nest-building

I got up early enough this morning to take my coffee outside before Morning Prayer.  Something landed in my hair and I got it out and looked up to see if I'd just walked into a spiderweb (and were there any more spiders?).   I didn't see any.  What I did see was this most curious nest or hive or whatever the proper name is for it.  Wasps? I thought.  No, they're too tiny to be wasps.  Not bees. Termites? I don't think so. Hmmm...  So of course I had to take a picture.  It didn't come out well, but it was time to go in, and I thought maybe I'd take a clearer one later. 

nest of something...

As I was wondering about it, I started thinking about the craft involved in making such a nest. How do they make it so perfectly round?  It really is a thing of beauty in its own way.  Why is it horizontal when most wasp nests and the like are vertical, such as the one in the tree in our yard? That one isn't perfectly symmetrical.  And the bees, ever practical, have built theirs in the hollow of a tree in another corner of the yard.  Why choose this location?  What is it about this place which makes it attractive to these insects?  I'd rather be in a tree, myself.  But then, I'm not a six-legged critter, so I can't expect to understand with human common sense.    I think I'll have to look it up at some point.

wasp nest in our tree

Isn't it amazing the way God creates us all with a different set of skills, with different needs for living, with a different eye for beauty?  He gives those insects the skill to build something more beautiful and more perfectly round than most of us could do without a potter's wheel (and some of us aren't much good with those, either! Just ask my former student Emily, who once tried to teach some of us.) And we have the brains? But there are things we can do with exactly what we are given, and God knows what they are. 


trying to smoke out the bees to get their honey

 One of the sisters tells me that these little insects, though tiny, really are wasps, and they have a pretty mean sting, so I guess I won't be going outside to investigate further.  They won't be there much longer - the man who was trying to smoke out the bees in the photo above will be dispatched to remove the nest from above the door.  I trust we have wasp spray and I guess he knows how to do so without being stung in the process. 

They'll find a new place to call home, and they'll rebuild.

Lots to learn from these tiny creatures.  Worth a meditation in and of itself.