What a glorious time of year. Crisp nights, sunny days, golden leaves and the bugle call of swans signaling their flight to elsewhere. The Royals of Kansas City and Metropolitans of New York are still playing baseball and, yes, I’m still swimming at Walden Pond. Winter beckons, but we’re just not quite ready to let go.

Nor are the various creatures who share are habitat, and who we more often than not take for granted. But it would have been hard not to notice the yellow jackets buzzing around the yew tree next to my apartment the other day. They flitted from branch to branch and berry to berry, seemingly intent on canvassing the entire tree for something, but by all appearances not that impressed with what they were finding.

This led me to do a little research on the yew tree. It’s really a fascinating work of wood and leaf. Taxol, for instance, which is found in yew, is a key ingredient in a drug called paclitaxel, and paclitaxel has been used to produce chemotherapy treatments for breast and other cancers. Wood from the evergreen yew is also thought to have been used in the making of bows, at least that is the theory of some archaeologists who supposedly found a mummy with an unfinished bow of yew wood dating back to 4000 B.C.

And what of the red berries? Well, as it turns out, they’re actually poisonous (did you know that; I didn’t). Actually, it is the seed of the berry that is highly toxic, so you could conceivably swallow a few berries and let them pass through your system, and you’ll be okay just as long as you don’t happen to crunch down on any seeds. Think I’ll pass on that.

But I’m still not sure what the bees were looking for. I’ll need to do a little more research on that and report back when I find out.

I’m guessing they were looking for food to take with them for the winter months ahead. Their winged cousins, the wasps, are not quite as fortunate, however. Their food-binging ways are due to the fact that come the first hard prolonged frost, they will begin to die off. And they know it.

So if you get the chance, leave a piece of that pumpkin muffin or scrap of bacon on the ground this week. That may or may not help to extend your life a little, but it will sure as heck make your near-departed wasp a very happy insect, indeed!