Back In Minnesota

We are in Minnesota again! Finally! I am currently at my grandma's house. We have been visiting all of our friends. I got to see Isabelle Castaneda, Abbi Wood, Owen Hogan, Devan Ballantine, Emily Eagen and Allison Eagen. I got to see a lot of my friends at Jessica Ballantine's bonfire party (It was too wet for an actual bonfire).

We went to a ball game with my mom's cousin in the Twins Stadium. But it was so cold we had to go into the Metropolitan club. That's for season ticket holders only!  So it was pretty cool.

We went to a Greek Restaurant called the Mediterranean Cruise Cafe with my Aunt Beth and Uncle Peter that same morning.

My friends were the same to how they always were. They told me about school, plans, and stuff about their lives. I just really enjoyed seeing them, and I will get to see some more soon.

I am at my grandma and grandpa's house right now and it's great to see them again! I missed them so much! We got to see their dog, Missy, again. Missy loses a ball every day! It was also great to see their 4 cats, Sassy, Leo, Twig, and Lizzy!

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, stay tuned for more blogs by Erin!

Bees In Need!

Bees are very useful for many things. They are most known for being helpful. They collect nectar from flowers and turn it into honey. Not only is that helpful to the plant, but it is a food for many animals, such as bears and humans. And the pollen from the plant is used to feed larvae (bee eggs).

Bees can come in all sorts of sizes from the tiny stingless bee who's workers are less than 2 millimeters long to the Megachile pluto, the biggest bee of the leafcutter bee, who's females can be up to 39 millimeters long! The most common bees in the Northern Hemisphere are the Halictidae, or the sweat bees. They are commonly mistaken for wasps or flies.

Bees have a complicated social structure. Bees have different ways to communicate. Honey bees do the “waggle dance talk.” It is used to tell worker bees where food is. The location can be up to 500 ft away! The bee jumps and wiggles on its sisters to get everyone's attention. It then buzzes its wings and wiggles its abdomen vigorously. Here's a video link.

Bees are sadly dying out mostly because of CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder. No one knows quite what it is, if it's disease, mites, neonicotinoid pesticide, or fungal infections. None of these could be deadly by themselves, but combined bees will die out. We want to be part of the solution, not the problem.

One of my ideas to help them is to make pesticide specifically for certain types of bugs, as not to attract bees. Another idea is that you could plant flowers in your yard. Don't use pesticide to kill weeds or pests in your garden: You could be killing a hive of bees.

 Bees are unique creatures, helping many today. I think that we need bees in this world, and I hope that we can help them thrive. I hope you learned something today. I hope you enjoyed this blog! Stay tuned for more blogs by Erin!