Five eyes? I’ll bee blowed
QUESTION Why does a bee have five eyes?
The honey bee has two large compound eyes at the sides of its head and three smaller eyes, called ocelli, arranged in a triangle between them.
Compound eyes are made up of thousands of lenses, or facets, which focus light on to retinal cells to perceive an image. each tiny lens captures light from a slightly different angle.
They pick up bees’ surroundings, colours and shapes and enable the insects to see UV markers in flowers so they can feed on their nectar.
The ocelli are sometimes called simple eyes as they contain just one lens with many sensory cells. They are used for orientation and navigation based on the position of the Sun.
Most flying insects have ocelli, including locusts, hornets, flies and wasps.
Dr Ian Smith, Cambridge.
QUESTION Does every U.S. state have an official dish or meal?
Many U.S. states have official state beverages, fruits, vegetables and fish, but only a handful have a specific dish — and only Oklahoma has a state meal.
In 1976, South Carolina declared grits — a boiled cornmeal porridge — its official state food, stating that the dish was ‘a symbol of its diet, its customs, its humour and its hospitality’.
Some states have an official flavour of muffin: corn in Massachusetts, apple in new york and blueberry in Minnesota.
In 1996, the Massachusetts house of Representatives adopted the Boston cream pie as the official state dessert. and in 2008, the Smith Island Cake — a ninelayered sponge and chocolate fudge cake — became the state dessert of Maryland.
Oklahoma’s gut-busting meal became a state emblem through house Concurrent Resolution 1983, which was approved in 1988. It consists of fried okra, squash, cornbread, black-eyed peas, barbecue pork, biscuits (savoury scones), sausage and gravy, grits, corn, chicken and fried steak, followed by a helping of pecan pie and strawberries.
Restaurants in Oklahoma are encouraged to offer these dishes because they reflect Oklahoma’s ‘cultural backgrounds and the state’s historical and contemporary agriculture’.
Georgina Thomas, Haverhill, Suffolk.
QUESTION Who is the male statue on the bench at Maidenhead train station?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, there are two statues dedicated to the Kindertransport, through which many Jewish children fled the nazis, at Liverpool Street Station in London.
One was rededicated by Sir nicholas Winton in 2011.
Sir nicholas, who helped save many young refugees, famously appeared in the audience of That’s Life, hosted by esther Rantzen, and was amazed to find that many of the audience had been rescued in the Kindertransport.
Contrary to the earlier answer, the children travelled from harwich to Liverpool Street by the London and north eastern Railway, which then operated services in the east of england
and Scotland. British Railways was not formed until 1948.
Mike Howell, Folkestone, Kent.
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