Zen Colouring Contest #32
Hello Steemian friends , here’s my entry for this weeks ”ZEN COLOURING CONTEST #32.”
I loved the stencil design for this weeks contest, partly because my husband and I are retired beekeepers. We love these amazing little gifts from God. Without the bee, our planet and all life on it would be in grave danger. This large bee, I believe, is a Queen Bee. The Queen is long, thin, and much bigger than the worker bee, who are always female. These smaller bees are definitely worker bees. The male bees, which are called drones, are also much bigger than the worker bees, but they are a little wider, and slightly smaller than the Queen. The males do not work, their purpose is for reproduction only. Bees are amazing to take care of, to study, and to understand. There are many things to a learn about taking care of a bee hive, and the bees themselves. One of our hives produced 200lbs. Of honey over the summer, they become dormant over the winter here in Iowa. And the hives have to be properly taken care of and wrapped for insulation, or the bees might freeze and die.
Thank you @magiccleatus for providing and hosting this delightful contest, and thank all of you who continue to support my efforts. God bless you all ❣️
@lildebbiecakes
I like your version @lildebbicakes! So prettyY!
I love the shading of the Bee's, the strip of light over the top and the shadow underneath create a lot of depth making them look 3D. I really like that you used a small scale of the background for their eyes, its a really effective and realistic look. I also like the different tones of orange within the smaller honeycomb sections, it looks so real to life. I love that you wrote about being a beekeeper and added some bee facts too!
Thanks for supporting the #zencolouringcontest with your entry!
Please name your suggestion for next week's featured colour!
Thank you for your awesome comments dear, I always enjoy what you say about our work. It's pretty cool that you noticed that I put the background texture in the bees eyes to. The color that I will pick is turquoise ❣️
And she is back with a bang!
You always amaze me with your colorful piece of art.
#Bravo!
Hi friend, your always say the sweetest things, I missed you and your magnificent art, thank you ❣️
Thank you so much!
Great job, Friend! the game of lights and shadows is great!
You are so kind, I appreciate your support my friend ❣️
I like this bees so much :D good luck my friend!!!
Thank you @itachi24j ❣️
Beautifully done as always @lildebbiecakes, I love it! Thank you for giving us some insight into your life, always interesting to read. My great grandfather was also a beekeeper. It seems you've all shared a delicate, rewarding and helpful job. Thank you for looking after our precious bees :)
Hi friend! So glad you stopped by, thank you so much. Where there is bees, there are always great healthy gardens, you should really look into bee keeping dear. We had a couple of beehives right here in town. And our apple tree really did incredibly well when we had our bees. And my flower gardens just flourished. You do have to be educated about taking care of your hive, but you could do that on line, It's a great way to earn extra money as well, if you sell it. I still have my hive boxes out in my back yard, in case some wild bees want to inhabit them, we have had that happen a few times. Anything to help keep the population going. We quit beekeeping because we had several hives that all the bees died off one very cold winter, so sad we loved our bees. We also had a couple of friends who had hives that died off two, so we decided to stop. We still have jars of honey in the basement, it keeps forever. Did you know that they had found a jar of honey in a ancient Egyptian tomb that was still edible? Isn't that amazing? Blessings ❣️
There are no shortage of bees around me at the moment - the farmer next door brought in a long row of bee boxes earlier this week to pollinate his olive trees, he also brings them in around February time to pollinate the almond trees. My garden is full of happy bees now which is great to see.
That is sad you had hives die but you obviously did everything you could to keep them happy and thriving. These cold winters can really creep up!
I might look into bee keeping though it does look a bit daunting! I would definitely have to do plenty of research before diving in. That's crazy that ancient Egyptian honey was found, I bet that was delicious! Untainted by the pollutants of the modern world.
I hope you are having a lovely day :)
That's wonderful that a farmer brought in bees to pollinate his almond trees. We have a friend that has many hives that he will transport out on a truck to farmers who want their trees pollinated. You can make good money doing that. If you have any small children, and you have a baby pool, be careful, because bees will only drink fresh water, and they will hang around baby pools, dog or cat water bowls, and bird baths. They can be especially thick around the area if the hives are close by. Blessings friend❣️
Yes indeed, the bees can be thick around my garden as their hives are pretty closeby, luckily I have an enclosed pool for such reason and the animals' water bowls live indoors for the time being! When our pool was open air the poor bees would get in and drown :(
1st place, Congratulations!!
Your prize has been transferred, Please comment a link on the 'Winners Showcase' of the post you would like to receive the upvote prize for!
Your cute little characters never cease to delight me, thank you!