Oddly enough

ODDLY ENOUGH

Roadside Santa decorates tree

LITTLE EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP, N.J.

An annual Christmas mystery is playing itself out again along a busy New Jersey highway. A secret Santa is once again surreptitiously hanging ornaments from a large pine tree by the side of the Garden State Parkway in the dead of night.

A gold star was hanging from the boughs of the tree Tuesday morning. It’s the fourth year in a row that the ornaments have shown up on the same tree in the southbound lanes in a sparsely populated area of Little Egg Harbor Township.

No one has come forward and acknowledged decorating the tree. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which maintains the road, has said it isn’t responsible. The ornaments appear gradually, starting with one or two, and eventually growing to about a dozen by Christmas.

Cherry juice turns bees red

NEW YORK

A bunch of Brooklyn bees have been coming home looking flushed. New York City beekeeper Cerise Mayo was puzzled when her bees started showing up with mysterious red coloring. Their honey also turned as red as cough syrup. She tells The New York Times a friend joked that the bees were imbibing the runoff at Dell’s Maraschino Cherries Co., in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Mayo — whose first name means “cherry” in French — raises bees in that neighborhood and across the water on Governor’s Island.

Tests confirmed the bees were riddled with Red Dye No. 40 — the same food coloring found in the cherry juice. Bee expert Andrew Cote tells the newspaper that bees had been creating a big nuisance at the factory. The solution? Put up screens or provide a closer source of sweet nectar.

Associated Press