The Bees In My Backyard. Extra Questions And Answers | Icse Class-8 English Literature

1.
Where did the author live? How did the
author enjoy different birds from his balcony?

Ans: The author
lived in a building called Jaldarshan on Napean Sea Road in Mumbai.

The author would
spent hours watching sunbirds, tailor
birds, magpie robins, koels, sparrows,
crows, rose-ringed parakeets, and pigeons.

2.
What does he experience in the ber tree and
peepal tree and other wild plants?

Ans: He
explains has he overlooked from his balcony he saw the venerable ber tree and clutch of peepal trees that swarmed with
life.

3.
What would the author experience at
Jaldarshan garden?

Ans: The
author gives a vivid description of
his experience at the Jaldomarshan garden. At the dawn and dusk, there would commence a competition between the virtual army of pipistrelles and swifts,
dive-bombing airspace over the author’s
garden, consuming insects that grew fat on the plenty Malabar Hills. Further,
when the ambience would have turned almost dark
and most human residents would be engrossed in the television sets,
fruit bats would come visiting to feast on thousands of figs and “false badam”
fruit. Every few years, a family of barn owls raised its family in a cosy
little niche, twenty meters up in our cliff wall.

4.
When it was darker what would the author
notice?

Ans: When it
was darker the author would notice that the fruit bats would come visiting to the
garden to feast on thousands of figs and ‘false badam’ fruit.

5.
In spite of being highly populated and
polluted how would the author never be bored?

Ans: In
spite of being highly populated and polluted the author never got bored in Mumbai because even at the
days when birds where not visible the author would entertain himself by
watching butterflies, beetles, spiders, grasshoppers, ants, wasps, and bees.
In the centre of the Jaldarshan garden grew a cicada, one of the most beautiful
palms the author had ever seen.

6.
What is the lifelong regret of the author?
How does he reflect that with example?

Ans: The lifelong regret of the author is that he knows very
less about botany.

He reflects
that by giving the example of flowers.

7.
How do flowers attract insects to make pollination possible?

Ans: Flowers
use texture to attract insects to make pollination possible. Flowers manage to
arrange their cells such a way as to provide visiting insects with surfaces that
feel variously like cotton, silk, wool, and velvet. Some even use kind of
“oily gloss” that provides their petals with a sheen that attracts insects –
butterflies “smell” and “taste” flowers with their feet.

8.
Why does the author like the sound of the
insects’ wings? What does the author say about bees and Apis mellifera?

Ans: The the author did like the sound of the insect wings because it gave him soothing
effect. It’s a calming, hypnotic sound.

On Sunday while sitting in
the garden, the author suddenly heard
the buzz of bees and followed several individuals Apis mellifera as they went
about their chores. They were sisters, gathering food stocks for the hive and
the author guessed they would around be three weeks old. They sucked honey
using their proboscis, but they also managed to collect pollen that they would
transport back to the hive in bristly “baskets” on their hind legs.

9.
How according to the narrator we have much
to learn

from nature?

Ans:
According to the author we have much to learn from nature. He says “We know
very little, for instances, about the natural history of honeybees in the wild, despite the fact that we domesticated them for ones”. The author further
asks us to learn the skill of social development from them, their strategies
to survive the toughest situation, their spirit of working for the welfare of
the community, their skills of communication through the medium of dance.

10. What complex questions did the author ask which are very
interesting and yet be resolved?

Ans: The
complex yet interesting questions asked by the author which are yet to be
resolved where why did the bees discern the colour red, why is that worker
bees continue to work for the welfare of the colony, feeding the larvae though
they will never be able to reproduce young, how did bees learn to communicate
with each other using the medium of dance, hoe does bees know what to do
collectively to raise or lower the temperature in their hives.

11. How at the end of the text the author reflects about the effects of nature or him?

Ans: By the
end of the story the author reflects the effect on him by nature by saying that
the sight of the Jaldarshan Garden gave him the opportunity to look inwards and
spend time on things we seem to have left too little time for- the sweetness of
water, the softness of the breeze, the sound of birds singing, the freshness
of new flowers, and the hum of bees.

12. How
far do you think nature is mysterious and unknown in many ways?
Discuss with reference from the text?

Ans: The nature is mysterious and unknown in many
ways, it has its own diversities.

The mysterious concept of nature is portrayed by the fruit bats which came visiting to feast on
thousands of figs and “false badam” fruit. It is further put forward by the
flowers magical spell to attracts insects for pollination and the complex yet
interesting gesture of the bees.