aviary of mana

Wholesome educational activities in the Koniortos nursery to fill the otherwise boring gap between tea time and going to recite your theorems to mama, mummy, and mater in the drawing room.

Someone recently asked me about how I imagined Abigail's childhood, and because the Fifth are vaguely 1930s in a jolly good old chap, Bertie Wooster kind of way, I initially found myself picturing a young Abigail through a vaguely Edwardian lens, all frilly pinafore and hair bow larger than her glasses. But of course those two aesthetics aren't related to each other in any meaningful way in the Houses. And the Fifth House has been vaguely 1930s right back to Augustine and his antiquated dinner suit.

This is getting down at the Club

Above: two different species of fairy bee

Bees of the genus Perdita, also known as fairy bees, are some of the smallest bees in the world. Their tiny bodies can measure as little as 1.6mm long, which is smaller than the eyes of many bumblebees and carpenter bees.

Above: a fairy bee depicted next to a carpenter bee (genus Xylocopa)

The smallest species in this genus is the mini fairy bee, Perdita minima, which is so small that it's often mistaken for an ant.

Above: Perdita minima standing next to a quarter

As this book explains:

With almost 640 species, most restricted to the southwestern USA and adjacent parts of Mexico, this genus forms a species swarm of mostly very small ground-nesting bees. One of its species, the aptly named Perdita minima, shares the record for being the smallest bee in the world at just 1/16th of an inch (1.6 millimeters) in length. Unsurprisingly, it favors similarly tiny flowers, such as those of the whitemargin sandmat (Chamaesyce albomarginata).

Above: close-ups of Perdita perpallida and Perdita heliotropii

Fairy bees are solitary, meaning that they don't form colonies or live together in hives. Each female builds her own nest by creating a small tunnel in the ground and then stocking it with pollen.

Above: a fairy bee standing on a dime and another one standing on a quarter

This article describes the nesting process in greater detail:

Fairy Bees are “mining” bees, referring to the fact that they are ground nesting bees. The females excavate tunnels in the ground somewhere within a short distance of a food source. They then visit flowers, feeding on nectar and collecting pollen on specialized hairs on their legs known as “scopae.”

The females then deliver these pollen bundles to their subterranean nests as a food source for their larva. The larva hatch, consume the pollen bundle, develop through metamorphosis into adult bees and the cycle continues.

Above: Perdita minima crawling on the antenna of a carpenter bee

Most fairy bees are specialist foragers with very short tongues, so they prefer shallow flowers. They typically fly during the summer and autumn, timing their emergence to coincide with their favorite host plant.

Above: Perdita leotola

Sources & More Info:

Minnesota Native Bees: Fairy Bees

Bees of the World: Genus Perdita

Honey Bee Suite: Perdita minima, the Smallest of the Small (PDF)

Field Guide to the Common Bees of California: Genus Perdita

Local News Pasadena: Photographing a Nearly Microscopic Bee You've Probably Never Noticed

iNaturalist: Fairy Bees

Rumination is probably the most common type of OCD compulsion, but I rarely see anyone talking about it. I've talked to multiple people diagnosed with OCD who didn't even recognize it as a compulsion.

Basically, if you have OCD you have terrible intrusive thoughts. They can be about anything, but common themes are fear of being a bad person, fear of hurting someone, fear of contamination. etc.

Rumination is when you get stuck in a spiral. Rumination is when you spend hours catastrophizing, overthinking, analyzing, telling yourself it's going to be okay.

I'll say it again:

Rumination is a compulsion.

Rumination is a compulsion, and that means you have to stop doing it.

I did ERP (exposure response prevention) for my OCD with a therapist! For 9 months! And it did help, but the idea didn't really click until I found this website a couple years later.

And Oh My God. It made things make so much more sense, and I was able to pull myself out of an episode even though I wasn't in therapy or on meds at the time.

Genuinely if you have OCD, or even if you suspect you have OCD, I'm begging you to read some of these articles.

Like this was genuinely life changing for me.

Here are some of the ones that were most helpful to me:

Defining Rumination

How to Stop Ruminating

ERP Exercises for Compulsive Rumination