Shravana’s Death

Sham S. Misri

King Dasharatha was the noble and courageous king. He was a descendant of the Surya dynasty. He ruled over the kingdom of Kosala from the  city of Ajodhya. He had three queens: Kausalya, Sumitra, and Kaikeyi, Dasharatha was blessed with fame, glory, peace, and prosperity. But he had one great sorrow; he did not have any children.

One day, King Dasharatha went hunting in the forest. He and his men roamed the forest when suddenly they heard a gurgling sound in the distance. Thinking it to be a animal drinking water, the king shot his arrow in that direction.

When Dasharatha came to the spot he found a youth lying seriously wounded by the arrow. He was Shravana Kumar, the only son of an old and blind couple. He had come to fetch water to quench the thirst of his parents resting in the forest. Shravana carried his old parents on his shoulders, in a palanquin, where ever he went.

Even while dying, Shravana could only think of his helpless parents. He held Dasaratha's hands and asked him to take the pitcher of water to his parents. Unsuspectingly the old couple drank the water, but an extremely sorrowful Dasharatha could not withhold the truth. He told Shravana's parents how he had unknowingly killed their son.

Shocked by the news, the grieving parents cursed Dasharatha with putrasoka, which meant that he would go through the same agony of child loss.

Years later, this curse led to the exile of Rama, and Dasharatha suffered the pain of separation from his favourite son.

Coyote Burns His Children

Sham S. Misri

One day Coyote meets some deer. It was the mother with her two spotted fauns.

In ancient Roman stories, the faun is a god with man’s upper body and the legs of a goat, and a goat’s horns on its head.

The Coyote said, “What do you do to make your children so pretty?”

Why, that is the way they are born.

No, don’t tell me a lie. Tell me the truth. You must do something to make them spotted like that. 

No, that is the truth. They are always like that when they are young.

But Coyote didn’t believe it.

After a while the deer got tired of his questions. She said, “All right, I tell you. I dig a hole. I put my children in there and tie their arms so they can’t get away. In front of that I make a big fire of cedar brush.”

Coyote said, “See, I knew you did something!” 

Coyote started to run to his home. He was very much excited. He wanted to have his children pretty like this.

He came to his family. He said, you must help me to dig this ground.

They all helped him. But he didn’t tell what he was going to do.

Then he said, every one of you bring some cedar branches now, old ones.

He took the little coyotes and tied their legs. He put them on the other side of the hole. And on this side he built a big fire of the cedar brush. Some of the children began to cry.

Don’t cry, he said, I’m making you pretty. 

He kept making a big fire. When it popped Coyote was delighted, for the deer had said that every time it popped it hit some fur and made a spot.

At first the children cried. After a while they were all dead. Then they started to burn. Their lips were drawn away from their teeth by the heat. When the fire had died out, Coyote saw this. He thought the little ones were smiling.

“Oh, you are laughing because you are pleased at being so pretty,” he said.

He said to the youngest,” Come out. You are so pretty.”

No one moved. So he reached down and took hold of the arm of the youngest.  “Come out,” he said, and he pulled the arm right off the body of his child.

Then he began to pull at the others. They were all dead.

Now he was very angry. He knew that the deer had gone into a thicket of willows. He thought she was still there. So he set fire all around that place.

He watched that place. The willows always make a noise when they burn. He thought the deer was crying.

He said, “You talk now, but you lied before.” 

An old Grandfather and His Little grandson

Sham S. Misri

A grandfather had become very old. He was frail and weak. His legs would not carry him, his eyes could not see, his ears could not hear, and he was toothless. When he ate, bits of food sometimes dropped out of his mouth.

The daughter-in-law got tired of the mess he would make at the table. So, one evening she told her husband, “How long have I to bear this torture of picking up the bits of food that your father leaves on the table here and there?”

Next day his son and his son’s wife no longer allowed him to eat with them at the table. They made him to sit far behind near the stove. The poor grandfather had to eat his meals in a corner near the stove.

One day they gave him his food in a bowl. He tried to move the bowl closer; it fell to the ground and broke. His daughter in law scolded him. She told him that he spoiled everything in the house and broke their dishes.

The next day they gave him tea in a cup. The old grandfather was thinking in the heart of his hearts about how much care he used to take when his son was a child and how much caring he had been. Engrossed in this thought and sipping tea he fumbled with the cup and broke it, making a mess. The daughter-in-law began grumbling about that and then she said that from now on he would get his food in a wooden dish. The old man sighed and said nothing. He was cursing himself and his old age.  

A few days later, the old man’s son and his wife were sitting in their hut. They were resting and watching their little baby playing on the floor. They saw him putting together something out of small pieces of wood. His father asked him, “What are you making dear jolly?”

The little grandson said, “I am making a wooden wash pan. When you and Mamma get old, I’ll feed you out of this wooden dish.”

The young peasant and his wife looked at each other, and tears filled their eyes. The daughter-in-law and son began to cry and held their heads in shame. They were ashamed because they had treated the old grandfather so meanly. From then on they set a place at the table for the old man, and the daughter-in-law no longer grumbled as she had about the messes the old grandfather made. From that day they took better care of him.

The Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)

The Honey Bee

(Apis mellifera)

Sham S. Misri

 

The honey bees are socially organised insects. Colonies of honeybees show the three characteristics of fully social organization:

Individuals of the same species cooperate in caring for the young

There is a reproductive division of labour with more or less sterile individuals, working on behalf of the reproductive.

There is a caste division of into three phenotypes.

There is an overlap of at least two generations in which the offspring contribute to colony labour.

Originally the honeybees’ distribution was Africa, Europe and Asia. However, its current worldwide distribution owes much to the activities of man. Colony sizes can reach tens of thousands and their organization represents the most complex seen in social Insects.

Where are the Honey Bees going?

Honey bees are dying, and we are not sure why? A new report from United States “government says there could be many reasons why bees are disappearing.

Bees have been dying off in droves around the world since the mid-1990s. First in France, then in the U.S. and elsewhere, colonies have been mysteriously collapsing with adult bees disappearing, seemingly abandoning their hives. When this phenomenon hit the U.S. (2006), it was named “Colony Collapse Disorder”. Each year commercial beekeepers have reported annual losses of nearly 32%. Such losses are unique. The honey bees are the most economically important pollinators in the world. According to a recent U.N. report, of the 100 crops that provide 90% of the world's food, over 70 is pollinated by bees. In the U.S. alone, honey bees’ economic contribution is valued at over $15 billion.

Why should we care about bees?

They are important to the food we eat. The helpful insects pollinate many crops. Fewer bees could lead to fewer almonds, apples, blueberries and other crops. Honeybees live in hives in groups called colonies.

Beekeepers started noticing that bees were missing from their colonies in 2006. Since then, thousands of colonies and billions of bees have been lost. In 1947, there were 6 (sis) million honey bee colonies in the United States. Today, there are about 2^1/2 two and a half million.

Scientists say that if honey bees die, the United States could face a “pollination disaster.”

Possible causes

Scientists say that bee problem couold be caused by a mite, or tiny bug. Or diseases could be killing bees. Beekeepers ship colonies to help pollinate crops. The trip may weaken bees. Pesticides may also be to blame. Pesticides are chemicals used to keep insects from harming crops.  

Bees are also dying in Europe. Farmers there will not be allowed to use certain pesticides for two years. The pesticides will still be used in the US.

Will bees bounce back in Europe? If so, we may be closer to understanding how to help our bees.

Honeybees make Beeswax. People use beeswax to make crayons and candles.

The Honey Bee

The bees, wasps and ants are social insects. This means that they tend to live in colonies where all the individuals are of the same family, often the offspring of one mother. In the more highly organized societies there is a division of labour in which individuals carry out particular duties.

The bodies of bees are divided into head, thorax and abdomen, with three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings on the thorax. The fore and hind wings on each side are linked by hooks and grooves so that they move together in flight.

The mouth parts consist of a "tongue" or labium, which can be enclosed near the head by the labial palps and maxillae. Nectar, from the flowers can be drawn up the grooved surface of the labium.

The ovipositor, through which the queen lays her eggs in the wax cell, is modified in the workers to form a sting.

There are three kinds of bee in a colony: in the summer, a few hundred drones or males, one egg-laying female, or queen, and from 20 to 80 thousand sterile females or workers. The mature queen is usually easily recognized by her large abdomen.

The Queen

The queen is diploid. The queen is responsible for the production of all the eggs. The honeybee queen has taken this strategy to extremes and does nothing else other than produce eggs.

A queen bee may live from two to five years and, except for a short period at the end of her life when one of her daughters takes over the colony; she is the only egg-laying female. All the members of the colony whether drones or workers, are her offspring. She spends all her time laying eggs, perhaps up to 1500 a day, each one being placed in a wax cell made by the workers. The queen feeds herself in the hive. The nearest workers turn towards her, lick her body and feed her by a special secretion of their salivary glands, called "royal jelly", on to their proboscis from which the queen can absorb it.

The queen usually mates only once in her life (though second and third mating often happens). The queen stores the sperms received from the drone in a sperm sac in her abdomen. This store of sperms lasts her for the two or more years of egg-laying, a small quantity being released with each fertilized egg laid.

When the store of sperms is used up she may continue to lay eggs but they are all unfertilized and will become drones. By this time one of her daughters has been reared as a queen and is ready to take over the egg-laying. The queen established the colony after a reproductive flight in which she mated with a male bee called a drone. This is the only mating the Queen will perform and she retains the sperm from this mating, fertilising eggs as required.

Life history

Each egg is laid in one of the hexagonal wax cells and hatches into a tiny, white, legless larva. The larva feeds on substances deposited in the cell by the workers; it grows, pupates in the cell, hatches as an adult bee and finally emerges from the cell into the hive. The eggs hatch after three to four days and by nine days are fully grown and ready to pupate. The workers put a capping over the cells at this time. Ten or eleven days later the capping is bitten away and the adult emerges. The times given above vary with changes of temperature and according to whether the bee is becoming a drone, worker or queen.

Drones

Drones are male and haploid. The drones are produced from the unfertilised egg of the queen.  Drones as the name implies, contribute little if anything to the care of the colony.

The drones, who live for about four to five weeks and do not work inside the hive, are fed by the workers or help themselves from the store of pollen and nectar in the combs. Their function is to fertilize a new queen. In the autumn, or when conditions are poor, they are turned out of the hive where, unable to find food for themselves, they soon die.

The Workers

These are female and diploid. The worker is produced by the fertilization of an egg from the Queen and sperm from the earlier drone mating.

Within a single colony there will be thousands of workers. The life span of a worker is about 40 days. There is further differentiation of task for the workers as they nurse and tend the brood of larva during the early part of their life and then change to foraging in the latter period of their 40 days.

The foraging workers are the Bees that we see searching and gather food for the colony.

The workers are female bees whose reproductive organs do not function. They collect food from outside the hive and store it. They make the wax cells and feed the developing larvae.

The workers prepare three kinds of cell: worker cells about 5 mm across, drone cells about 6 mm across, and queen cells quite different from the others. The queen cells are larger and made individually, pointing downwards or bottom of the comb. The relative numbers of these three kinds of cell seem to depend on the time of the year, the temperature, the abundance of food and condition of the colony. Normally, the worker cells predominate.

Eggs are laid by the queen in the brood area. This is where the temperature is about 32° C, kept so by the heat given out by the bees' bodies. The queen moves over the brood area, laying eggs randomly in any of the three types of cell she encounters, by placing her abdomen in the cell and depositing a single egg. The eggs placed in the larger, drone cells, are not fertilized, and this results in the eggs developing into a male bee or drone. In the queen and worker cells, fertilized eggs are laid.

For the first three days after hatching, all the larvae are fed on a protein-rich, milky secretion, called royal jelly, which comes from the salivary glands of workers of a certain age. The grubs in queen cells continue to be fed on royal jelly for the rest of their lives, but those in drone or worker cells are "weaned" onto a mixture of dilute nectar and pollen. If a one-to-three-day old larva is transferred from a worker to a queen cell, it will receive the diet of royal jelly and develop into a queen. Thus, though there is no difference between the eggs and young larvae in queen and worker cells, their different treatment by the workers results in their becoming quite distinct types of bee.

Exactly what aspects of their feeding causes this is not known for certain. It may be the absence of pollen from the queen's diet, the cessation of royal jelly in the worker's diet, the super-abundance of food placed in the queen cells or a vitamin-like chemical fed to the queen larvae in the early stages. After three days, worker grubs cannot be reared as queens, even if they are placed in queen cells and fed on royal jelly.

Drones, then, develop from unfertilized eggs in wide cells, queens and workers from fertilized eggs which are fed differently as larvae.

Life of a queen

When a new queen emerges she is fed by the workers. She bites a hole in any other occupied queen cells that she finds. The workers usually tear down the other queen cells that have been bitten into and destroy the occupants.

For a few days the queen leaves the hive for short flights lasting, a minute to about 15 minutes. During these flights she learns the geography of the district around the hive. On one of these flights she is pursued by drones, but not necessarily from her own hive; in fact, they do not follow her from the hive but are already waiting outside. One of them catches the queen and mates with her, depositing in her vagina sperms which eventually find their way into her sperm sac. She now returns to the hive, and soon after begins to lay eggs.

From glands in her head, the queen produces a mixture of chemicals called pheromones (‘queen substance’). When the workers ‘lick’ her body, the pheromones suppress their fertility. When, at the end of her life, the queen ceases to produce these pheromones, some workers start to lay eggs which, being unfertilized, produce only drones. They do, however, start building new queen cells.

Division of labour

The tasks undertaken by a worker bee depends partly on its age and partly on the immediate needs of the colony. After hatching, she is fed by other workers and spends a good deal of time standing still on the comb. She does, however, clean out cells from which bees have recently hatched by removing the cast larval cuticles. On the fourth day she feeds on honey from the store cells and eats a good deal of pollen. Between the third and fifth day she feeds older larvae by placing nectar, water and pollen in their cells.

The pollen that she eats is rich in protein and helps her salivary, brood food glands to become active. By the fifth day they secrete the brood food or royal jelly which is fed to the younger larvae. After ten or twelve days these glands cease to function effectively but wax glands on the underside of her abdomen begin to secrete wax which the worker uses for comb-building and repair.

While in the hive, the worker collects pollen and nectar from the incoming field bees and stores it in the cells. She also processes the nectar and begins its conversion to honey, and cleans the hive by removing the dead bees from its floor.

After three weeks of hive duties the worker becomes a forager and spends the daylight hours collecting water, nectar, and pollen and carrying it back to the hive. This work she may continue for about three weeks before she dies.

The old bees thus performing "nurse" duties and young bees search for food in wide areas. A few of the young bees do duty as guard bees, protecting the hive from invasion by robber bees.

Food

The worker bees collect nectar from the flowers. The nectar is pumped up and swallowed into the honey sac, a region of the gut. From the honey sac the nectar can be brought back into the mouth. On reaching the hive the nectar is deposited there. The nectar is a watery sugar solution when collected, but it is processed by the house bees to which it is passed. These workers repeatedly swallow it, mix it with enzymes and bring it up from the stomach into the mouth. The enzyme action and the evaporation of water result finally in its conversion to honey. Nectar contains very little protein, and the pollen collected by the bees makes up this deficiency.

Pollen is collected by combing off with the legs the grains which adhere to the bee's body after it has visited a flower. The pollen and nectar paste is pushed into the pollen basket on the tibia, where it is retained by the fringe of setae. All this may be done while the bee hovers in the air or while hanging from the flower. The forager returns to the hive with the two packs of pollen and pushes them off into an empty cell or into one with some pollen already in it.

The younger house bees then break up the pollen masses and pack them down into the cell. When the cell is full it may be covered with a little nectar and sealed over. Both pollen and honey sealed in the store cells are eaten by the bees in the winter months when no other food is available. Water is collected and used to dilute the nectar with which the larvae are fed.

Swarming

When the size of the colony reaches a certain stage and the nectar flow is at its greatest, the queen and a great many workers, leave the hive in a swarm. The swarm comes to rest in a great cluster on a tree branch or similar situation. Scout bees, who may have left the hive some days before, seek out a suitable situation for a new nest and return to the swarm and communicate this information, whereupon the whole swarm moves off to the new site. In the old hive, one of the new queens hatches out, mates, and takes over the colony that is left.

Senses and communication

As socially organised colonies become more complex the ‘power’, the control method shifts form aggressive queen behaviour to the pheromone mediated behaviour typical of honeybee queens. Reproductive control in honeybees is based on inhibitory pheromones exchanged with and between the workers and the developing larvae. 9-keto-deconoic acid is the main chemical pheromone ‘queen substance’ used to both attract males and also to inhibit the building of royal cells, (Queen Larvae).

The senses of touch and smell, particularly through the antennae, are very important to bees in finding sources of food, in identifying members of their own colony, and sometimes in finding their way home. Their compound eyes are sensitive to certain groups of colours. In the darkness of the hive they must depend on touch and smell to carry out their activities. They find their way to and from the hive by learning the landmarks in the vicinity and steering by the position of the sun.

A bee which has found a rich source of food will return to the hive and execute a dance on the surface of the comb. It takes the form of a figure eight with a straight section in the middle. The length of the straight section is proportional to the distance of the flowers from the hive, and the angle it makes with the vertical represents the angle between the position of the sun, the hive and the source of food.

Honeybees ‘waggle’ dance.

Honeybees use a combination of communication forms. There is chemical exchange of pheromones but they also use touch and vibration as seen in the famous ‘waggle’ dance. In addition, the dancer may make waggling movements of her body on the straight section, which indicates distance. Some of the foraging bees in the hive follow the dance, touching the dancer with their antennae. From time to time the dancer stops and, regurgitating a little of the nectar she has collected from the flowers, she feeds the attentive workers. The dance pattern, the taste of the nectar and sometimes the scent of the flowers on the dancer's body enable the workers to find the feeding ground from which the dancer has just returned.

Bee-keeping

Although humans cannot tame the honey bee they can exploit its activities. A hive is provided which can be opened and examined without unduly disturbing the colony. It is fitted with vertical wooden frames in which the bees can build their combs. The frames have, wired into their centre, a sheet of wax which is indented with a hexagonal pattern so that the workers build their combs within the confines of the frame, and each comb can then be removed separately. By means of a grid, through which the workers but not the queen can pass, the queen is kept in the lower section of the hive. As a result, the combs in the upper sections will contain no grubs but only pollen and nectar. It is from these "supers" that the honey is eventually removed by the bee-keeper. In the autumn and spring the bees are given sugar solution to compensate them for the honey taken from their winter store.

In addition to their value as honey producers, the part played by bees in pollination is very important. In apple orchards and clover fields, for example, the yields have been greatly increased by keeping a hive of bees in the locality. Efficient pollination leads to complete fertilization of all the ovules in an ovary, which subsequently develops into a perfect fruit. There are firms which hire out hives of bees to farmers and fruit growers during the flowering period of their crops.

Bees' Sugar is Unique

While the bees play a critical role as pollinators for many agricultural crops in maintaining a balanced eco-system, they also have one very important work - yielding a sweet sticky liquid that man can eat for health. The healthful substances in the bee food may be minute in quantity, but when consumed regularly will bring about a powerful accumulative effect in health.

The healing benefits of the golden liquid, how it has cured so many ailment including cough, sinus, eczema, infections, arthritis, pains, burns, cuts, and even brought new precious understanding to those who are obese, trying to lose pounds, have high blood pressure, cholesterol issues and diabetes. Honey is considered superior to all other forms of sugar or sweetener. Some of its health benefits are.

1. Honey is nature's energy booster

2. Honey is a great immunity system builder

3. Honey is a natural remedy for many ailments

Honey is a natural sweetener. It contains 22 amino acids and a variety of minerals essential for its metabolism and hence is helpful in preventing obesity. It is believed that drinking lemon juice with a little honey the first thing in the morning is an effective anti cellulite treatment as it helps to increase body metabolism. A person who is determined to shed weight and speed up sluggish metabolism may try honey and lemon diet tip.

Another very popular recipe associated with honey and weight loss is a drink that uses honey and cinnamon as ingredients. Many people have found this remedy very effective in losing weight. The steps are easy: Dissolve half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder (or ground cinnamon) in a cup of boiling water. Stir the mixture and cover for half an hour. Filter away any big particles and add a teaspoon of honey. Take it in the morning with an empty stomach about half an hour before breakfast.

For people who tend to overeat or feel discomfort in the stomach after meals, honey can be taken for better digestion.

The latest theory based on the hibernation diet also builds a link between fructose-rich honey and weight loss. It suggests taking a generous spoonful or two of honey at night, either as a warm drink or straight from the jar, and promises to help us sleep and lose weight at the same time by fuelling the liver, speeding up fat-burning metabolism and easing stress hormones.

Did you know?

Worker honey bees sting only once, then die.

A honeybee colony can have between 20,000 and 80, 000 bees

Only female bees have a stinger.