aggienaut: (Bee Drawing)
[personal profile] aggienaut


   Special thanks to [livejournal.com profile] 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.




   "In the end, only kindness matters," this birdhouse when I first met it back in January, before I relocated it to my yard.

   And read more about the fascinating rafting behavior of red fire ants!

   Here's someone else's video of an impressive ant bridge across water. Please ignore the terrible music.

   The book I'm reading is this fascinating anthology (ant-thology???) about insects.

   And finally, here I get eaten by army ants in Nigeria. [fade to image of skeleton being crawled over by ants]

Date: 2014-06-16 02:03 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fimbrethil.livejournal.com
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.

Date: 2014-06-16 03:33 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emo-snal.livejournal.com
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.

Date: 2014-06-16 10:05 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fimbrethil.livejournal.com
None of them were opened to my knowledge. Urde didn't specify if 16 days had passed.

Date: 2014-06-16 07:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kagomeshuko.livejournal.com
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.

Date: 2014-06-17 04:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emo-snal.livejournal.com
Interesting, I learned something useful today! :D

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

Date: 2014-06-17 05:11 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kagomeshuko.livejournal.com
Hahaha! Oh dear, you are feeding ideas to the writer . . . :P

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

Date: 2014-06-16 11:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mothermelete.livejournal.com
Oy! Not something I could ever do... but bees are fascinating and I appreciate them, just preferably from afar.

Date: 2014-06-17 04:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emo-snal.livejournal.com
Noo you can't appreciate how adorable they are from afar!

Date: 2014-06-19 12:18 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mothermelete.livejournal.com
I don't know if I could ever find a bee adorable, but I'll try... from way over here lol

Date: 2014-06-18 03:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] roina-arwen.livejournal.com
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? :)

Date: 2014-06-19 04:22 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emo-snal.livejournal.com
An adorable birdhouse! (:

Date: 2014-06-19 02:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mezzominty.livejournal.com
Excellent take on the topic! We'll done.

Date: 2014-06-19 05:32 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emo-snal.livejournal.com
Thanks (:

Date: 2014-06-19 01:18 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] penpusher.livejournal.com
The Hive mind is strong!

Date: 2014-06-22 02:58 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com
That was a neat video! I'm struck particularly by how slow and gentle your motions were with the bees - it makes sense, but it hadn't really occurred to me that that's part of what's involved in having a good relationship with those particular insects, until I saw you doing it.

I've had first-hand experience with fire ants balling up in water and forming rafts. I grew up in Florida, right on a river, and went walking during a flood one time. That... was not my smartest move. One of those fire and balls and I collided (in my defense, I tried to get out of the way! But there were currents and I was clumsy) and ohhhhhh ouch.

Date: 2014-06-22 04:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emo-snal.livejournal.com
Oh wow, colliding with an ant-fireball in the middle of a river sounds quite unforunate!!

And yes, I try to move more like a plant, less like an animal. (: And try not to breath on them -- they can sense carbon dioxide and know it somes from animals.

Date: 2014-06-23 04:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] halfshellvenus.livejournal.com
I kept waiting for the bees to sting you-- as gentle as you were, pushing them in the slightest sometimes makes them panic. I've had too many bees down the front of my biking jersey to think otherwise. ;)

Date: 2014-06-23 04:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emo-snal.livejournal.com
Pshhh nonsense! Bees are little sweethearts! (: The best is the feeling of all their little bee hands holding on to you when you put your hand in the pile of bees. (:

Date: 2014-06-23 04:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] halfshellvenus.livejournal.com
The best is the feeling of all their little bee hands holding on to you
Unless you have insect/spider-phobia, and the feeling of little legs on you freaks you out. o_O

Date: 2014-06-23 05:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] emo-snal.livejournal.com
Though I'm still not to keen on having them climb in my ear.....

Date: 2014-06-23 11:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] eternal-ot.livejournal.com
Whoa! you are quite a daredevil...Amazing feat that!! I was waiting with baited breath there...Awesome video!!

Date: 2014-06-23 11:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hosticle-fifer.livejournal.com
Bees poop? I mean I guess everything poops, but when you think of the average size of a bee...would you even notice? ;)

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