The Farmer And The Tree

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By peace | June 10, 2006

A farmer had a tree on his land that did not yield any sort of fruit whatsoever. Instead, it was a home to the sparrows and the cicadas who chirped and sang.

The farmer, however, thought that the tree was useless and decided he would cut it down.

He grabbed an axe and prepared to start chopping, but the cicadas and the sparrows all began to wail, shouting these words at the man, ”Please do not get rid of our resting place. We promise to sing sweet songs for you, so you’ll be happy.”

The man felt no pity for the creatures and showed them no mercy as he struck the tree three times with the axe’s blade. But no sooner had the man made a crack in the tree when he found there a hive of bees and honey. He took a taste and immediately dropped his axe, vowing to cherish this tree even more than his fruit-bearing trees.

Moral

Always look for new possibilities.

Facts about Honey
Ancient cave drawings show that honey has been used as a food by man for at least 20,000 years. To many people, honey is just a sweet substance collected by bees. Honey is, however, a complex substance that varies appreciably in its composition.

Honey starts out as a very thin, watery sugary fluid, known as nectar. Nectar is found in the nectaries of plants which are usually located in the base if the flowers. Nectar varies considerably in its sugar, protein, mineral and water content from one kind of plant to another.

In a honey bee’s quest for a single load of honey, she may visit anything from 500 to 1100 blossoms of a particular species of plant. In her lifetime the honey bee will fly approximately 800 kilometres and produce just half a teaspoon of honey; it takes approximately 2.5 million kilometres of flying by the bees in a hive to produce 1 litre of honey.

Inside the bee, the nectar is stored in a tiny compartment, known as the honey sac. This sac is like a little plastic bag fitted with a one way valve. Stored enzymes and juices in the sac convert the sucrose (disaccharide) to more simple sugars (mono-saccharides). It is upon this conversion that nectar becomes known as honey, consisting mainly of two simple sugars, dextrose and levulose.

The “unripe honey”, as the honey in the honey bee’s sac is called, is passed by the honey bee to a worker bee at the hive. The “unripe honey” is dried by bees exposing it as a thin film to the warm dry currents in the hive. When no more than 18-20% of water remains, the now “ripened honey” is sealed in a cell with a wax cap; where it is left to mature and finish
its ripening process.

At this stage it can be harvested by the beekeeper or eaten by the bee colony as food.