It's Good to Be Queen

I love bees.  I especially love honeybees. They are decorative AND useful. I love that the color of their little bodies matches the luxurious golden color of the honey they create. They are the world's most important pollinators and they take what is widely available (nectar) and transform it into a valuable product that humans have coveted for centuries. We depend on bees to pollinate our food supply. Another seemingly magical ability they have is transforming an insignificant larvae into the crucial queen by feeding her royal jelly. We would all benefit from emulating their ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Some people make the unfortunate mistake of lumping bees in with wasps. Wasps can be very aggressive and when associated with bees, can cause people to have an unfounded fear of bees. Unless we go out of our way to disturb bees, they are peace loving creatures. At different times, I've seen honeybees share a flower with bumblebees, butterflies and hummingbirds. There's another example for us. The world needs bees for a plethora of reasons. Let's protect them. Long live the Queen!

Pay Attention

Everyone has seen a beautiful sunset, but a moonset is something else altogether. In September, while driving to work early in the morning, I saw a gigantic orange ball to the West. I astutely assumed it had to be the moon since everyone knows the Great Pumpkin only appears on Halloween. It was low in the sky and I was looking for a place to pull over that allowed a clear view of the horizon. I should have stopped and taken a picture as soon as I saw my firey moon because within two minutes it had vanished. Something so lovely and rare existed for such a brief time. I guess we can't measure value by its duration.