wet bee diary |
Friday, August 08, 2003
Oh, the URL for this blog does work. I have three bees on my chest of drawers, all of the bumble sort. One is in a small blue box - my scientist brother gave me that. One is in some big seed husks that me and my lovely wife pulled off a tree in Morocco. The bee is english though. The other is chalky and is in a translucent box. It's chalky because I found it on the pavement round the corner from our house in south east London, while I was on my way to work in a doctors' surgery, but I didn't have anything to keep it in apart from a bottle of melatonin. So i put it in there and it got dusty from all the tablets. They're supposed to put you to sleep and set your sleeping pattern into a natural rhythm - I hope they give that little dead bee a nice slumber.
Oh I can remember an excellent bee story... someone I was talking to recently - I think they might have been Scottish - was telling me about a family holiday they'd been on as a child... someone in their family got stung by a bee, and they saw loads of other bees flying around. They got angry with whatever beekeeper had let his bees out to sting a nice holiday-making family, then they saw some guy in full beekeeping kit galloping towards them shouting "come back you bees!". They couldn't be angry with him because this was so ridiculous.
I have bees galore. I have bee stories galore. But a) the normal url for this blog doesn't seem to work b) I have no time, what with my "high powered media career" to update it, and c) nothing else. Thursday, June 26, 2003
We have bumble bees living under our front doorstep. I like to see them in the morning. Our cat Missy (or Nounou) chases most insects, but she respects the bees.
I got emailed a story from a rave dance music person in Glasgow, Scotland:
Jun 25 2003 Bee experts in Missouri have been working around the clock on the "miserable job" of getting millions of bees back in their hives after they were freed by a traffic accident. A lorry carrying 520 hives to Wisconsin crashed near Claycomo town, spilling broken hives across the road. The driver was stung repeatedly, as were police, firefighters and tow truck operators who arrived at the scene. Rheuben Johnson was among those hired to get the bees back in their hives. "It is just the most miserable job you can dream of," he said. "You get them in a box any way you can. And they are unhappy. If they get you around the eyes, it really hurts." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, June 21, 2003
I just got this email:
Hello, I'm writing from Indiana in the U.S.A. and I'd like to report that I found a dead bee in the middle of the floor in a little room upstairs I use for a sanctuary of sorts. It seemed very odd to me, and a bit disconcerting to find this little bee-corpse there. I've no idea how it got in. At first I was thinking that maybe we have bees in the walls, but then I realized it could have flown in from downstairs when the door was opened or something. And then the poor thing flew upstairs and died... We actually did have bees in a wall in a house I lived in when I was little. That was in Miami, Florida. I have vivid memories of eating at the kitchen table and my father waving a fly swatter at the bees. I certainly enjoy the wet bee diary. Best regards, Suzanne Tuesday, May 13, 2003
According to a Christian Aid charity advert that was just on telly, which featured a young man fighting with a two headed ghost of some sort, "just ten pounds spent on beehives can raise enough money to send thirty African children to school". Which is nice. Sunday, May 04, 2003
A text message from my science brother: "I saw a bee with a proboscis. It turns out it's a cuckoo bee. They lay their eggs in red arsed bumble bee nests and bugger off. How good?"
Very good. Sunday, April 27, 2003
Ahaaa - "Velvet ants look like large hairy ants, but they are actually wasps" - take that, Mr Clever Lawyer Man!
Some bees caused a royal garden party to be held up for an hour or so last week, when they swarmed underneath someone's seat. It was on the news, and I laughed till I almost wee-ed when I saw the royal footmen in their stupid uniforms running round like headless chickens trying to work out how to get rid of the bees, and all the social climbers huddled together in the corner of the garden going "ooh it's some bees!"
Goodness me it's difficult to keep up with a blog when you've left off for a while isn't it? Don't answer that.
Anyway, me and the wife went to dinner with our nice lawyer friends in Stoke Newington the night before last, and ate venison with small fruits preserved in mustard-flavoured syrup. Our host revealed that a) as a baby he had jaundice, which made him stripy, so he was nicknamed 'bumblebee' and b) as a child he played with things called 'velvet ants' "which when I picked them up I discovered were - OUCH - wingless bees." Tuesday, April 15, 2003
They're repeating The Bee Inspector on BBC Radio 4, because it's only short and fits into the space after the lunchtime news which has been extended for The War. I missed it today - well it was on, but I was titting about on the internet and not paying attention - but yesterday I listened to it all, and learned something new: the mechanism by which bees become drowsy in smoke. It's not the smoke itself that makes them sluggish, it's the fact that they have an instinct to gobble up as much honey and pollen from the hive as they can in case the smoke is a forest fire (in the wild they usually live in hollow tree trunks) and they need to abandon the hive. This makes them preoccupied and bloated so they're far less concerned if you go bashing about their hive inspecting them or nicking their honey or whatever.
According to this week's Heat magazine (which I read avidly every week, with a mild sense of shame), Celine Dion was chased down a street in Las Vegas by "a swarm of angry bees", but a passer-by distracted the bees by throwing orange juice. Why are bees always described as "angry"? I'd have thought these ones were more gleefully menacing. I would be if I was chasing Celine Dion and attempting to sting her. And I wouldn't let juice get in my way, I'd sting her RIGHT ON THE LARYNX. Saturday, March 22, 2003
oh this is getting silly. Buzz! Bark! Bark buzz! Buzzark!
This is definitely the gayest beedog I've seen so far.
Well I suppose if you look hard enough, eventually you will actually find a person dressed as a bee, riding a dog. I shouldn't be surprised by now, but I still find this deeply, deeply odd.
hahaha - dogs are taking over this blog! here are some snacks for dogs, described as "Barks mores - 5 honey flavored sandwich biscuits filled with meringue and carob, in ribbon tied bee print cellophane bag." Fucking americans.
Wow, this dog-dressed-as-bee thing is more popular than i thought...
I like this dog - it looks stupid.
I am a member of a really quite marvellous file-swapping site, mostly populated by Glaswegians. Someone from that site just sent me this:
"You want a bee story? Ok, I was was quite ambivilent towards bees for years as I had never been stung and was often to be found as a kid with a Baker* in my hand. Anyway in this story I'm 24 and work the breakfast shift in the Thistle Street Sandwich Bar, it's 6.15 in November and I'm waiting for the bus on Gorgie Road. I feel something fall down the neck of my jacket, you guessed it a bee! The fucker stung me at the bus stop with other tired and grumpy people looking at me like I'm having a fit cos something has stung me in the back of the neck. because I had never been stung before and due to the proximity to my spinal cord I awaited anaphlactic shock. Ok it never came, but bees and me parted company on that fatefull morn. *Bakers are the kindly bumble bees with honey coloured bums that have no stingers." Friday, March 21, 2003
Thursday, March 20, 2003
On the popbitch messageboard, people are always going "zzzz" to one another's posts to prove what ennui-ridden decadent media whores they are. Today though, someon posted "ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ" apropos of absolutely nothing, and, well...
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ punkgirl, 14:29 20/3, Reply Early in the year for a bee! asterix, 14:30 20/3, Reply Wednesday, March 19, 2003
From the Darwin Awards, about people who have met stupid ends:
(23 September 2002, Brazil) A farm keeper from São Paulo decided to remove a beehive from his orange tree. He didn't know exactly how to proceed, but he knew the hive should be burned, and he knew bees sting. So he protected his head with a plastic bag sealed tightly around his neck, grabbed a torch, and went off to fight the bees. His worried wife went to look for him a few hours later, and found him dead. However, it wasn't the bees that killed him. The plastic bag had protected him from smoke, stingers, and... oxygen! He had forgotten to put breathing holes in the bag. Wednesday, March 12, 2003
On an internet message board me and my friends were finding pictures of dogs that could represent each of us, and someone called Freshkid said this was me:
 Friday, February 28, 2003
First bee of the year! I was just out jogging, pondering my lack of money and worrying about whether I'd make it through the big weekend-long drugrave festival i'm off to shortly, and a big bumblebee almost flew into me. Friday, January 31, 2003
A coincidence. A small one but a coincidence nonetheless: my wife didn't know I was restarting this blog after a long break, but simultaneously that I was posting that Radio 4 thing (below), she celebrated the fact that she is going to posh Nobu restaurant by typing thusly on our favourite messageboard:
N to the O tothe BEE to the U. by moggy (Member 31309) on 31-Jan-03
BBC Radio 4 has a new series called The Bee Inspector starting this sunday at 14.45 GMT. I am excited.
They say: "Who do you call when your bees stop buzzing or the honey goes off? Why, the Bee Inspector of course. "He may be the man from the Ministry, but David Kemp is the saviour of many a bee-keeper. What's more he's full of fascinating facts about these extraordinary little creatures and how they live. But does he get stung often?" then they show some hives: 
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
here is a conversation from a chat board on that internet earlier today:
If you could ride any creature... by Look out! A skellington! (Member 92504) on 11-Sep-02 ...what creature would you ride? n.b. do not include creatures that can already be ridden, like horses. Re: If you could ride any creature... by buddha_fingers (Member 64349) on 11-Sep-02 A tiger down oxford st in the January sales. It would have a gilt saddle and I'd half a half naked valkyrie on the back... Re: If you could ride any creature... by the pine marten (Member 90757) on 11-Sep-02 a big white polar bear. With a golden hat. Re: If you could ride any creature... by lobeck (Member 90674) on 11-Sep-02 A cat, so I can hear its bone structure flatten Re: If you could ride any creature... by Look out! A skellington! (Member 92504) on 11-Sep-02 Very prog. I've always fancied riding a pig myself. Maybe a wily bee. Re: If you could ride any creature... by buddha_fingers (Member 64349) on 11-Sep-02 I'm sure you've ridden a few in your time *ting* Re: If you could ride any creature... by Look out! A skellington! (Member 92504) on 11-Sep-02 I've not fucked a bee in years! How dare you!? I only lick their pollen sacs. Re: If you could ride any creature... by buddha_fingers (Member 64349) on 11-Sep-02 Shut it, you stinking bee fucker... Re: If you could ride any creature... by da bomb! (Member 31373) on 11-Sep-02 Rob Lowe - in a leather harness and shiny wet-look posing pouch. Re: If you could ride any creature... by Look out! A skellington! (Member 92504) on 11-Sep-02 He's a live one. You could have trouble staying on. Re: If you could ride any creature... by lordvenger (Member 31298) on 11-Sep-02 Either Ursa Major, the star bear, or a stag with a hammock between it's antlers Re: If you could ride any creature... by the pine marten (Member 90757) on 11-Sep-02 half a half? half a half? I can I can't? BF is Tubbs. Monday, August 05, 2002
There was a yellow and black bumblebee buzzing against the inside window of my excellent Brighton friends' window today. One of them (who I was asking to be photographed being a breakdancing punk) rescued the bee using a glass and beermat, and let it fly free. It's getting towards autumn time now, so the bee will have a hard time - not as hard a time as it was giving itself by banging its head against the window, though. Friday, August 02, 2002
I got a job at a major magazine recently. I went to my first meeting of contributors today, and someone claimed that there is a genuine scientific plan to create an off-earth power station as big as the moon, run by nano-bots based on bees. I shall look into this.
Bee-attack victim tells boyfriend, 'I love you,' dies
TUCSON - A woman who was stung at least 80 times by swarming bees was able to tell her boyfriend she loved him just before dying in the attack. Trying to fend off the thousands of bees, Cheryl McClain and Ted Richard ran toward their home. They sprayed themselves with water and tore at their clothes, Richard told the Arizona Daily Star from his hospital bed. Finally, he said, McClain looked at him and said, "I love you, Ted." Thursday, August 01, 2002
Tuesday, June 25, 2002
gosh, someone on an asian-american chat board noted my bee loving (not difficult, as I am registered as Captain Beeheart) and posted this link to a recipe for 'bee sting cake' - http://www.joyofbaking.com/BeeSting.html
I clicked it very gingerly, thinking it would involve killing hundreds of bees for the tang of their stings, which would make me sad. It doesn't. Thursday, May 16, 2002
The young woman presenting Newsround on Childrens' BBC was just wearing a teeshirt advertising the Bee Meadow School. Thursday, April 25, 2002
I must hurry - it's the advert break in the Simpsons. Bart was just asking for Grandpa's advice - he asked him if he ever had a crush on an older woman. "I had a crush on the OLDEST woman" replied Grandpa. "120 years old she was... but she fell in with that Guinness Book Of Records crew, never had any time for me after that. Darn it, I wore a 15lb beard of bees for that woman." And he pulled a photo from his pocket showing his bee-beard. It was great.
And oh my goodness, here's a bee's cock!
Male genitalia of B. ruderarius from the dorsal (left) and ventral (right) aspects. Monday, April 22, 2002
I saw a honey bee today. It was buzzing insistently round a tiny pine tree in someone's front garden. No flowers there. Silly bugger. Saturday, April 20, 2002
I have seen lots of bumble bees now this year, though only one honey bee. A particularly memorable bumble bee flew over me at East Dulwich station last week then spiralled off upwards above the railway embankment; I imagined being it, and suddenly was able to see the 3-dimensional topography of the embankment and the tyre yards and scrubland around it far more clearly as I imagined moving through space above the area.
I saw the biggest bee I've ever seen today as I was walking from my house into Brighton to have honey and lemon crepes for breakfast from the wonderful new cheap organic pancake stall next to Klik Klik Whirly Beep Beep (a record shop) in the North Laine area. I was just walking past the back garden of the Hobgoblin pub with my somewhat gothic flatmate and his girlfriend, who has influenced him in looking a bit smarter and dying his silly pink hair black again. The bumble bee was easily an inch long, but I didn't get a proper look at it because it flew very fast up through the Hobgoblin garden and over the roofs toward St Peters church. I'm certain it was a bumble bee and not a hornet or something, because it was distinctly round and hairy. My lovely girlfriend, now fiancée, saw two bees the day before yesterday. One buzzed up and circled in front of her face a couple of times, then a few paces later she saw what appeared to be a dead one on the pavement. She thought of me and felt a little sad for the bee. I saw some 'poppers' or butyl nitrate, which is sold in punky clothes shops as "room odourizer", today. It was called 'buzz' and had a picture of a big bee on it. I didn't buy it though. Saturday, April 13, 2002
My excellent friend Lee who is a great artist has designed some superb invites for my wedding, in which my fiancee and I are represented by a cat and a bee respectively. I will post it here as soon as I can be bothered to host it on the web. That doesn't mean you're necessarily invited to my wedding, mind!
There's a man with a Bee beard in the newspaper today. On the programme "Home Truths" on the radio this morning, which is where people write in with little details of their lives, there was a story about a beekeeper who gave his friend a whole hive of bees, wrapped in polythene so they couldn't escape. They put it in a car and went to the shops. When they got back the bees had escaped the polythene and filled the car. Fortunately the man had his beekeeper hat in the boot, and he put it on and drove home, where he took the hive out. While he was driving he scared many drivers with the sight of a hooded man in a bee-filled car. Monday, January 28, 2002
Someone called, variously, Mr Stu Pitaus and Johnny Dishes just told me this story on Yahoo messenger...
johnnydishes: my mother johnnydishes: has a father johnnydishes: he had brothers johnnydishes: one of those brothers johnnydishes: was a bee farmer muggsdemon: an apiarist johnnydishes: is that what a bee farmer is? muggsdemon: yes johnnydishes: sweet johnnydishes: so this was back in the day a bit muggsdemon: aye johnnydishes: so johnnydishes: hes an apiarist johnnydishes: and johnnydishes: he loved his bees johnnydishes: and his bees loved him muggsdemon: all good johnnydishes: all good johnnydishes: he would have bees on him johnnydishes: and they would journey with him throughout his daily activities johnnydishes: he would keep one on his shoulder and pet it johnnydishes: with a finger of course johnnydishes: sweet isnt it johnnydishes: well johnnydishes: life was grand johnnydishes: until one day johnnydishes: an accident happened on the farm johnnydishes: he was doing some sort of farm chore muggsdemon: eep! johnnydishes: and a horse got freaked out johnnydishes: not sure whos farm or whos horse johnnydishes: but johnnydishes: the apiarist johnnydishes: was killed by a kick to the head johnnydishes: by the horses back hoof johnnydishes: tragic muggsdemon: oh dear johnnydishes: yah johnnydishes: sad johnnydishes: but johnnydishes: the day of the funeral muggsdemon: mmm johnnydishes: nobody could read the tombstone johnnydishes: or see it johnnydishes: cause all of his johnnydishes: bees muggsdemon: no! muggsdemon: crikey johnnydishes: had gathered on to it johnnydishes: my mom has the photo Thursday, January 24, 2002
My ex-girlfriend gave me some honeycomb in honey at Christmas, from the french town where she lives while she writes a science fiction novel. Unfortunately it turned black and started smelling all fermented before I could eat any.
Odd stuff from a USA kindergarten teacher...
"Super Bee goes home with well-behaved students. Those are students who listen and follow directions. They are also kind, careful and caring in everything they do!" 
"Here is a picture showing Super Bee in love!" If I may for a moment cast myself as Super Bee, then that picture is quite appropriate. For I too am very much in love: so much so, in fact, that I am marrying my girlfriend who found me the blue bees with whiskery white moustaches. There will be some bees in our wedding ceremony, I'm sure, as the first part of it is going to take place in a lovely Quaker meeting house with a big garden in early July - a time and place where at which bees are normally numerous.
Lady Mary Archer, wife of fraudulent author and blag-fiend Jeffrey was on Radio 4's chat show Midweek yesterday, and admitted to eating deep-fried bumblebees at a Japanese Banquet.
BEEDOG!
I, Melissa Long Shuter found a broken tailed, sad eyed dispondent black puppy at the KY Humane Society in March 1994. After a long wait of one week filled with visits to the little puppy named Melba, I finnaly was able to take the little black puppy home. First things first, Melba was renamed Bee. Bee is short for honeybee. Melissa in greek means honeybee. Noting that I did not want to call the dog "Honey," she was named Bee. Taking puppy leave, I spent the first week at home with Bee, sharing every moment. Within a week Bee, at 11 weeks old, was sitting, laying down, and staying on both verbal and with signed (ASL) commands. "Wow, that was easy," is what I thought. Then came the puppy teen-age years. "Good Owners, Great Dogs," by Brian Kilcommons guided me during the adolecent days of Bee-dog. Dog psychology 101, this book explains life from a dog's perspective and how as humans we can live together happily. In August of 1997 Paul Shuter and I were married. It took Bee a bit of time to get used to a new owner in her life. Bee was Paul's first dog. Paul was Bee's first live-in male companion. Together the three of us learn new things about each other daily! Currently, three and a half years after the adoption, Paul, Bee and I are living happily in Germantown. The family, including Bee, is still learning sign (ASL), playing frisbee, and enjoying life together. Paul and I have decided to model our behavior after Bee, for she is always happy to see us, always forgiving, full of energy and genuinly a pleasant creature. The world would be a happier place if we were all more like Bee.
a website which appears to be for children contains this statement: (5) HOW DOES THIS BEE FEEL REMEMBER TO ANSWER IN CODE
pertaining to this bee: 
which appears to be called a "real-feel bee", judging by the title of the picture file, so I suppose the answer (not in code) would be "real".
If you have a dog and want it to take revenge on bee-kind for their actions (see below), you could buy it one of these to chew:
Or you could if they hadn't been discontinued.
OK, let's re-start with this...
Africanized bee stingers embedded in the area surrounding the dog's closed right eye. The stingers, which appear as tan bits of tissue, consist of barbed lancets, the venom reservoir, sting muscles, and the terminal nerve ganglion. "Local authorities exterminated the bees, and the animal was taken to a local veterinary clinic where it was pronounced dead and was frozen. About 200 dead bees remained in the animal's fur, with 14 in the oral cavity, six in the stomach, and one under each closed eyelid. No bees were found in the trachea or bronchi; the dog's nares were too narrow to allow bee entry. "The frozen dog was taken to the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center where stingers embedded in the dog's skin and mouth were removed with No. 5 forceps and counted. To accomplish this task, the coat over the dog's head and ears was carefully parted, and the skin was searched using fingers and forceps, a task that took more than 17 hours. The success rate of this sting discovery method was estimated to be about 98% based on a reexamination of areas that had already been searched. The coat on much of the rest of the body was long, making it difficult for us to continue examining in this manner, and too few stings were discovered to merit the time investment. Instead, 5-x-5-cm samples of fur in each of the main body areas bilaterally were clipped to within 5 mm of the skin; the skin in these areas was examined and the number of stings counted. The counts were then extrapolated over the entire body area to estimate the number of stings in that area. "The area from the tip of the nose dorsally and laterally back to the eyes and including the lips received the most stings by far. The maximum number of stings recorded was more than 7.8/CM2 on the skin near the nose and 6.1/cm2 on the eyelids (Figure 1). The areas posterior to the eyes, including the ears, received few stings compared with the eyes and muzzle. Many stings were also found inside the oral cavity, mostly on the tongue. Overall, the dog received 2,460 stings to the head or about 1.8 stings/cm2. The remainder of the dog's body had fewer stings, with an estimated total of 845 stings, or 5% as many per unit area as delivered to the head." it's horrible and it's here Saturday, December 22, 2001
Sunday, September 30, 2001
I have in my mind memories of all the bee-related happenings that were recorded in my little pocket book, and come daylight hours I will be able to access several of them, so this site will be OK.
OK, I must apologise to everyone who has been waiting with baited breath for a new bee post. Uncharacteristically for me, there has been a lot of busyness going on, and I have been more concerned with the flesh and blood world than with the E-tastic Weird Wired World. Tonight I had to take a schizopheric person home and talk her down, and then deal with a lads' card game for the first time, with concurrent secreting of cards. On the way home I realised my wallet was missing, so I ran back to the venue of the lads' card game, where my wallet was returned complete with cash. Upon getting home I discovered that my little pocket book, in which I had been keeping notes of all bee related happenings, was missing. I don't think I took it out with me this evening, I don't know. That's all. Wednesday, August 29, 2001
my mum heard a thing on a Radio Norfolk phone-in from an old lady who'd found a bee with its wings missing. She was feeding it on sugar water, and had given it a name, although my mum couldn't remember the name. I am trying to get in touch with Radio Norfolk to find out what has happened to the poor wingless bee. Friday, August 17, 2001
Ah, here we go - the queen honeybee doesn't look like Jabba The Hutt:
"Anatomically, the queen is strikingly different from the drones and workers. Her body is long, with a much larger abdomen than a worker bee. Her mandibles, or jaws, contain sharp cutting teeth, whereas her offspring have toothless jaws. The queen has a curved, smooth stinger that she can use repeatedly without endangering her own life. The queen bee lacks the working tools possessed by worker bees, such as pollen baskets, beeswax-secreting glands, and a well-developed honey sac. Her larval food consists almost entirely of a secretion called royal jelly that is produced by worker bees. The average lifespan of the queen is one to three years." this and the thing about Bee products below are from here
Honey bees also produce propolis, a gummy substance made from tree sap that has antibacterial properties, and royal jelly and pollen for human consumption. Honey bee venom is extracted for the production of antivenom therapy and is being investigated as a treatment for several serious diseases of the muscles, connective tissue, and immune system, including multiple sclerosis and arthritis.
Is there no end to the helpfulness of bees, eh?
Ooh, I like the look of this. If I have children they will only be allowed to read this and Ant And Bee.
  
and again from my girlfriend who has bees in her head:
"Today I saw a lady with a fabric shopping bag. It had smiling cartoon bees all over it. One of the bees was wearing a skirt and a crown. The queen bee. But real queen bees just look like enormous jabba-the-hut style larvae don’t they? "The lady also had a tooled leather bum-bag. She looked quite fierce and very church of england. I imagine her sitting on committees and baking cakes." I think she might be wrong about the Jabba The Hut queen bees. I think that's termites she's thinking of, and that queen bees are just like big bees. It's quite shameful that I don't know that, but it's all part of the bee learning process. Thursday, August 16, 2001
Eep - my girlfriend is putting me to shame in finding bee facts. She has a job, you see, and gets bored, whereas I sit on my arse in my bedroom listening to silly music all day and don't get bored. She has found these two ace things:
Bee with white whiskery moustache! from http://www.island.net/~cclt/bluebee.htm 
The Blue Bee The Blue Orchard Bee is only 2/3 the size of the honey bee, that is approximately 1/2 of an inch. It is black with a shiny blue metallic patch on its back and has, just as the honey bee does, a double wing on each side of its body. It has been noted that the blue bee has been mistaken for a house fly and killed. It can be distinguished from that of a house fly by it's wings; it has a pair of wings on both side where a house fly has one wing. The male Blue even sports a white, whiskery moustache. From the island of anguilla comes http://www.thelight-anguilla.com/light245.htm SWAMS OF HONEY BEES Swarms of angry honey bees recently stung teachers and students at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School to take an unscheduled one day holiday. The school was closed after attempts recently by staff at the Department of Agriculture to bring the bees under control were largely unsuccessful. A number of teachers and students sustained stings and had to be treated at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. Director of Agriculture, Mr Leslie V Richardson, was hopeful that the problem would have been brought under control by the end of May 12, 1998. He noted that a number of bees had been captured while the majority were being destroyed. According to reports, the honey bees have been inhabiting certain sections of the roofs of the school since 1995 when Hurricane Luis destroyed a number of hives at the Department of Agriculture Wednesday, August 15, 2001
Monday, August 13, 2001
again from Aussie Melissa:
this fellow is the logo of b105fm, a country and western radio station from Cincinnati Ohio. There is an even nicer animation of him spitting out words, but I can't make it work on this blog as it is a Flash animation. The radio station's site is at b105fm.com, but you can't listen to it there, annoyingly.
My girlfriend found this on a UK bee discussion forum (I'm not sure of the address):
Bee parasites? From: johnmaskell@compuserve Date: 5/5/01 Time: 7:01:25 PM Remote Name: 212.211.22.20 Comments I have just found a large bumble bee (2-3cm) on my lawn, seemingly writhing in discomfort. When I picked it up it had a small bee (5 - 6 mm) attached to its side. The large bee was trying to dislodge the small bee with its leg but the small bee was very tenacious. It appeared to be attacking the much bigger bee. We finally separated the two and the large bee flew away. The small bee is in a jam jar. Anyone know what it is or what was happening? Not a bee-keeper or know anything about them I seem to have thoroughly infected her mind, as she was dreaming about bees the other night - she dreamed that she walked past what appeared to be a posh kids' "Montefiore-type" school, and outside were the remnants of a street party, and a beekeeper/caretaker was there with his rectangular beehives suspended from ropes - she considered this unusual, thinking that the standard beehive is the round michelin-man-resembling one seen in old pictures. She then thought she had walked into a dead end but someone showed her the way through the wall. She told me this as we were walking into Forest Hill in South London to get a coffee after visiting a museum (which had no bees in it); I was just explaining to her that most beehives are box-like in construction now, to allow rectangular frames of honeycomb to easily be lifted in and out of the hive, when a honeybee came and buzzed around our faces a few times. I remarked that it might be spying or eavesdropping on this conversation, and that by such careless talk I may have alerted the bees to humans' honey-harvesting techniques. I didn't really mean it though. Then we walked past a fish and chip shop called Bee's, but she wasn't impressed because we both needed the toilet and were getting short-tempered. Shortly after this, back in Dulwich, we saw a bush with both bumblebees and honeybees on, so I was able to clearly demonstrate the differences between them. We had been to the toilet, in a pub, by then, so were both more able to concentrate on the bees.
On Friday last I was really not with it - I thought I saw a bee outside a newsagent where I had just bought a newspaper for my train journey (though I had promised myself I wouldn't, and that I would finish reading the manuscript of my grandpa's pharmaceutical satire novel which I have had in my posession for ages), but it kept zipping around in my peripheral vision, and I never quite saw it clearly enough to even say whether it was a bumble or honey bee. Two minutes later I walked straight past the turning for Brighton Preston Park Station, despite having been there many many times before, and carried on bumbling (sorry) along for almost 10 minutes until I found myself right on the edge of town and turned back. It was doubly depressing because the walk took me past a housing development where a couple of years back I had been to a the party of lots of sporty rich kids in absolutely disastrous circumstances involving influenza, a witch, lucky lighters, mystery tablets, a collapsing relationship and non-specific urethritis - which has recently recurred, requiring me to take antibiotics which have rendered me really dozy, hence my inability to spot either the bee or the station. Anyway, when I came back from London I got off the train at Preston Park, and walked home, which obviously made me think of the aforementioned events... this reminded me of not-quite-seeing a bee, and just at this moment I glimpsed a bee, spun round to try and see it better and noticed a sign for "Beehive Under-5s Nursery" just opposite where I had thought I'd seen a bee 4 days earlier. Wednesday, August 08, 2001
Bee's Knees 2 ounces gin 1/2 ounce lime juice 2 barspoons honey Shake ingredients with cracked ice; strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon wedge.
the picture for this may disappear soon as it is a cocktail of the week here
Bee's Kiss For late summer flus that have more to do with the passing dog days than one's actual health, we order this cocktail, the closest libation to a summer toddy that we've found. But unlike its warm winter counterparts, the Bee's Kiss is a cool, comforting restorative - perfect for fancied pathos. This heirloom of the speakeasy - with its 1 ounce white rum, 1/4 ounce dark rum, 3/4 ounces cream, and 2 barspoons honey, shaken and strained into a cocktail glass before a dusting of nutmeg - rarely stings, though in the '40s Trader Vic insisted it did. For us, the cream in the Bee's Kiss makes one - maybe two - just enough, which may be why we've avoided any regrets about this drink, likening it more to the "bee's kiss" of Robert Browning's poetry. Those risqué Victorians generally took the term to mean tickling a loved one with your eyelashes. We can only imagine that's why Utah considered the honeybee chaste enough to sanction as its state insect. Years ago, Native Americans called the imported bees "flies of the white man." Occasionally, we'll come across old-time mixers who'll make reference to this cocktail as either the "Fly's Kiss" or the "Fly's Nectar." Although impressed by their presumed historical trivia, we may change orders or even bars on the basis of the imagery. Dr. Charles Hogue, in his Cultural Entomology, says the Bee's Kiss is linked to its namesake only by its distinctive flavor. Charles H. Baker - who surely sipped more than a few Bee's Kisses and undoubtedly enjoyed its gin-based predecessor, the Bee's Knees - made honey a requirement at the bar: "This man-stolen product of the bee's industry, in its strained state, is useful now and then in special cocktails. A small, cup-size, covered porcelain or china container should be on every thoroughgoing bar." During the summer, we still come across these nearly forgotten containers at fine establishments. A bartender may tout Trader Vic's silly precept that "after too many of these you'll get hold of the wrong end of the bee" before shaking one up for us, but we know we'll still be better and more accepting of the fall season ahead after a Bee's Kiss or two.
I can't remember if I've mentioned this before... but I was reminded today of 2 of my favourite bee-related songs: the mournfully psychedelic Chasing A Bee by Mercury Rev (off their first album, Yerself Is Steam) and Free The Bee by Melt Banana which is precision shouty Japanese noise-punk. I don't really know if this counts, but the acid bassline Try Again by Aaliyah and Timbaland sounds like a gang of big shitting bees made of mercury.
I have been listening to episodes of the wonderful Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio series that I have downloaded via Audiogalaxy, and was very happy to be reminded of the moment that Ford Prefect accuses Arthur Dent of having "about as much grasp of multi-temporal causality as a concussed bee". What a lovely twangy turn of phrase the late Douglas Adams had.
I saw 2 bees today. One was bothering bald men on platforms 5 and 6 of London Bridge station, as I waited for a train back to Brighton. The other was supping from a lavender bush in Brighton. They were both big fat bumblebees. I found out from the Readers Digest at my girlfriend's mum's house that bumblebees don't die when they sting. This is because their nests only have a couple of hundred bees in, whereas honeybees live 40,000+ to a hive, so are more expendible as individuals. Friday, August 03, 2001
My girlfriend is too cool - she just found this for me:
Those who are familiar with Arabic will easily be able to identify what this beehive spells - "Allah(swt)".
Uugh. Popbitch.com message board is turning into a discussion about animal cruelty, and someone just posted this:
"I once put 10 bees in a jar and watched them die. 4 years later aged 10 I dreamt that 10 bees put me in a jar and watched me die. My parents couldn't understand why I was so upset..." Needless to say, I put them in their place. Monday, July 30, 2001
I put my email address on this site for the first time yesterday, and straight away got a mail from a lady in Australia called Melissa BEE. She has this website which is all about Melissas and bees, and which now has edited highlights from this Blog.
it expands on the Melissa/bee connection: "The name Melissa is derived from Greek mythology. Melissa was a nymph that cared for the infant Zeus while he was being hidden from his father, the king of the gods. Melissa plundered bee hives in order to feed honey to Zeus, who developed a permanent sweet tooth. When Melissa's role in protecting Zeus was discovered, she was turned into some lowly species of insect. Zeus later took pity on her and turned her into a honeybee, which is forever involved with making honey. (Parenthetical note: if Zeus had meant to do Melissa a favor, why didn't he turn her back into a nymph instead?)" and has other stuff on it, like this: 
Eek! I've just found out that bees have five eyes! It was the answer to a question on Eamonn Holmes's BBC1 quiz show last week, but I kind of discounted it because I distrust the jovial but dim-seeming Irish light entertainment host. I just looked it up on Google, however, and...
"How many eyes do you think a bee has? Two you say? No, actually, bees have five eyes in all. No, this isn't a trick question. On top of their head are three simple eyes, known as ocelli, arranged in a triangular pattern. These simple eyes with a single lens are best for informing the bee of changes in light intensity. These ocelli help them navigate around flowers and getting to and from the nest at dawn and dusk." also "Worker honey bees also have eyes that are divided up into two great ellipses on opposite sides of their head. Each compound eye is made up of about 6,900 individual units/facets packed tightly together as hexagons and known as ommatidia. Each ommatidium is able to capture light rays from a small angle of view. These rays are focused by several lenses onto light sensitive pigment. Once stimulated, these sensory cells pass along nervous impulses coding information on the quality of the light (its wavelength = visible color and plane of polarization) to the optic nerves which eventually reach the optic lobes of the honey bees' brain." more on how bees see the world
Two bees (or maybe the same bee twice) came and buzzed round my face yesterday as we sat under Brighton's West Pier. Then my friend jumped naked from the pier into the sea. A little later a man came out of the sea in snorkelling gear with a knife and harpoon: he had a lobster dangling between his legs and 3 mullet fish on his belt. We bought a mullet for £2, and took it to my friends' house where my girlfriend filled it with lemon, rosemary, garlic and parsley. It was fantastic - I've never had such fresh fish before. Sunday, July 29, 2001
My skinny flatmate saw an enormous bumblebee struggling to fly off the pavement yesterday. I wonder if it was overcome by the heat - it's been over 30 degrees for the last few days. Oh, and he (my flatmate, not the bumblebee) saw an episode of the Simpsons-resembling sitcom Malcom In The Middle which featured bees very heavily.
My naked girlfriend was just pestering me to get a book on fractals out from under my computer monitor (the monitor is propped up on a pile of big books to save me from getting a cricked neck whilst playing with my computer). This meant me having to hold my desk-lamp between my knees (getting a small electric shock into the process), while girlfriend lifted up the monitor and I reached around her to get the book. It was all worthwhile in the end though because the book had a picture of some mites swimming in the trachea of a bee. I then looked up "bee", "trachea" and "mites" on the Google search engine, and found this picture:
It's not quite as clear and pretty as the picture in the book, but never mind, eh? It's from a site dedicated to the Hamilton Menthol Board: "Tracheal mites are too small to be seen by the naked eye. To detect them, you would need a microscope and laboratory facilities. "Tracheal mites make for bad wintering, poor honey production, and decreased bee vigor. Winter mortality may be indicated by a fairly sudden collapse of colonies, especially in the snow immediately in front of the hives as the bees crawl out, loaded with fecal matter, with an abundance of honey left inside the hive. (1) "Therefore, it is important to test and be aware of any tracheal mite infestation in your hives. "Menthol has proven to be an effective treatment for tracheal mite control. The menthol needs to vaporize inside the hive to be effective. Various forms of treating with menthol have been developed. Crystals may be introduced into the hives, loose on the bottom board, placed on a towel over the brood nest, or put into a paper bag with holes punched in and hung on a frame. Temperatures need to be above 70 F (21 C) for the menthol to vaporize and be effective. "Some beekeepers treat mites with vegetable oil. This reduces the ability of the mite to find young hosts and spread. "Our method is to combine the two. Menthol dissolved in vegetable oil provides the best of both treatments." This all seems very sensible. The picture was taken by C.Peng, by the way. More info Thursday, July 26, 2001
By the use of the incredible Audiogalaxy I have downloaded some fantastic songs that involve bees. Me And The Bees by The Softies is a very cute wafty drippy indie acoustic ballad. Another Set Of Bees In The Museum by Olivia Tremor Control is quite mad fuzzy but lush lo-fi melodic stuff, a bit like the stranger and rockier late Beatles songs. Green Velvet is one of my favourite techno producers, so it was nice to see that he has done a track called Killer Bees, and even nicer to find out that it's one of his finest ever - really disorientating with (of course) lots of aggressive buzzing sounds zooming accross the stereo field. Thank God For The Worker Bees by Botch is great hardcore / metal, really grindy with crazy timing and a lot of the singer screaming "That's whyyyy we diiiie, destrooooy, destrooooy!!". The Bees by Belly is classic well-produced US indie stuff, but doesn't seem to have any reference to bees in the lyrics; there is a bit of a buzzing guitar sound in the choruses though.
"Vicci stung by bee" (written late at night, and drunk)
"At nursery school when I was aboot 5. I picked up a perpol South African flower called a Jackerander. As I looked inside the flower, the second I realised there was a bee in it, the buger stung me + I felt guilty for desterbing it, and sore." Tuesday, July 24, 2001
My lovely girlfriend gave me a matchbox from the trendy Social bar in central London, and it has blurry bees on their honeycomb printed all over it.
Someone called Bigmum just sent me this...
  
Which is superb, as graffiti is one of my favourite things after bees. Tuesday, July 10, 2001
hmm:
"The bee is an ancient symbol signifying someone on The Path towards self-realization. It was used because of the 'buzz' in the ears that occurs as one develops Mind to tune in to (vibrate at) higher and higher frequencies." (sounds like new age nonsense to me)
someone has some vague bee information:
"I think bees were some sort of Napoleonic symbol with connection to much earlier European ideological/political currents. "That's it. There's some mention of them (bees plus Napoleon and Merovingians) in the book entitled 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail'. Can't, however, recall anything more specific. "I've been informed by another source that bee's wax was thought by the Stonehenge builders to have special properties relating to flight."
Crowely examined the Tarot in The Book of Thoth. Of the Empress card he said "She combines the highest spiritual with the lowest material qualities". Crowley identifies the Empress as the "Great Mother", and indeed on her robe are bees, the traditional symbol of Cybele. Crowley is not alone in the belief that different cultures give different names to the same deities. The worship of Cybele goes back to at least 3,000 B.C. She entered Greek culture as Artemis and to the Romans was Diana, the huntress. Crowley also identified the Empress with the Hindu goddess Shakti, and the Egyptian goddesses Isis and Hathor. Crowley directly identified Isis with Diana. More usually, Crowley called the Empress by the name Babalon.
Monday, July 09, 2001
Tonight my friend described the recorded output of the band Foetus thus: "Like the Beach Boys produced by a gang of angry metal bees". The thing is, he already knew about my bee obsession... this makes me incredibly paranoid - now I cannot trust anything anyone says in case they are tailoring it to fit with my bee obsession. Damn.
Wow! Look at this:
you can go to their website and download their jingle (it's very quick to download) which I feel may actually be the greatest piece of music in the history of the western world... all together now: "yum yum bumblebee, bumblebee tuna - I love bumblebee, bumblebee tuna!"
Whilst I was at the SONAR festival in Barcelona someone sold me an ecstasy capsule that had black and yellow stripes. A mere couple of minutes later I sat down to read the Jockey Slut magazine (one of the few good music magazines around in my not-so-humble opinion), to see them using "bumblebees" as rhyming slang for "E's". I like coincidences. I think the context was that they were talking about Missy 'Misdemeanour' Elliot and her advocacy of ecstasy use, and they said something like "imagine her coming at you when you're on the bumblebees - shudder", which I thought a little needlessly cruel. But then I'm sure Missy can handle herself perfectly well without my sympathy.
The troll Anthony Worral-Thompson has "120,000 of the little fellers" in his orchard, and was on TV making a kind of Moroccan stew using their honey the other day.
A few weeks back I was on my way to a bee-related art exhibition at the South London Gallery, but I missed my stop and ended up in Camberwell. When I got out of the bus, directly across the road was a shop with a big sign on the front which said "Bee's Auto Bits - You won't get stung here". Then when I got to the gallery the exhibition wasn't on anyway, but I had seen something to do with bees, so wasn't too pissed off.
My favourite chatting place on the Internet has two banner adverts for different companies that each feature bees. One is for some kind of financial services but is not on there right now - it comes and goes - and the other is for "Musicbee", who have this ace picture on their site:
I am just a bit scared that someone has worked out that I might be a target market and put these bees where I spend a lot of time to sell me stuff.
Bees are havin' it!! Apparently the only people to benefit from the UK's foot'n'mouth crisis are beekeepers. The destruction of grazing animals and lack of trampling ramblers combined with the sunny weather has led to a resurgence of a huge variety of wild flowers, which allow the bees to make tastier and healthier honey - and more of it.
I stroked a bumblebee today! It was on a bush outside the doctor's surgery. It didn't seem to mind, and even started kicking one of its legs like a dog does when you scratch its back. Then I saw 2 bumblebee on some Jasmine on my way home. One was black and yellow, and the other one had a red arse.
I find this bee immensely appealing.
Oh yes, a bumblebee bashed against my living room window this morning. And I saw a documentary about Africanised Killer Bees yesterday but had drunk a lot of tequila, so couldn't take any of it in. Sunday, July 08, 2001
There was a thing in New Scientist about a new method of data distribution... I can't find the issue now, but roughly speaking it took inspiration from the way that bees communicate with each other to make sure that all the flowers in the neighbourhood get efficiently visited, and it can for example send a vaccination programme for a new computer virus to computers right around the world faster and more effectively than the virus itself can spread. Bees are cool.
I have been give some great bee-related things. My brother has sent me for my birthday a real bee in a little bottle of formaldehyde (which he kindly warned me not to drink) - so it is almost but not quite a wet bee. I haven't named it yet. Oh, actually, I'll call it Sam, after my brother, because again that is a gender-ambivalent name. My landlord has given me a big box of vials of royal jelly, and I have started drinking them every morning. They taste quite almondy, and have "fructus schizandrae, radix codonopsis pilosulae and fructus lycii" in them as well as the jelly. These are apparently "Precious Chinese Herbs". My girlfriend bought me a furry bee that vibrates vigourously when you pull a string in its back; it has a cute face. Actually it's more flock than fur. And I have a bee poster. It was to advertise Age Concern (one of the few charities I've ever contributed to, coincidentally - I put on a club night called "ooh me bones" where the band and DJs dressed as OAPs and I shaved the middle of my head and wore terrible spectacles) - and features a close up of several honeybees on their comb.
I've found out where all the bumblebees are - they're all on one dog rose bush in the carpark of East Dulwich Sainsburys (and on the bush with tiny flowers next to it, but I'm not sure what that is. Thousands of bumblebees, seemingly in three different sizes.
The Golden Bumble, on the other hand, is a commercial sex toy shaped like a bumblebee that uses a pump and suction cup along with vibration to supposedly "simulate oral sex and massage your clit and labia." Perhaps it was the perturbing image of having a jelly bumblebee attached to my bits, but I had a hard time getting good suction and I found the vibration far too subtle through the jelly.
The stars freeze mid-twinkle over the eerily quiet streets, walked by people who firmly believe the night ended long ago. It's an unkind hour to be an accordion-playing transsexual in a bumblebee costume, trying to liven things up.
more info here
I haven't updated this for ages... but be patient, I have a huge throbbing crate of bee-fact all ready to unload in your face. In the meantime you can tease a bee here Friday, June 08, 2001
Someone called Beeyatch just posted this, with the following caption (Captain Beeheart is a name I have adopted):
Capt Bee_heart, realising that the world was ripe for taking over, moved his command ships to the centres of world power...
Hooray, the same person as found that fascistic bee below just found this, which may feasibly be the best thing in the world:
 Monday, June 04, 2001
Saw a honeybee today. It was on some really fragrant sticky bushes in the gay cruising promenade by Black Rock in Brighton. It was quite a big one, and very glossy. Thursday, May 31, 2001
I have a bee!! It is a bumblebee, and it is in a matchbox. It was given to me by someone called Lee, so I shall call it Lee Bee. If it turns out that bumblebees are predominantly female like honeybees, that's ok: I shall just call it Leigh Bee.
there's a new band with a new single and they're called...
The Bees 'Punchbag' (We Love You) "Although Punchbag isn't the strongest song on their upcoming album, it does have an interesting Stax-meets-Steely Dan feel with the combination of horns, Hammond and sparse drums giving it more warmth than the main lyric of 'You use me like a punchbag' would usually convey when used in conversation. But enough of that. Check the B-side, 'A Minha Menina'; this little baby is more Jonathan Richman-meets-The Beatles-somewhere-in-the-middle-of-the-Portuguese-language, with unbeatable Summertime Special results. One to be played loud in the motor but not when doing complicated things. Which for some of you will mean simply when driving." Monday, May 21, 2001
Tuesday, May 15, 2001
Bollocks. I've just missed a whole beefest in Barcelona....
Around Town Sant Ponç For one, all-too-brief day each year, this charming market fills C/ Hospital in commemoration of Sant Ponç, the patron saint of beekeepers and herbalists. Hundreds of stalls sell all kinds of natural products from the surrounding countryside, including honey straight from the barrel, bunches of fresh and dried herbs, candied fruit, sweet wine, perfumes and candles. The street, beginning at the Rambla, is filled all day with sweet smells and the incessant buzz of eager buyers. 11 May, 10am-8pm, C/Hospital (no phone). Metro Liceu. Monday, May 14, 2001
Are you used to reading backwards yet? Don't worry if not - if you were a honeybee you'd have to learn to read anticlockwise, and that would be really difficult, considering your brain would be well under half a centimetre across.
At this point, there should be "shout outs" made in a Pirate Radio fashion to bee contributors: The New Scientist; Emma No Future; MD and Varg Vikenes; The man like Fela K; The (kind of) lady like Moggy; The mad scientist like my brother; your mum...
Good bee magic! This weekend someone that I like came to visit. It turns out she likes me too so she spent the night. When we awoke the next day, a honeybee came through the window, flew around our heads, then flew back out of the window. Thursday, May 10, 2001
Final proof - bees are the epitomé of cool: David Bowie (then Jones) played in some 5 bands at high school. Among these were The King Bees and The Buzz - in fact the King Bees released the first record ever to feature said rock god. That's a pretty respectable bee quotient by any standards. Tuesday, May 08, 2001
JUST SAW A BEE! My flatmate called me downstairs... he's sitting on the porch having a coffee, right, and this big old bumblebee turns up. I just caught a glimpse of it, then it flew round a corner and over a wall. I was put in mind of the sketch in Chris Morris's Jam, where the fumbling bloke who gets given a shoe-wire by his boss tells the lovely receptionist that there was a dove outside the window but it's flown away now.
someone just sent me this:
"Jon Ronson's very cool. If you go to his site at http://www.jonronson.com and visit the forum you can see such comments as 'He also bought a very nice and expensive bee for his nephews birthday.'"
Ye gods, it's true!! "Did anyone see Animal Planet's PREDATORS: HOW THEY HUNT footage of Giant 2-inch orange and black Japanese hornets completely annihilating a colony of European honeybees? One by one, they snip off the heads of 30,000 bees in about 3 hours, to get at the larva, which they feed to their own larva. Those larva are huge fat things that all bonk their heads against the walls of their cells in unison to demand more food. But if a hornet scout locates a hive of Japanese bees, they all hide inside the nest and wait, buzzing a collective warning. When the hornet comes inside to investigate, about a dozen bees jump on it simultaneously and pin it down, as more and more pile on top - they don't sting, but all vibrate their wings and bodies until the core temperature of the ball (where the hornet is) reaches 115 degrees, killing it! The bees can withstand up to 118 degrees, and so survive, and none die useless deaths from using their stingers. With the scout dead, the hornet never has a chance to alert the rest of its colony for a raid, and the bee hive is safe. Amazing stuff."
Another loon: "IN REGARDS TO YOUR SLIGHTLY AMUSING WEBSITE I HAVE SOME POINTS, THE NUMBER 1 QUESTION SHOULD BE, NOT WARE ARE THE DEAD WET BEES,BUT, ARE THEY DEAD BECAUSE THEY ARE WET, AND IF SO WHICH BASTARD DROWNED THEM? I AM SURE BEES KNOW THEY CANT SWIM AND THERFORE THIS LEAVES PREMEDITATED DROWNING OR AN ACCIDENT, AND AFTER ALL HOW MANY ACCIDENTS INVOLVING BEES HAVE YOU SEEN?" Monday, May 07, 2001
Just heard a mental story about Japanese bees rubbbing themselves against hornets until the friction cooks them, but think I'd better check this one out. Sunday, May 06, 2001
Yesterday I got my housemate to photograph me gesturing at a cartoon bee on an HSBC poster. I will scan it and post it as soon as it's developed. There's a town called Bumblebee in Arizona. There's going to be a UK bee census, due to similar bee problems as those in the USA (see below), and I will join in with it.
Shit! Bees in danger!: "During the past ten years, both wild and managed honeybee populations have dropped by over 50% in North America. The major reasons for the decline are two parasites that weaken or kill the honeybee. The misuse of pesticides has also contributed to the problem. "If honeybees continue to decline, how will we continue to grow those fruit and vegetable crops that require insect pollination? Many scientists believe we should look to our native bees for help. There are at least 19,000 species of bees in the world today and more than 5,000 are native to the U.S.. Already, native bees pollinate crops such as blueberries, cranberries, squash, alfalfa, apples, and tomatoes. If we can learn more about native bees, how to encourage them to nest next to farm fields and visit crop plants, then we would not have to depend as much on honeybees." Friday, May 04, 2001
Further to that post about Slovenia, I should mention that I have some pictures of beehives that will blow your heads off, but I will not post them here until this weblog achieves critical mass (if, indeed, it ever does)
and this: "my boss's ex found a bee in her room. she attempted to placate it by assuminmg the identity of a bee, this she did by turning on the vacuum cleaner to create an authentic buzz."
Woah, check this: "There's a tradition in Slovenija that you 'tell it to the bees'...what pisses you off that day, who's shagging who & where, what you got up to that you can't say in confession, your general gripes & gossip. Painting beehives is a national thing there, there's probably even a website on it! I did have a book that I found in Winchester called 'The painted beeehives of Slovenija' (I kid u not!) as I was deeply into bees too...at one point during my random stream-of -consciousness library experiences where everything I found seemed to be connected(know what I mean?). I was fascinated by a dream I had that the art studios were arranged in a honeycomb shape, so that each student would have their own space to work on each wall & more rooms would fit into the college as a whole. The hexagonal-room thing made perfect sense to me, but I never kept the beehive book as at some future point I thought I was probably going just a little bit too mad & looking too closely at things. Bees are very clever tho. I've seen 3 bumble-bees this month, one came into the kitchen but went outside when I talked to it & said it wouldn't want to live indoors. When I was a child we had 2 beehives & I thought it very relaxing to lie under one & watch bees buxx around & onto me. I could see their little legs empty when they left & full when they came back (people love pollen too, different sorts). Bees hum at avery relaxing pitch, wonder if it's om? They crawled all over my face too but never stung me once"
From my friend who does landscape gardening and irrigation: "Been in very close contact with alot of bees recently.....bumble bee "varieties" there are alot of different sorts it seems! Have you ever heard the squeeks they make? very strange, All living in an old wall near where i am working. Not aggressive bees, just busy bees. nice. very territorial i think, each seem to have a specific hole they use to enter the wall...or at least some are not allowed in certain holes. Will be on said site for a few weeks so will watch developments and keep you posted. What is in the wall?? A Big fuck off horney queen, or what?? maybe they are solitary bees living in a communnity....is that like a contradicton??" Thursday, May 03, 2001
my brother's breakthrough: "I have a bumble bee in formaldehyde stored in a small bee sized flask on my lab bench. strictly speaking it is not wet. infact it doesn't even look wet as it is submerged, and you may have noticed that wet things don't loook wet when under water (or other liquid). I shall track down some sort of imaging technology soon and send you documentation of this fantastic development. what do dry things look like underwater?" To which I answer - find yourself a water-spider. As for wet things not looking wet underwater, we are entering a semantic minefield here. I would say that an underwater horse, with it's mane flowing in the water currents as it paddles along does look "wet", but could only be said to look "damp" or "sodden" after it emerged onto dry land, assuming it did emerge.
From: "mybrother'sangryfriend" To: mybrother@hotmail.com Subject: Re: bees Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 12:11:05 -0000 YOU AND YOUR BROTHER ARE CLINICALLY INSANE, BEES DONT FUCKING DIE WHEN THEY ARE WET BECAUSE THEY LOOK FUCKING STUPID
And while we're on the cutesy bees tip:
A Hello Kitty picture is shortly to become the new screensaver on my PC. You can get bee-ed up too, here.
My brother, biologist and philosopher: "i have in my possesion a dead bumble bee. it was outside the canteen, it had been there since yesterday, but i didn't see it yesterday. this makes me think of all the bees that we don't see. especialy alive ones. there are more people alive than have ever lived. is this true for bees? are there more alive bees than there are dead ones. i don't think so. so why don't we see more dead bees. are there more wet bees than dry ones but we don't see them because they can't fly? there is more water than not water on the surface of the planet, so it would make sense for there to be more wet bees than dry bees." This obviously raises the question of the deficit of dead and wet bees - where are they? They must be the bee equivalent of the mysterious "dark matter" that we are told could balance all the equations of particle physics and cosmology. Perhaps bees transfer to a different phase of being when they die or get wet, and we are surrounded by countless dead and/or wet bees. They could even be inside our bodies. Wednesday, May 02, 2001
More American Christian cant - this time anti-evolution rhetoric... "INSECTS. Among the incredible diversity of members in the insect world none are more pointing to their Creator than the bees. Born of a set of parents that possess none of the features or skills they will use. Yet from day one the worker bee serves its Queen with absolute skills. Never learned, never forgotten, innate and created by God. The woker bee sweats wax. As that vital substance is produced the worker slices, trims and fastens it into the honeycomb renowned for its perfectly engineered strength and utility. Where did it get wax generators, wax cutters, trimmers and a trowel to lay each piece in the right spot? From the God who made 'every winged creature'!" The rest of this rant claims that the giant lizards and dragonflies were all killed by the flood. Let us not dismiss it out of hand, though - it does provide a lyrical description of why bees are skill.
This is from quite a scary ultra-right Christian thing from middle America: "In the next few articles, we shall present more Satanic symbols which the Freemasons love dearly. We will talk about Pentagrams, the Circle, the Yin and Yang, the Serpent, assorted animals, insects, and the Bees with or without their hive." Fucking mentalists - the whole site is dedicated to clumsily proving that Freemasons, Jews, the Chinese and anyone else you care to mention are all part of one and the same blasphemy against Christ.
Still seen no bees; am feeling quite down about this. On the plus side, I found this beestung website:  which has lots of nice free music on it. Monday, April 30, 2001
Then the Buddha spoke in verse as follows: Verse 49: As the bee collects nectar and flies away without damaging the flower or its colour or its scent, so also, let the bhikkhu dwell and act in the village (without affecting the faith and generosity or the wealth of the villagers).
There is a cartoon called Mya The Bee in scandinavian countries and also in South Africa... I am going to have to look this up. She has a friend called Willi The Bee, who is a kind of nerdy little bee. They have adventures. My orange-haired friend used to have a toy Mya, and it had like a blond afro, because it was from the 70s.
My small orange-haired friend is here now. She has her mobile phone ringtone set to "bee". She freed a bumblebee on Good Friday. It was in a car, and she cupped it in her hands to get it out of the window - not realising that it could sting. It didn't sting. Then she went to a stone circle near Canterbury and thought about bees. Sunday, April 29, 2001
Today I remembered that I should make reference in this diary to: a) Honey To The Bee by Billie "Chazbaps" Piper b) multicoloured rich pop-punk band and friends of the KLF Voice Of The Beehive
Nightmarishly cute haiku? We gottem! bee sits on flower buzz buzz bee sips sweet nectar quick! next flower waits Roberta Gibson 
Here's a deep one, from www.danwinter.com - this fellow's brimming over with bee metaphors. Honey carries the codes of the planets as they beam their energy to earth.. The flowers, being of the highest vibration of energy in the physical world, carry the codes of the geometry that interlocks with the paths of the stars.. The flowers then hold the information, and release it in their pollen and plant nectar.. Then the worker bees of the honey bee kingdom, graciously collect the sacred nectar and pollen which is the food of the worker bees and drones, which becomes the raw material for the queen making royal jelly..
A few examples of bee-warfare from http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/~ag151/bee_tidbits.html first century B.C. Appian 12.78 says defenders of Bithynian Themiskyra used bees against Lucullus in 72 second century A.D. Herodian (Book 3, chapter 9, 5-6) records that during the siege of Hatra by the forces of Severus in A.D. 197, the citizens were making clay pots...filled them with winged insects, little poisonous flying creatures. When these were hurled down on the besiegers, the insects fell into the Romans eyes and all the unprotected parts of their bodies; digging in before they were noticed, they bit and stung the soldiers. A.D. 500 Saint Gobnet of Ireland (patron saint of beekeeping there) used her bees to repel marauding cattle thieves in ca. A.D. 500. Different versions of the story exist; in one she changed the bees into soldiers and the beehive into a brass helmet, which was subsequently kept by the O'Herihy family for centuries.
Someone on a chat board I frequent, who has changed his pseudonym to the name of a Satanic Norwegian "Black Metal" singer, has been sending me loads of marvellous bee spirituality stuff, including several of the pieces below, and this, which is just great: What is the secret of the bee? It is that the Chaldee word for a bee is DABAR which also means a WORD, thus the bee is symbolic for the Mediator, the Messiah and the Word of God, i.e. that which proceeds from the Father or, in the mystery religions, prophecies and utterances inspired by the devil. The bee is therefore the Antichrist, the counterfeit Word of God, and what it produces is the seducing lies of the devil.
No bees yesterday, even in my distorted imagination... today it's raining so am hoping that maybe I might see a wet bee at last, but there is not much of the day left now. I thought I saw a robotic bee on the cover of a drum and bass record on the Emotif label, but on closer inspection it turned out to be an ant. Saturday, April 28, 2001
 The Anarchist Bees attacked and killed the Dancing bees - an extract: ANARCHIST DANCE ERRATICALLY AROUND CHAOS ALGORITHM ANARCHIST SPRAY WORKER BEES WITH BLACK FLAG BEES FALL DOWN - EXCEPT QUEEN ANARCHIST REARRANGE SUPER CODE REMOVE THREE TETRAHEDRONS - PLACE TWO AN HANGER TO RIGHT PLACE ONE ON FLOOR BETWEEN THE OTHER TWO SETS ANARCHIST MILL AROUND CHAOS ALGORITHM QUEEN CALMS THE ANARCHIST WITH KEY TETRAHEDRON QUEEN REVIVES DEAD WORKERS WITH FLASH PAPER WORKERS FEED HONEY TO ANARCHIST ANARCHIST EXIT CHAOS ALGORITHM TURNS OFF FLASH AND RETURNS ANARCHIST KEY CODE TO THE PEDESTAL CHAOS ALGORITHM EXITS QUEEN ACTIVATES WORKERS TO RECONSTRUCT THE SUPER CODE (by moving Key code near them) (Dr Jack shoots remote flash?) WORKERS REPLACE MOVED PARTS OF THE SUPER CODE QUEEN AND WORKERS RETURN TO OPENING SCENE DR JACK TURNS OFF FLOOD LIGHTS DR JACK SHOOTS REMOTE FLASH (LAST TIME) DR JACK TURNS OFF SOUND DR JACK TURNS HIS LIGHTS BACK ON DR JACK SAYS " We neither created nor destroyed the super code. It always was and always will be. Our job is to search for it, find it, and use. However, right now I am sure you are hungry and I have made some wasp Kabobs for you. I will pass them out." HOUSE LIGHTS COME ON +++++++++++++++++++++END++++++++++++++++++++++++
In ancient Greece, the dead were often embalmed in honey in large burial vases, crouched in the fetal position for their next birth. In the Yoruba religion, Oshun is the deity or orishá of rivers, lakes, and sensuality; she heals the sick with her magic honey.
I have still seen no bees since this diary started. I am not disheartened, though - it is sunny here, and surely that will coax some bees from their hiding places before too long. Wednesday, April 25, 2001
a stupid-arsed link to a stupid-arsed site of, like, explosions and shit: =========\\ /> /> //======== \\======---- / >lade / \unners Productions ----======// PRESENTS How to have PHUNN with Bottle Rockets and Bees, Hornets, and large stinging insects. (With little danger to your personal self) =-OR-= How to kill bees and wasps. Written by: Joe Shmoe the Eskimo / Two PHUNN and Tour De France \ guys! Spelling errors by: Tour De France"
Right, the bee thing's kicking off now: From: Someonei'veneverheardof To: me@hotmail.com Save Address Subject: Fwd: failure delivery Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 20:57:29 +0100 (BST) Reply Reply All Forward Delete Previous Next Close got you addy wrong first time - don't use this account to write back. Its shit. Note: forwarded message attached. ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: MAILER-DAEMON@yahoo.com To: someone@yahoo.co.uk Subject: failure delivery Date: 25 Apr 2001 19:52:02 -0000 Message from yahoo.com. Unable to deliver message to the following address(es). 64.4.49.199 does not like recipient. Remote host said: 550 Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable Giving up on 64.4.49.199. --- Original message follows. Return-Path: Message-ID: <20010425195202.6661.vonkmail@stelp666.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [212.159.150.666] by stelp666.mail.yahoo.com; Wed, 25 Apr 2001 20:52:02 BST Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 20:52:02 +0100 (BST) From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Someone=20Iveneverheardof?= Subject: whothatsomeoneis To: me@hotmail.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit the bee thing is ace - i see money. i see a coffee table book. Remembered this: My mum had a friend who was always trying to kill herself. One time she set herself on fire. it didn't work. But being a bit brown rice + sandals, she put honey on all her open sorey burns. the lodger then usd the same knife/honey for her toast. The woman finally managed the suicide thing - so many attempts - you'd hav thought she'd get it together sooner. Should I be alarmed by this? Should I get a buzz out of it? Or have I been stung?
Someone I spoke to in the South of France said she'd seen loads of bees today, but on closer examination it turned out only to have been a couple of bumblebees and a load of garish hoverflies.
Someone else's response to the last response: I was once riding my farty little 125cc bike up the A6 in the middle of summer with my visor open when one of the little black and yellow stripy fuckers flew into my helmet. Much panic ensued, and i nearly crashed.
I flattered a Melissa with this: At the temple of Aphrodite at Eryx, priestesses were called "melissae", which means "bees," and Aphrodite herself was called Melissa, the queen bee. She responded thus: Nearly forgot to tell you that I saw a bumble bee yesterday, he was a beauty! I was walking down the road and he came flying towards me (why do they always fly in your bleedin' face? are they blind?) I wasn't scared at 1st because I know the little fellas don't sting. But then he flew over my head once and then back again BZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz right in my ear which scared me and made me Shriek and flaps my arms around my head (much to the amusement of the kids out playing on their scooters).
People are sending me this stuff faster than I can put it on! What *Plan 10* actually reveals is a deep, insidious plot to rule the world involving UFO abductions, Masonic ritual, and bees. (Very important, those bees.) Never mind that it plays its subject matter purely for laughs... Plan 10 contains lots of details. For instance, the bees. Plan 10's single, side-splitting production number is the Dance of the Bees, performed to the tune of the actual Mormon hymn, "If You Could Hie to Kolob" (the planet Kolob, that is). The dance is made up of various Masonic postures, including the sign of the entered apprentice, the heave-over, the sign of the past-Master. More interesting is that the Dance of the Bees invokes the aliens (who come in a UFO right out of Ezekiel 1:4-23) - now we're into ritual magic territory. There is a stream of occult belief that regards the Masonic-based rituals of groups like the Ordo Templi Orientis (Aleister Crowley) as methods of contacting the Secret Masters who are, *gasp!*, aliens. George Andrews writes in *Extraterrestrial Friends of Foes* that Jack Parsons, rocket scientist and magickal son of Aleister himself, let the evil Grey aliens onto this plane by performing the BABALON ritual. Those Greys are now working with the Mormons, Masons and the New World Order... it would be a MORMON hymn, with the honeybee being the emblem of Utah and all... for more on BABALON and on, see your form tutor after school
as Daphnis says to Gannymede: O would to God... My lips were honey, and thy mouth a bee... Then shouldst thou suck my sweete and my faire flower, That now is ripe, and full of honey berries. well, you'd have to wouldn't you?
Ra, the God of Sun, looking down at the Earth, saw that the people had forgotten all about God and were behaving in an undignified manner. Seeing this, tears started running down his cheeks. But the God's kindness to people became manifest in the fact that his tears turned into bees, who brought honey to people.
the god of bees, bubilas, was a fat man with a sweet tooth. "He symbolized the spirit of the drone, the fertilizer of bees. Honey was sacrificed to Bubilas by breaking a jug with it, and this rite was accompanied by loud cries." loud cries presumably of "oh fuck, there's honey all over me carpet, that'll never come out."
Nostradamus predicted that Napoleon's reign would last 14 years and referred to his army as a swarm of bees. Napoleon was in power exactly 14 years and five months and his army's symbol was the bee.
Wow. A LITHUANIAN FOLK SONG A poplar stood alongside a road Sounding kankles from below the roots, Buzzing bees in the middle Falcons, children at the top, And a group of brothers comes riding on horseback, Please stop, young brothers, Listen to the sounding kankles, Listen to the buzzing bees, Look at the falcons, children.
The Truth about human evolution  It is now widely accepted that Homo Sapiens are not members of the great ape / primate family, but an independent branch decended from bees (Busybee Honeyi, to be precise)... ..."It wasn't a conspiracy, but a simple mistake. In his handwritten draft of Descent of Man, Darwin wrote that we are descended from "Apis" (i.e., honey bees). His editor, not being an entomologist, didn't know that word. He assumed it should be "Apes" and made the change throughout the manuscript. Lazy graduate students have been copying the error for generations and enshrining it in the papers they later publish themselves." more at this place
the 1944 film "bees in paradise" is "about four airmen who land on an island of women where the prevailing male custom is to commit suicide."
Got this off a pagan board: About bees...this is from a post to an e list I used to belong to. It's by a woman named Jane who practiced Finnish shamanism... "Bees are capable of transcending the worlds of men and gods and going to the source of them all, the realm of Ukko the Unknowable." (Ukko is the "most frequently evoked deity in _The Kalevala_" [that's the Finnish national epic...Creation stories, stories of gods and heroes, etc.]) "This (bees ability) is in part due to the hum of bees. It is a sound that enables them to walk between the different worlds of consciousness..." Other things Jane said were: "...heard of gnostic systems where bees are considered to be representative of one of the highest levels of communion with higher forces..." and, "Bees are also a symbol of the Vatican, as they are supposed to be messengers of God." Also, "According to my Apache uncle, bees of all sorts are highly significant...and considered to be highly lucky." So, I gather the hum represents messages or songs. Or, it's akin to shamanic drumming where the sound takes one to another level of awareness, the "different worlds of consciousness..." Jane mentions. Good luck with your bees! *hugs* Mo
The Drones are stout male bees that have no stingers. Drones do not collect food or pollen from flowers. Their sole purpose is to mate with the queen. If the colony is short on food, drones are often kicked out of the hive. Worker bees' stingers are evolved from egg tubes, aparrently.
Lithuanians identify with bees! "Even today, the verb for dying of non-humans is different from that for Humans and Bees, Lithuanians having a pre-Christian belief that bees have human attributes." and they make sure they wake up with the snakes: "The symbolic awakening of the snakes was on January 25th, The Day of Serpents in Lithuania, Kirmeline, when the serpents come out of the forests and return to the houses. On that day, the people would shake the apple trees in the orchard so that they would more fruitful and knock on beehives, waking the bees from the winter slumber."
There is a whole chapter in the Quran/Koran called "Bees", but this is the only bit about bees in it (it is a good bit, mind): The Bees' Instinct * Your Lord has inspired the Bees: "Set up hives in the mountains, and in trees and on anything they may build. * Then eat some of every kind of fruit and slip humbly along your Lord's byways." Honey From their bellies comes a drink with different colors which contains healing for mankind. In that is a sign for folk who will meditate!
From "The Magick Of Mother Goose": Bees A swarm of bees in May Is worth a load of hay; A swarm of bees in June Is worth a silver spoon; A swarm of bees in July Is not worth a fly. Tuesday, April 24, 2001
My brother is today's undefeated champion bee hero: "i saw a bumble bee today. on some cherry blossom. i also saw one on sunday, flying away from a walnut veneer 1950s' drinks cabinet."
It keeps coming!! Nice one bro! "and bees are haplodiploid, this is probably the reason why they're so interesting, a bizare genetic system in which the queen has twice as many chromosomes as everyone else. workers grow from unfertilized eggs, this causes relatedness asymetries, the workers are more closely related to the queen that the queen is to the workers. this is essentialy why the workers work for the queen and not vice versa. Although if you look in more detail, it seems that the genetic advatange that the worker gets form raising their neices as oposed to their daughters is greater than the queen gets from raising her own daughters, thus the queen is working more for the genetic advantage of the workers than herself, She is the sex bitch slave of the perverted masses."
My brother's really come good here - stuff about bee's arses falling off but still working... here comes the science bit - concentrate: "The selflessness of the workers in evolutionary terms is often commented on, as they give up their own opportunity to reproduce in favour of helping to raise the offspring of their sister (or half sister) the queen. This self sacrifice is taken to the extreme when it comes to the defense of the hive. Most people know that a bee is committing suicide when it stings, this is no accident of evolution, the stinging apparatus is highly adapted to operate outside the confines of the bees abdomen. As the bee deposits the sting and dies, the sting remains very much alive. In fact the sting has its' own independent nervous system which coordinates the contraction of a muscle system, pumping venom into the victim and driving the sting deeper at the same time!" J Exp Biol 1995;198(Pt 1):39-47 Ogawa H, Kawakami Z, Yamaguchi T.
Aha: detail! By Tim Radford Science editor. Bees use their reasoning powers to get to the nectar, according to an international team of scientists. In tests, the bees learned which signs led the way to something sweet and which did not, the researchers report in Nature today. This discovery will have set the world of animal behaviour abuzz. Vertebrates - and especially primates - were thought to be the only creatures that could hold in their heads the concepts of `the same' and `different'. Now the team from France, Germany and Australia say their research shows `that higher cognitive functions are not a privilege of vertebrates.' Bees are the cooperative go-getters of the insect world. The workers wake up, set off, search, find a source of honey, return, tell their colleagues where the best supplies are, then find their way back. Researchers have watched, noted and experimented for years to discover how bees navigate and communicate. Martin Giurfa of the Free University in Berlin, and colleagues from Narbonne and Canberra, noted from earlier studies that bees can `interpolate visual information, exhibit associative recall, categorise visual information and learn contextual information' - do what in a human would be evidence of thinking. So they set the bees a test. They trained the honeybees Apis mellifera to recognise particular colours and grating patterns, using a Y-shaped maze. In one trial, the bees saw either blue or yellow as they approached the entrance to the maze. When they got to the Y junction, they saw that one turning was labelled blue, the other yellow. They quickly learned that the sucrose reward was to be found down the turning that had the same colour code as at the entrance. In further experiments they found that the bees could perform the same mental gymnastics with similar and different grating patterns. And when colours were swapped for odours - lemon and mango - they saw the same outcome. The bees could tell sameness from oddity in the abstract. They could think. GUARDIAN 19/04/2001 P9
This reaction to the diary from the same person who wrote the bee/smoke poem below: "That is a true labour of love. The Waggledance is INDEED an interesting phenomenon. There's a waggledance beer isn't there? They've just done a corporate redesign of the packaging. Aren't bee related products GREAT? Honey, royal jelly, Honey beer, those Greek cakes, bee-sting arials, bee-stripe jumpers, the B-52's. " I shall have to find some pictures of these products.
From my learned brother: some interesting bits of mellifology, beehavioural ecology, hymenology or whatever; The analogy of the social insect colony to an organism or super organism (Ed O Wilson)tends to keep expanding in usefulness. The amazing ability of a bee hive to regulate its temperature to within a few degrees is a feat only seen elsewhere in a few higher vertebrates (birds and mammals). This similarity to more complex organisms' thermoregulatory mechanisms has been found to extend to the defense against disease. Where the mammal increases body temperature to kill bugs, a fever, the worker bees increase the internal temperature of the hive when infection is detected, this response is seen to occur early in the infection so would involve sophisticated communication. (Naturwissenschaften 2000 May;87(5):229-31, Starks PT, Blackie CA, Seeley TD.) Honeybees, we can probably assume, are not among the world's greatest thinkers. But they are capable of a surprising degree of higher cognitive function, including the ability to cope with the concept of 'sameness' previously thought likely to be the preserve of primates. Having learnt to associate a set of black and white patterns with reward or absence of reward, honeybees can transfer that learning to a new set of patterns, or even to another sense, a set of odours. (MARTIN GIURFA, SHAOWU ZHANG, ARNIM JENETT, RANDOLF MENZEL & MANDYAM V. SRINIVASAN Nature 410, 930-933 (19 April 2001)) and what about the waggle dance? more to follow maybe. Monday, April 23, 2001
Someone sent me this today: "i told my friend about your bee blog. He saw a bee on saturday. It was a bit sleepy and crawling along the pavement about to be stomped. "In Italian mosquito is Zanzare - which I think is excellent and sounds like the noise they make." And what's more, she called me "Lord Of The Bees". I'm obviously flattered, but I think that's a bit much, really. The sleepy bee reminded me: it's still a bit cold for bees. But soon there will be loads of them.
"Bee" is: "bi" in Norwegian "Biene" in German "abelha" in Portugese "bie" or "bij" in Dutch "pszczola" in Polish "mat-fung" in Cantonese. It looks like the "fung" bit means something stingy, as the other "fung" words in the dictionary were for things like "wasp", "scorpion" and "cobra"
Someone today claimed her name "Melissa-Jane" means "honeybee", but didn't think the "Jane" bit means "bee". I can see where she's coming from... the "Mel" syllable certainly has something to do with honey... I wonder if that has relevance for Melanies as well? Or Melvins?
Hooray, I just got the first direct response to this diary: "aaahhhhh. how sweet. and how poignant that you 'havent seen an actual bee all weekend'. not even on the bee bee cee? "i used to stroke honey bees as a small child. jake at the metway's band is called honey bee. is something good called the bees knees because it sounds like business? or are bees knees particularly good? bee in french is un abeille. i dont know the german or spanish...but id guess the german word is similar. what's the etymology of the word bee?" Sunday, April 22, 2001
 searching...There is some dubious poetry extant in this world... this following bit is is published - IN A BOOK: "Shall we gather at the river" by Connie Deanovich A gathering is an adequate symbol of itself a gathering of everyone you've ever known now frozen in individual serving size times in the brain like bees trapped in different versions of the Coke bottle If you saw the rest of the poems, you would know for sure that there is no regret or satire here - this person really does see their life and relationships in terms of plastic-wrapped portions, fizzy drinks and so forth. Is this what we are reduced to? It's not just the mindless led-by-the-nose consumerist imagery, it's shit poetry. Try saying out loud... doesn't roll of the tongue does it? Not like "Isn't it funny how a bee makes honey Buzz buzz buzz, I wonder why he does?" now that is mellifluous.
This was posted by someone in response to me posting other peoples' bee poems on a chat board: "Bee, what you are, what you are is a bee keeper, or are you the grim bee reaper? with your smoky gun, you have such fun, set your bee gun to stun, and let them have one, big blast of your puff, bee smoke gun's enough, to smoke out a bee, wheras i puff whole trees. That's one nil to me."
Excellent - I've found someone who gets overexcited by bee-sex:  "You may wonder how on earth I became involved in the beerotica industry. Well, this past spring I took a wonderful course at the University of Maryland called BSCI 120: Insects. This was one of my favorite courses of all time because we got to watch really cool nature videos every Thursday. In addition to videos about assassin bugs and bot flies, two other fascinating insects, we saw one that changed my life. That's right, I'm talking about the beautiful aerial ballet that is the mating ritual of the common honeybee." more at this beeporn site
On a web chat-board thing, me and another person pretend we are both doctors. Today they were complaining that their old Trabbant motorcar was rubbish, so I made them the following offer as a replacement mode of transport: "Perhaps a cloud of a thousand bees, each with a gossamer thread attatched to the upper part of your body? You could control their brains with my new SynchroBeeBox so you would not need to worry about unruliness. As you are a colleague, I can attatch the face of your favourite pop or Hollywood heart-throb to each and every bee free of charge."
from Mrs Dandurand's bee site: The flight speed of a bee is an average of 9 MPH loaded, 8 MPH empty, with 15 MPH maximum. 90% of the food and fiber consumed or used by humans depends on the pollination by honeybees. Makes you think, eh?
... of the Catholic World. The Holy Bee is certain that the reasons she offers for non-bombardment are valid and of great moment. Spontaneouely, therefore, she ...  Sent this picture to someone today. In fact, I mentioned bees to that same person twice in the last two days, and now they have mentioned bees in their weblog (unbearable.blogspot.com). I don't know yet if they mentioned bees unconsciously because of my subtle use of suggestion, or whether they consciously remembered my liking for bees, or whether they were just thinking of bees anyway. Haven't seen an actual bee all weekend.  |
