The grandchildren were coming over for the summer holidays. Stocking of the kitchen cupboard, reading and art materials and a pre-paid tours to places of their interest have had a healthy bite on our savings. Internal rearrangements were planned and completed to give them the feel @ home atmosphere with space, freedom and privacy. We started looking at the circled date on the calendar, for their arrival and maybe, they were counting the days to come over. At this time, the clock that counts ‘ageing’ mercifully stops to give the grandparents a chance to have fun!
A year of school, off-school activities seem to have somewhat smoothened the edges off their individual and collective mischievousness. Like the wind reversing directions, now it was the turn of the parents shooting out communications – ask them to do this, help them to do that and make them behave. I happily ignored them all. I had my own plans to give them time to decompress. During my summer holidays there were no coaching classes and curfews. The SOP was giving attendance for lunch and be back for dinner and night halt. This prompted me to ask, “If not now, when they will enjoy their childhood?”
Last year they had clandestinely visited the corner fast-food joint. This time, right royally, I decided to treat them with ice-creams, against the well-meant warnings and admonishments of their grandmother. Having said that, she always waited with glasses of hot water, as the troupe returned after their battle with scoops of ice-cream!
The granddaughter wanted me to read the book on insects along with her. The grandson 1, had a book and wanted to share his take on war machines. Not to be left behind, grandson 2, chose marine life and expected me to accompany him for a scuba dive, into their world, with or without the gear! I was at my wits’ end to accommodate them all. To make the matter worse, a bunker buster dropped from the kitchen came streaking down targeting me – “Children, don’t waste your breath teaching that old and rusted brain. It will go bonkers!” To understand my fury and discomfort, you have to feel the sting of an entire colony of honeybees.
The first session in the arboretum:
To deal with the insect, war machines and the marine life in one go, I decided a field trip to a nearby arboretum - a specialised botanical garden, might help me. My own secret place! For the children, this arboretum would be a forest of change, living in a mega concrete jungle. They celebrated it by running wild, chasing butterflies, echoing the bird calls and attempted to snare a gadfly or two- a whale of a time amidst the trails, fallen leaves, twigs and flowers in bloom.
Suddenly, my granddaughter shouted, “Look there! A big beehive, there on that tree!” Excitement and curiosity racing each other, she tugged at my sleeves relentlessly pointing out the honeycomb. To tease her a little I kept on asking, “where, I am not able to see anything there.” With curled lips and a pout on the face, she simply said, “If you want to see you will see.
Seizing the opportunity I asked, “Are you ready to hear about the honeybees? Write down your questions and basing on them I will answer them in a sequence to present a complete picture.” My grandsons, though disappointed, reluctantly agreed to defer discussions on war machines and marine creatures to a later date and would hear the hum of the beehive, now!
Patting their shoulders, I said, “Wait awhile, your interests will also be addressed. Now, listen to the hum of honeybees! Have you ever wondered how these tiny honeybees, each weighing just 100-160mg with a micro brain weighing less than 2mg, operate on a super software that runs without a glitch, generation after generation? A queen bee 190-220mg, lays up to 2000 eggs at a time. Fertilized eggs become female worker bees and new queen bee. of Unfertilized eggs, up to 20%, produce male bees or drones. Using pheromones “scent” she controls the worker bees in activities including rearing of limited new queens. Drones weigh 170-300mg, avails free boarding & lodging to partner with the queen bee to produce the next generation bees, as needed.
Honeybee’s eyes have thousands of light-collecting units called ommatidia. Each ommatidia is an individual mini camera with cornea, lens, and photoreceptor cells. They create a 360° panoramic view of its surroundings to detect rapid movement, colour and UV light. Compared to human vision, this mosaic image is poor in resolution and sharpness. With a demonstration, I wanted to make the children to understand this point. Turning on the panoramic mode, I gave them my cell phone to shoot videos while completing a full circle After initial hiccups, they got the videos and after viewing them said, “It is not picture perfect, but we get your point.
Want to know, why do they sting? They don’t unless you disturb them. You see that beehive; it is well above the reach of us. They are careful to avoid human interference. In a chorus, they said, “Grandpa, give us a break.” I understood and herded them towards the restraint for the much need fill for them and a respite for my voice box. Refreshed, they wanted me to continue.
“It is hard to imagine what sort of science and engineering are involved in the construction of the comb and production of honey. The bees have wisely chosen the hexagonal honeycomb structure. The reasons are the hexagonal hollow cells offer living space, distribute loads, effectively manage heat, don’t shear or buckle easily. This pattern covers maximum area with minimum of material usage to build an exceptionally lightweight, load-bearing structure with high energy absorption and stiffness. Turning to ‘war machines” enthusiastic grandson, I pointed it out that we have adopted these fundamentals in aerospace applications, to dissipate destructive energy in structures built for impact resistance and seismic protection.
My granddaughter asked, “How do they form the hexagon cells!” I am about to come there next. Do you remember what I said in the beginning about science and engineering? The bees construct array of tubes, stacked one over the other and not hexagonal tubes. The worker bees sit inside the tubes and use an ingenious trick to form hexagonal cells - body heat to soften the mixed wax and adhesive. Fluid dynamics does the rest!
Like in our world, science glues the engineered materials in the honeycomb also. Taking their confused look as a green signal, I started explaining the chemical process involved in manufacturing the materials and the geometrical trick combined with physics used to fabricate the hexagonal cells to build the comb. I expected a barrage of question but heard only the rustling of leaves. The grandchildren have gone in to deep trance to digest the chemistry, physics and geometry as probably it all reminded them of some coaching classes!
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