The biggest bumble bee in the world...

[sasguru]

He's probably going on about my beef with doctors that I foolishly disclosed on another thread.

No idea why (one of) Sasguru is so defensive of doctors. We can only wildly speculate.

.

It wasn't you bogey. TW is simply being a troll:

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...-medicine.html

[bogeyman]

It wasn't you bogey. TW is simply being a troll:

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...-medicine.html

Ok. Thanks for the clarification. I was wondering what I had done to upset the medical profession.

[PM-Junkie]

The drones will inseminate the queen with sufficient jizz to make her a productive egg laying machine for years to come. The poor old drones get rejected from the colony and die a cold and lonely death.

A bit like Harriet Harman's ideal world view.

hehehehe - quality

[TimberWolf]

It wasn't you bogey. TW is simply being a troll:

http://forums.contractoruk.com/gener...-medicine.html

Troll, moi? How so?

[Cyberman]

We're actually doing well with bees of all sorts and many butterflies this year.

Probably because the garden has gone a bit wild of late.

I like it that way, but wife is all for a scorch and burn policy - no lover of nature is she.

Same here. I have a magnificent buddleia in my garden and butterflies love it.

[bogeyman]

hehehehe - quality

As a former bee keeper, I can say that drones are truly great.

Put aside your species prejudice, and you will see the male bee, or 'drone' for what he is. He's basically a chap, a bloke.

He is bigger than the female bee. More rotund of figure.

He has no sting, nor any other defence, other than his charm.

He bumbles around the hive, pretending to fix things. The young and nubile female worker bees attend to him, feed him, and groom him.

Once in his life, he gets to fly. He follows the queen, and if he gets lucky, he will get his end away.

He will return to the hive (usually depleted and queenless) and the worker bees will shove him out of the door, to die of cold and starvation on the ground below.

Poor old drone.

[Cyberman]

It certainly looked like they were humping.

You meant they sounded like they were humming.

[TimberWolf]

You meant they sounded like they were humming.

Here's the only reference I can find of bees being spotted humping on the ground:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a

The larger bee that I saw beeing 'humped' was quite a bit bigger than the other, so perhaps they weren't male and female and/or were up to something else.

[bogeyman]

Here's the only reference I can find of bees being spotted humping on the ground:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a

The larger bee that I saw beeing 'humped' was quite a bit bigger than the other, so perhaps they weren't male and female and/or were up to something else.

it's a common behavior called 'gleaning'. Smaller bees gather up excess pollen from larger bees. The larger bees don't seem to mind at all.

[Pogle]

I love bees and their buzzy business, I can while away quite a lot of time watching them go into every flower on a foxglove .

On the subject of ladybirds I believe our native species is under attack from a foreign invader ladybird

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8124099.stm

And we released 5 painted lady butterfly's into our garden last week - we'd had them from a grub and watched them grow and pupate and turn into lovely butterfly's. I can recommend anyone with kids (- or not ) to try this it really is great.
We got the kit from the supermarket at Christmas - sent off for our 5 grubs and watched them grow - magic