Safe when you see the Lion's Tooth

Ever wonder why the small yellow "weeds", actually a wildflower, are called dandelions? Apparently the word is French, dent-de-lion meaning lion's tooth. This doesn't refer to the flower, but rather to the leaves. If you look at the leaves of the dandelion one can see the saber tooth shape of a lion's tooth. So, I've heard that beekeepers need no longer worry about their bees starving once they see dandelion's blooming. Dandelions have been blooming for a couple weeks here now, thanks to the uncharacteristically warm weeks in March (in the 80s). Things have cooled down quite a bit, recently though. Apparently dandelions are source of both nectar and pollen for bees. You won't ever see dandelion honey though, because mostly this nectar/pollen goes toward rearing of young bees and because it's one of the first spring flowers that bees are able to collect (temperatures have warmed enough), there isn't a lot of extra to go around (for the beekeeper to steal). With the cooler weather, I have worried some that it has been too cold for the bees to fly and I hope that the trees that are blooming are still providing enough nectar, and there are enough days with flyable weather (at least in the 50s).

Dandelion at base of my hive. You can see the hive stand above the bricks.

Funny story, last fall I took some pictures and video (will need to post here) of my daughter (5 yrs old) playing with a drone. When the hive kicked out the drones, I grabbed one and took it inside to let my kids play with it. For some reason it didn't fly around much, must have been nearing it's end, but that was best. This enabled my kids to be able to play with it as it crawled around, quickly buzzed off somewhere nearby and landed, only to be picked up again. My daughter thought it was great. I let her know that boy bees can't sting. Well, the other day my wife called me and told me that my daughter had been stung. Initially, I was somewhat concerned (first time any of my kids had been stung). When I got home, I asked my daughter what had happened. Evidently, she was outside and had found a bee. She tried to pick it up and it stung her. When I asked her how she had been stung, she said, "I found a bee and tried to pick it up, but it was a girl." Yup, I let her know that there are a lot more girl bees than boy bees, and it's best for her to just assume they are all girls and let Dad find the boy bees. I also let her know that the girl bee stung her because it was scared of being picked up, and if she lets the bees mind their own business, the bees will do the same with their stingers. I think my daughter handled it pretty well though, she knew exactly why she had been stung--she'd tried to pick up a GIRL bee, if only it had been a BOY. :)