THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502210084
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
A wasp is crawling sluggishly across my bathroom ceiling, and if this year is like past years, the lethargic creature is the first of several that will end up in my bathroom as winter winds down.
The weather warming up ever so slightly like it did last week seems to trigger the wasps into slow-motion movement. I think they make their way into the house through the fan vent in the ceiling.
Until I chatted with beekeeper C.E. Harris the other day, I must admit that I had a lingering fear that a whole swarm of wasps was gathered out there somewhere, sending scouts into my bathroom. I imagined someday that I would find thousands of them settling on the shower curtain rod as a good place to hang a nest.
Not to worry, Harris said.
Unlike honeybees, which winter over as a lively group, keeping each other warm in the hive, wasps and hornets hibernate and they hibernate alone. In fact, the only ones to make it through the winter are young, mated females. In fall, they leave their paper nests and search out a warm place, like the eaves of my house, to spend the winter, Harris told me.
Come spring, usually sometime in April, it's up to these lone females to find a nest location, build the nest, lay eggs and get the whole life cycle going again.
Only at my house, when they feel the weather warming up, some females take the wrong exit and it's a one-way street. They usually linger up around the ceiling for a few days and then die because there is no food.
On the other hand, honeybees do it right. Harris who keeps several beehives and sells honey from his home on London Bridge Road, showed me what's going on with the bees in his observation hive the other day. When he removed a panel from the side of the hive, a pane of glass revealed the activity inside.
The honeybees - probably 30,000 of them - were clustered in a pulsating mass. Harris told me to put my hand out on the edge of the glass and then to feel the center where the mass of bees were. The center was actually warm while the outside edge felt 10 to 20 degrees cooler.
Harris said the bees keep the interior of the cluster at about 65 degrees even if the weather drops below freezing outside. Since the bees are not actually hibernating, they have to eat over the winter.
``They draw together and make a cluster over the honey,'' Harris said. ``And the cluster gradually rotates so they all can feed.''
A DEAD RISSO'S DOLPHIN was found on the beach at Dam Neck the other day. Although Risso's dolphins are fairly common in this part of the Atlantic, we rarely see them because they live in waters beyond the continental shelf, 60 miles or so offshore.
The gray dolphins have rounded heads without the pronounced long beaks of our familiar bottlenose dolphins and grow a bit larger - up to 13 feet long. Risso's dolphins are characterized by lots of white body scars, which are caused by tooth rakes that occur in sexual sparring.
The juvenile male that stranded was just 5 feet long, said Mark Swingle, coordinator of the Virginia Marine Science Museum Stranding Program. He figured the youngster had been dead only a few hours before it was found.
Swingle said the dolphin was just a few months old because it had no teeth and still had the pale vertical marks on its sides, called fetal folds, which characterize a young dolphin. Fetal folds, which fade away in time, are reminders that young dolphins are literally folded in half in their mothers' wombs.
``It was very thin looking,'' Swingle said. ``Looking at him, you would think it lost its mother and couldn't feed itself.''
P.S. Robyn Weir called to say a male painted bunting has been frequenting bird feeders in Oceana Gardens. ``Perhaps our most brilliant bird,'' is how the Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds describes the beautiful green, red and purple sparrow-size creature. An infrequent visitor here, the painted bunting is common in the deep South. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
ABOVE: Beekeeper C.E. Harris demonstrates how honeybees - perhaps
30,000 - cluster in a pulsating mass to keep warm in the winter.
RIGHT: A Risso's dolphin is gray with a rounded head, not the
pronounced long beak of a bottlenose dolphin, and grows up to 13
feet long.
by CNB