees that seem to chose flowers based on personal taste rather than immediacy. Orchard mason bees are sleek and black and shiny and only have 4 – 8 weeks to do their stuff before they die. And we are in their way. More specifically, I was.

As I took the last few steps up from the basement, feeling light and full of sky, twelve bee-bullets thwapped into my forehead. Thwap! Thwap! Thwap! and ricocheted away.

I was startled. I said a bad word.

So now I have a hypothesis about orchard mason bees; two, really: They only live for a month or two because they never slow down. OR they only live a month or two because they give themselves terminal head injuries head-butting obstacles rather than going around. I’m sure any competent entomologist would back me up here.

So let this be the take-away message: Take it easy now and then. Celebrate National “Look up at the Sky” Day. And, going around an obstacle is far more comfortable than head-butting it.

And I did get a picture of a bee.

Eileen Ryan is a marketing writer for Scott Homes, Inc and Northwest Energy Team. She is supposed to spend her working hours educating the public on the benefits of building energy efficient homes and retrofitting existing homes to be more energy efficient… But apparently not today.