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Previously on "The biggest bumble bee in the world..."
I quite liked the idea of the masonry bee - we had a hive of them once in the stables at home. I imagined them with their tiny aprons and shaking 3 hands at once.....
I quite liked the idea of the masonry bee - we had a hive of them once in the stables at home. I imagined them with their tiny aprons and shaking 3 hands at once.....
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.
I am sure you intended this in jest - but as I am somewhat anally retentive I will just correct you:
Young female workers (bees) are not Nubile in any sense.
The Drones get to fly pretty much when they like.
Drones don't follow "the" queen in the hopes of shagging her - "the" queen is thier mum after all and that isn't good genetically.
They leave the Hive (as and when) to find young (virgin) queens to "shag" in order to pass on thier genes.... this act basically causes the loss of thier reproductive organs and thier subsequent death (not quite the same as you having your meat and 2 veg ripped from your body but as good as)
He will not return to the hive (cos of having his knackers ripped off he is dying).
The ex-virgin queen (impregnated by many drones) goes back to her hive and starts laying eggs for the rest of her life......
The young queen (recently shagged) is returning to the Hive which almost certainly does not have a resident queen (her mum) because of :
a) The old queen has left the hive to find a new home.
When a Hive/colony is very succesful the (still "powerful") Queen flies off with most of the flying bees (Workers and Drones) to find another "home".
This is a Swarm*
Before leaving there will be several queen cells near to hatching.... The first virgin-queen to hatch will kill all her "royal" sisters (the other unhatched queen cells) with her sting (Queens are the only bees that can sting at hatching/emergence, and they don't have the barbed sting of the (older) Workers... ie they can sting repeatedly (and crucially - don't die).
This virgin-queen is the one that flies off (without any of the other bees following her) to find Drones to mate with... then she returnes to the Hive and startes laying eggs........
When the old queen left she left behind thousands of young Workers (who can't fly) to tend the hive etc.
b) The old queen is to "weak" to control the hive and prevent the nurturing of queen cells.... so basically similar to (a) except the old queen has to be got rid of as well as the sisters.......
*swarm - If you see a Swarm please contact a local Bee Keeper who will come and collect it - its very easy, Swarms are not dangerous to you - as long as you leave them alone.
Please DONT spray them with water, try to "shoo" them away or (worst of all) DONT phone a Pest Controller - Because Pest Controllers will just spray them with 'orrible chemicals to kill them and charge you for it (they get paid to kill things)
Let me guess, during the final confrontation with Godzilla, the moth darts in and out with a series of devastating attacks, gradually wearing down Godzilla to the point of near exhaustion.
Then finally, when it looks as if Godzilla is almost beat, and the little ones are crying tears for our reptilian friend, he lashes out with a puny yet surprisingly effective tail slap and consigns Monster Moth to oblivion ?
Not seen the moth, but in Cornwall as a kid we caught some caterpillars of a related species, the elephant hawk moth (what a great name). They were bloody huge!
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
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.
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.
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