Picture of the Day for September 24, 2012

The honey bees should be out in full force today collecting pollen for winter storage, once the temperature warms up some more. In cold climates honey bees stop flying when the temperature drops below about 50 °F and crowd into the central area of the hive to form a “winter cluster”. The worker bees huddle around the queen bee at the center of the cluster, shivering in order to keep the center between 81 °F at the start of winter during the broodless period and 93 °F once the queen resumes laying. The worker bees rotate through the cluster from the outside to the inside so that no bee gets too cold. The outside edges of the cluster stay at about 46–48 °F. The colder the weather is outside, the more compact the cluster becomes. During winter, they consume their stored honey to produce body heat. The amount of honey consumed during the winter is a function of winter length and severity but ranges in temperate climates from 30 to 100 lbs and maybe more for here since it can get rather cold in January.

I don’t know how big the hive is that I have in an old oak tree since the bear wasn’t able to rip the tree open but left plenty of claw marks in his attempt. There has been a steady traffic in and out of the tree when I watch but there is one less worker bee since when it was getting a drink of water at the pond, a frog ate it, although it took two tries so the frog might have got stung on the tongue!

Honey Bee at Work

Picture of the Day for September 20, 2012

More than a decade before Laura Ingalls played on the banks of Plum Creek, a girl named Caroline “Caddie” Woodhouse roamed the Wisconsin wilderness. She came of age during the Civil War and loved the outdoors, gathering hazelnuts in the woods, dodging rattlesnakes on the bluff and poling a log raft on the lake. She rather hunt than sew or plow than bake.

She was friends with the local Indians and she often forded the river on tiptoe to watch them make birchbark canoes. When she overheard settlers making plans to attack, the 11-year-old girl got on a horse and rode over at dusk to warn them.

While she had no TV series, her stories relayed by her granddaughter in the 1935 Newbery-winning children’s classic “Caddie Woodlawn,” still fires the imaginations of young readers. Carol Ryrie Brink lived with Caddie from the age of 8 and the real life of her grandmother inspired her to write the book Caddie Woodlawn in 1938 and the sequel book, Magical Melons in 1939.

Caddie Woodhouse’s 1856 home still stands in Caddie Woodlawn Historical Park on Wisconsin 25 which I visited yesterday and looked out the bay windows at the turning leaves. For that time period, the house seemed to be a mansion and not a log house or a dugout. I’m sure the old house holds many stories of Caddie and her six siblings.

Caddie’s Rural Wisconsin House

Picture of the Day for September 18, 2012

Last night there was predicted frost but it didn’t get as cold as last year when I was camping on the North Shore. While at the Gooseberry River, I went out early to get the sunrise picture over Lake Superior and had grabbed a towel to wipe the water off the bench while I waited. But I didn’t have to worry about the rain drops from the overnight sprinkles since they were frozen solid because it was 24 degrees out that morning!

But a few minutes after this shot, the sun made its appearance, creating a beautiful sunrise, melted the frozen water drops and a created a perfect day to explore the waterfalls.

Early Sunrise at the mouth of Gooseberry River

Picture of the Day for September 15, 2012

When I got home this evening, I was tired from the day’s activities, but there was a glow on the colored leaves from the sunset so I grabbed my camera and headed out to the trees. And while when hiking on my trail, I noticed my old oak (which I have taken pictures of before since it looked like a critter coming out of the tree) had grown a beard since the last time I was on the trail.

Bearded Oak Tree