For the last couple of years, I have had the good fortune to live in a quiet apartment complex in the suburbs of Chennai. The place is located close to a serene and beautiful lake and nature’s beauty abounds all around.
This complex is home to more than three hundred families and I and my family consider ourselves blessed to have wonderful neighbours for company. We have developed warm bonds of friendship with many of them. From my top-floor residence, I get a blissful view of the lake and its surroundings. Plentiful water in the lake and natural habitat all around ensures a flourishing and vibrant community of a myriad variety of birds and aquatic life. It is a treat for the soul to watch the best of nature from my balcony.
Apartment life had been business as usual with a predictable routine. I too had become engrossed in pursuing daily professional commitments, evening walks, occasional sporting forays, and relaxed get-togethers with friends during the weekends.
This was set to change profoundly, with the advent of a new neighbour amidst us. A few days back, I heard some continuous buzzing and rhythmic sounds, emanating from just outside our kitchen window. Careful observation revealed that the source of this sound was a swarm of Honey bees. They had identified a vantage ledge just above the window and had started to build a house for themselves. Abundant flora and bountiful nature had attracted them to make this place their home.
However, this intrusion by the new neighbour alarmed me for obvious reasons and I tried to think of suitable solutions to shoo them away. I also brought this development to the attention of our apartment care team, who in turn decided to refer this matter to a Pest Control company.
While all these deliberations were going on, the activity outside my kitchen window was frantic. Swarms of bees were busy all day expanding their hive. I too ended up spending more and more time watching them at work. The more I watched, the more my trepidation started to give way to fascination.
Our relationship gradually started to evolve and I made a point to come and greet them in the morning. I can swear that after a few days, they could sense my presence and greeted me back in return. The same routine followed in the evening after returning from work. From the day, they had commenced constructing their hive, I observed, that by now, the bees had started to feel secure in their new dwelling and had settled down into a comfortable routine, as we all had in our lives.
I too started to hope, that our relationship can reach a stage, where we can start to barter stuff amongst ourselves, as we do potluck meals with friends. Perhaps, providing them access to my balcony garden can be an offer from my side, while they put some of their honey on the table.
Meanwhile, the hive has taken shape nicely. My my! what an engineering marvel is a bee hive!! Awesome utilization of space by linking together a large number of hexagonal cells. Only seeing is believing and my kitchen window provided me with a vantage view to observe this marvel in making. I wonder which engineering college taught them these skills? Builders and architects can take a cue from these engineers, who have been trained by nature.
My fascination led me to carry out more research about various aspects of bees. I realised that they are highly social beings and, in my understanding, far more evolved than us humans. You would be surprised to know that; Honey bees have been around for more than 14 million years.
Their social skills are unbeatable. This gets obvious when you watch thousands of bees milling around each other in a small hive. Now compare this with us, Humans. Give us a large mansion or a villa, with a lot of private spaces for each individual and we would still find plenty of reasons to sulk and not to talk to each other.
In a typical bee hive, bees are classified as workers, drones, and a “Queen”. Though I could not get to see the Queen, I think that now I can identify the Workers and Drones.
Worker bees are the smallest in size and they get to do the grunt work of building and maintaining the hive. They are the ones who collect nectar from flowers and bring this to the hive. There are thousands of them in a colony.
Drones are a few hundred in numbers but they are the real Casanova’s. Their task is to mate with the Queen bee. Other than that, they have nothing much to do. You can identify them with the swag with which they carry themselves.
Above all, there is one and only one “Queen Bee”. She holds the colony together and all hive activity centres around her. She can lay up to 1500 eggs daily.
So, that was a small introduction to my new neighbours. Having known them now for some days, I can state with certainty, that it is not appropriate to classify them as pests. They have been around much earlier than us lesser beings. So, the pertinent question arises, who is the pest here?
There is now a discussion going on in our community on how to deal with this hive. Leave it as it is or have it removed. There are divergent views on this subject and also some genuine concerns from a few residents on the safety of children.
I am hoping to invite fellow residents to visit and get acquainted with my new neighbours. With that, hopefully, we can all take an informed view and their perception can change.
Meanwhile, my busy bees are keeping me busy trying to understand their antics.
Cheers for now!!