[LEPS-L:7901] Re: An encounter with honeybees

[Ron Gatrelle]

    Dave's post (below) is a good one except for one thing. I mentioned in
another post that I had an allergenic reaction to honey bee stings when I
was four. Actually, I almost died!
    At that time my folks were living in one of my grandparents farm houses
in Iowa (my mom and dad were in show  biz at the time). No one had noticed
that a bee colony and invaded the second floor wall. It was eventually
noticed as the bees were busy flying in and out of their hive via a hole
under the eve. I was outside in the yard playing one day (in the dirt and
not disturbing the bees or any such thing at all). Within a few minutes the
air was filled with swarming bees (we know now that the swarm was dividing
and moving). By the time my mom noticed this I had been attacked and stung
profusely.
     No matter what I say here some bug extremists will say I had to have
evoked the attack because, as Dave said, in this phase the bees are ever so
gentle. The reason some of us have so much trouble with environmental
extremists is that the "lives" of a few thousand bees are placed on a par
with that of a child. Better to have one child die than the precious
thousands of bees harmed in any way.
    Our friend in India would have been correct to have had the swarm killed
IF IT STAYED. The only way we know that the visit to his balcony was
temporary is in hind sight -- they left. God bless them all I hope they
found a good home. And there is the key word -- home. The bees had invaded
some other creature's home (albeit a worthless, overpopulating, polluting,
environment destroying human). If the bees had made their abode 8 feet from
his bed they would now go into protection mode. This means the bees would
defend their home to their death and to the death of any intruder. So why is
it O.K. for bees to kill people to protect their home, but  wrong for people
to kill bees to protect theirs?
    A lot of us knew when we read Murali's post that he was going to get it
from someone because of his insensitivity to the bees as manifest in his
uncharitable words like -- bee menace and spraying the entire house with
pesticide. Fortunately, for all concerned, the bees moved on. But Murali
know that if they had not and you had killed those bees you would have been
in big trouble with people some people. I can not say or assume anything
about Dave because I have taken his disclamer at face value.
Ron

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Green" <pollinator at aol.comnospam>
To: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2000 10:01 PM
Subject: [LEPS-L:7900] Re: An encounter with honeybees


> >We were finally rid of the bee menace, but not those strange thoughts
> >which continue to stay in our mind.
> >
> >Can somebody throw light on this strange (at least to me!) phenomenon?
>
>    There is hardly anything strange or  menacing to this. This is the
natural
> way for honeybees to reproduce, if you consider the colony of bees to be
an
> organism, and each bee just a cell in the organism.  They had become
crowded in
> their original home, and the colony had split, with about half going out
to
> find their way to a new home. Generally the old queen goes with the swarm.
>
>    When they have flown as far as the queen can fly, they pitch wherever
she
> lands. The colony will often hang from a limb or other structure, and the
bees
> do support one another. That's not so farfetched as it seems, as there are
> hundreds of linkages between the bees' legs.  BTW, there are not
"millions" of
> bees, perhaps ten or twenty thousand.
>
>     The colony after pitching will usually send out scouts to find an
> appropriate cavity to move into. This may be a hollow tree, a section of
wall
> without insulation, a soffit (overhang of a roof), a chimney, etc.
>
>    The queen is now rested, and when the scouts agree on the best home,
the
> whole colony flies on to the new site. This may happen in a few hours or a
few
> days.
>
>    It would have been tragic if you had poisoned these valuable
pollinators.
> One colony of bees can pollinate several thousand dollars worth of food.
And,
> when they swarm, they are intent on reproduction and will ignore other
> activity, in other words they are very gentle.
>
>
>
>
>
> Pollinator at aol.com     Dave Green  Hemingway, SC  USA
> The Pollination Home Page:  http://pollinator.com
> Disclaimer:  Opinions aren't facts; learn the art of discrimination.
Opinions
> presented for your use and amusement; use at your own risk.
>
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>    For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:
>
>    http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl
>
>


 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl