So a while back I heard this bit on NPR about female carpenter bees and their willingness to engage in deception and I couldn't help it - it stuck with me and I just had to write about it. Those crazy bees, ya' know .

Carpenter Bees: Sneaky

Orlove says that a female carpenter bee will sometimes disguise herself as a male.

"The male has big yellow spot in the middle of his forehead that distinguishes him from the female who has a black face. And orioles and crows learn very quickly that they can eat these yellow faced bees without getting stung, because the male lacks a stinging apparatus."

Sometimes when a male bee that typically guards the nest is away, a female bee may disguise herself and take up his position.

"A female will go out and get yellow pollen on her face, so she looks remarkably male-like, and then hover like a territorial male."

And then, any bird that approaches the nest may get a nasty surprise, because the female carpenter bee can sting.

"The only reason that I can think this happens is to train the birds not to go after the males."

You can read it all for yourself right here: [link]

If you want to checkout a sweeeeeet image of an oriole and a bee (honey though, not carpenter) peep this: [link]

6/10 Overflowing with dissatisfaction, I did a significant reshuffle of the first five stanzas.

Here's what used to be:

The drone’s way is not such a failure
that I must lift myself
yellow-masked into his life;

I would not so easily leave my own
to others. And it’s not for fear
that crows and orioles might take us

all; that they will
set upon us in terrible clouds,
ripping into our nest until

brood and queen lay ruined –
all because the drones’ defense
of our hive is unbarbed.

It’s not that I’m quick
to throw off the last of my time
when still some gathering is left

for me. It’s not any of that.
Neither deception nor insight,
there is only this:

that under the sky and its fever
(and what is there but sky
and fever for these few...

Hmmmmm...

Dave Prisk