If the cosmos is out summer is coming to and end. It’s been a strange summer; very patchy rainfall though the overall quantity was about normal. The south of the country had significant flooding at the beginning of February but it’s all very dry now just when the maize and soya crops need moisture to fill the cobs and pods. So I guess we will be begging for food from the WFP and others.
Well, the cosmos is pretty enough.
I caught this bee and caterpillar sharing a flower.
A bee on diet?
This is not the first time I have seen bees attracted to diet Coke (and its variants). It poses an interesting question; do bees find the same substances sweet that we do? Obviously sucrose is attractive to them and one just has to leave the honey jar open to find out that if there’s a short cut to collecting honey they will take it. But synthetic sweeteners? Do they have the same taste receptors that we do? Or maybe they are smelling the sweetener in this Coke Zero. No it was not the moisture on the outside as I watched this bee go inside the can. I have no idea whether it actually drank the Coke, anyway, the can was empty.
Oh, and I’m open to negotiation should Coca-Cola decide to use this photo for advertising purposes.
Photos taken on some everlasting flowers (Helichrysum) by my drive. The bee in the first photo was not welcomed by the beetle!
Not a happy bee
There are hundreds of little balls of honey covering this bee on the windowsill of my lounge this morning. It must have got confused in the night and fallen or flown down the chimney where there is a hive and somehow got covered in honey. Despite all the energy it is carrying in the honey it will likely die – it was certainly very subdued when I took this photo. Hmm, death by honey is not necessarily a nice way to go!
Zimbabwe Absurdity 