Monkey Chains of Bees and Insect Bivouacking

[emo_snal]

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Special thanks to furzicle for her assistance as videographer. She braved the bees and survived mostly unscathed -- a bee pooped on her ipad. The below is the original impromptu video I made with my phone that kind of gave me the idea, but it has a much better monkey chain formation.

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Comments

[fimbrethil]

The things you get to do fill me with envy and awe. After my work day is done at the Botanical Garden, I walk over to our bee garden and just watch the girls come and go. They have been clustering near the entrance lately. Urde, our beekeeper, has some concerns that one of our hives may be readying to swarm. She had seen some queen cells inside but then none of them hatched.

[emo_snal]

Like sixteen days came and went (well from the time you see a capped queen cell it must be emerging within 9 days) and nothing happened? They hadn't been chewed out? If conditions were no longer favorable to swarming I could imagine they'd direct their queen to kill the developing queens by opening a hole in them and stinging them, but it would be weird for all of them to simply fail to emerge.

[fimbrethil]

None of them were opened to my knowledge. Urde didn't specify if 16 days had passed.

[kagomeshuko]

Bees are interesting, but for me, this, is NO THANKS!!!

Ants are also interesting! I had read somebody's user info wrong and thought it said, "Myrmecology" when it said "Mycology."

Did you know that ants fall over on their right sides when they are drunk?

I would like to know who pays for those studies, but it is interesting to know.

[emo_snal]

Interesting, I learned something useful today! :D

(when the giant ants come I will get them drunk and dodge to their left!)

[kagomeshuko]

Hahaha! Oh dear, you are feeding ideas to the writer . . . :P

Or, maybe that's "Yay! You are feeding ideas to the writer!"

[mothermelete]

Oy! Not something I could ever do... but bees are fascinating and I appreciate them, just preferably from afar.

[emo_snal]

Noo you can't appreciate how adorable they are from afar!

[mothermelete]

I don't know if I could ever find a bee adorable, but I'll try... from way over here lol

[roina_arwen]

Interesting video! For some reason I am unduly amused that bees live in a birdhouse... maybe it's the whole "birds and the bees" thing? :)

[emo_snal]

An adorable birdhouse! (:

[mezzominty]

Excellent take on the topic! We'll done.

[emo_snal]

Thanks (: