Kamahl - Why are people so unkind?

I have a rant and a rave on here from time to time and I've always considered myself fairly cynical, but bloody hell - some of the people around here (the suburb in which I live) make me feel like Mr Positive.

Just lately I have had the misfortune to have close dealings with a couple of locals who seem to spend all their time 'dissing' everyone else, and anything new which may come up has some reason why it can't be done, rather than embracing change which is generally for the better - these people want everything to be the same as it's always been.

These are the same people that you may know - their sentences usually start with something like "I've lived here for 20 years and...." or "in 20 years I've never seen (insert subject here)"

The inference is that having lived locally for a number of years makes you more or less entitled to an opinion or right to have your say - whereas someone who hasn't lived locally for so long should automatically have less of a say, or no say at all.

These are also the loudest shouting people in the neighbourhood who consider that everyone shares their opinions (or should share their opinions) and they therefore are the hard done by majority (in their view).

So - to the header - Kamahls famous quote "Why are people so unkind?"

Going by the people I am referring to here it's down to:

a) stupidity (in more than one case) with  a blinkered narrow view, and
b) pure nastiness because setting people against each other, spreading rumours and gossip around the neighbourhood, and creating an unpleasant environment to destroy good works where others have worked hard to build good relationships and a strong community must help their self esteem in some way.

Go figure, because I can't.

I have taken steps to not engage with these people any more, and it seems to have a good effect on me, as I feel a little happier in myself, but it's sad that a community can be ruined by a few toxic and unpleasant people.

Shame.

Bees, and the birds (but not really birds)

My fascination with bees began many years ago. I have always had an interest in self sufficiency since watching episodes of 'The Good Life' back in the UK as a kid, I don't know why the comedic lives of Tom and Barbara Good resonated so much with the young Maximus, but my Mum spent a lot of time in the garden, growing vegetables and flowers and teaching me the ways of the home farmer. Flowers attract bees and even as a young boy I was aware that bees were the friend of mankind and spent hours watching them forage in and around our garden, improving our fruit and vegetable yields, whilst perpetuating their own species.



Later in life I discovered the books of Conan Doyle and read about the life and times of Sherlock Holmes. Apparently it isn't common knowledge that this fictional character took up beekeeping upon retirement. Another resonance in my life, so I think I've always been destined to spend at least some of my time looking after bees - my style of beekeeping is to really let them get on with it and provide them with a nice pest and disease free environment, something that is much easier in this part of Australia than many other parts of the world. We are yet to suffer many of the problems of the rest of the world, such as colony collapse disorder, or the curse of the Varroa mite, which sadly many believe to only be a matter of time.



I spend a lot of my working day on the road, and during winter in Australia many of the normal flying insects which buzz around in summer are hibernating or taking it easy in some other form, so it makes bee spotting very easy. When you have an interest in something it seems to be on your mind a lot and I started to notice bees flying around whenever I was stopped at traffic lights. Bees seem to like to rest on white vehicles too, though I've always been a little concerned when the lights turn green, traffic moves off, and a bee starts to unwittingly hitch a ride. The disaster of a quick rest turning in to a long or possibly unnavigable flight back to the home hive, loss and maybe even death..... dramatic stuff.


So back to the point, as I see so many bees around traffic light junctions, does it mean that bees navigate by road? Everything I have read on the subject tells us how bees use the sun to navigate, and once a food source has been found the bee dances to tell the other bees in the hive where to find the good stuff. This is perfectly acceptable to me. However, as bees are apparently able to use landmarks to know where they live, why shouldn't they also use landmarks to navigate. We can see this in the way that bees in a newly established (either moved or installed) hive will have a navigational expedition on their first morning, rising up into the air to get their bearings and learn their new surroundings. This also goes on with the young worker bees as they grow. The toilet flight as I call it that my girls have in the afternoon (depending upon the season the time during the day of the toilet flight varies) also appears to be an opportunity for the young ladies to rise up and take stock of their surroundings until they are mature enough to go out into the wide world to forage and bring back food for the rest of the hive.

There often seem to be so many bees around road areas, traffic lights and crossroads, and yet if I go on foot around the local area, away from roads and built up areas, I don't see bees taking a regular 'flight path' being used apart from in the near vicinity of any of the wild colonies that I know exist.
It's a weird phenomenon which a few other beekeepers I have discussed it with have now started to notice. If bees use roads to navigate is open to conjecture, but I think it might make sense as roads once built don't very often move so supply a regular non moving landmark.

Bee awareness is massively magnified once you start keeping bees, and whenever I'm out walking the dogs or whatever, its interesting to watch bees on local flora whenever there is a honey flow on. Bushes and trees, literally 'abuzz' with bees bring a smile to my face, as it does when I see a bee alight gently on a car stopped at traffic lights, or one flying along above the traffic in the haphazard way that they do when on a mission either back to the hive, or out to forage. It certainly seems to disprove the phrase 'bee line' as bees in flight often fly along constantly adjusting their course rather than in a direct straight line.

I guess the question left at the end of all of this should then be, do bees stop at red traffic lights?

Volunteering - Why bother?

Sometimes, something really makes you want to spit. Or swear. Or kick the dog. Not that little Fido has done anything worthy of being on the receiving end of a toe punt, it's just an expression.

Volunteering in the community is a very nice way of helping others, and it has its own rewards - not in any monetary sense but in that warm and fuzzy feeling that you get when you know a job has been well done, or you helped an old lady across the road. You get the picture. Altruistic pleasure. It's a good thing.

I love to see those TV programmes where you have a whole community coming together and planting vegetables on verges outside houses for communal consumption, or there is a working bee to tidy someones garden - you know the kind of thing

Our state in Australia has the oddest phenomenon. Ambulance Attendants (we'll call them attendants for want of a better name - could be driver, medical assistant or whatever) and Firemen are often but not always unpaid volunteers. In a country where we have a relatively small population and seem to pay an inordinate amount of taxes it seems surprising that such important professions - for they are really professions in all meanings of the term - are filled by unpaid volunteers. For those that want to do it and get their rewards from participation and job well done - I applaude your efforts, but I do find it a little strange that in a so called civilised country we rely on the kindness of those donating their time to get such jobs done - and lets not quibble that in the main either position might not provide the best of times for anyone willing to risk their life and possibly mental wellbeing to attend a call out. PTSD could well be a factor at some point during the life of an unpaid volunteer, as it could with  a paid counterpart, but how is this possibility dealt with in either case?

I heard recently that cancers 'caused by' or due to factors experienced by paid fire service employees could be treated freely under a workers compensation agreement negotiated in the pay conditions of an employee. Volunteers were not eligible under the same agreement. What? Yes - CFS and MFS fight the same fires and are exposed to  the same conditions - one is a paid profession the other a volunteer unit, yet one gets their compensation, the other doesn't. Somehow this shouldn't be allowed. In Tasmania, there is no such demarcation, and all firefighters are eligible. Paid firefighters in Tasmania make up just 6% of the entire firefighting force. I suspect the numbers are similar in other parts of the country.

And so to volunteer fatigue -

As there is no cash payment for volunteering, and yet much of our society seems to rely on people doing things out of the goodness of their hearts, one couldn't possibly expect too much from a volunteering peer. Having been a member of a couple of volunteer organisation committees it's never easy to encourage new volunteers and a well meaning group can often lose focus and the volunteers lose interest and drift away. Bullying doesn't work - I have seen other community organisations run like a finely tuned engine where those in command run rough shod over their minions - but not for long, as people will soon tire of working hard for someone else to take the credit.

In a society where we are taught that everyone has an 'angle' and no one does anything for nothing without some kind of payment - in kind or otherwise - it is increasingly difficult to get people off their bums and out of doors to do something to help their fellow man.

Apathy seems to be on the increase and although many people want the government, local council or whomever to sort out their problems, it's just "not their job", and community then seems to suffer..

I recently organised a presentation to our community association from the grafitti and crime prevention people at our local council. From a comittee of 10 people in a community of 450 houses we had 5 people turn out. The event had been organised after quite a large amount of tagging/grafitti had been done locally, and a couple of residents were keen to find out what could be done (by the council) to fix their problem, so we publicised it locally, and it was a really interesting presentation. Regrettably hardly anyone attended. The rest were all probably at home watching 'the voice' or 'masterchef'. Exciting stuff.......

So what's the point of having a community association and trying to get people to volunteer if they aren't interested in the community, their neighbours or keeping the place a nice place to live? Why should we bother to try and set a good example to our youth and instill some good core values?

One day you might need to use the emergency services and if there's no one volunteering to do the dirty jobs, you might just be stuck on the road in a vehicle accident, whilst others rubberneck past wondering whose job it is to fix someone elses problem.