The Working Bee: Some Deceptively Entomological Etymology

I recently had the pleasure of having to explain to someone what a 'working bee' was. It called to my attention the strangeness of the phrase; why, when a group of people come together to complete a task, is it called a working bee? When people compete in a competition to see who is the best at spelling, it's not called a spelling competition ... it's called a spelling bee.

Although I could explain what I meant by the phrase "working bee", I could not explain why it was so called.

Fixing a car, although a male bonding

activity consisting of various dialogue-

like grunts and lots of things being

broken, is a qualifying activity for a

working bee.

It might be, aptly, suspected that the term "working bee" refers to a caste of industrious insects known for their honey production and tendency to kamikaze sting those bothersome pink godzillas that come calling for said honey. It would be reasonable, but apparently, it's not.

It apparently comes from the word bene or bean, referring to help given by neighbours; which, in turn, derived from the Middle English bene, meaning 'prayer', 'boon' and 'extra service by a tenant to his lord'. Bene is, in many languages, also related to the idea of good, with which the working bee is typically associated.

In the same way that tacky 3D hangings of
"Ugly wooden hawk almost catches ugly

wooden mouse" are typically not.

In addition to the working and spelling bees, one may also encounter spinning, husking, apple, logging and hucka bees.

George's working bee consisted of some much-needed and much-neglected jobs that needed doing. The windows were washed free of the last tenant's doggy face marks (which were higher than most people's heads, I assure you), a new alternator was installed in my car which had previously broken down on the Westgate freeway during peak hour ...

Georgecossiate Annie spent her time in the

bathroom, no doubt attracted by our fine LED

shower head. Powered by the water pressure,

the shower head changes colour depending on

the temperature of the water (red for hot, green

for warm and blue for cold). This function, though

epic, has the unfortunate effect of really rubbing

it in when you're last in the shower and you can't

get it to stop being blue.

Various other tasks were attended to. Jasmine prepared the veggie patch for preparation (you heard me) by carting around a number of heavy rocks and doing a lot of mowing with our lightweight, fully-electric mower (just don't run over the cable and you'll most probably not die. We can't account for freak accidents (involving monkeys and napalm).).

Jasmine's next blog will feature the planting of her

vampiric plants, and I'm most ardently looking

forward to the meter of it.

Various other tasks involved my moving a lot of stray items into the shed, which we will be auctioning off to the highest bidder. I fully intended to make fun of Jess with this next picture by contrasting it with the others of everyone working hard, but she was the one who started everything by cleaning our dogwindows.

Please don't make a big deal out of it. I was just born

with the balloons growing out of my head. It's a thing.

However, photographs often lie, and though this next photo speaks of productivity, a bit of Sherlocking can reveal the truth.

The keen eye will note complete ineptitude with the shovel,

indicating that he may not actually be digging, but posing.

We also had our large rental fridge delivered. For $4 per week, we can each partake in the loveliness that is having enough fridge space to keep meals separate from the freezer space in which we keep the bodies. Words alone cannot express our affection for this kitchenly appliance, and while I thank you for your reading time, apart from the promise of more interesting things to come, I will leave you with this expression of our love: