by Matthew Cobb
Bees – like wasps and most ants – mate on the wing. In a new documentary called More Than Honey, director Markus Imhoof used remote-controlled helicopters and high-speed cameras to show mating. I have never seen anything like it. Notice what the male (= drone) looks like – huge great big eyes. And also, once mating is over, that’s his job done and he dies. Male bees (like male wasps and ants) are just flying sperm.
The documentary takes a rather catastrophic view of the threat to bees, and the current exploitation of them by agribusiness. Here’s the trailer – you decide:
A great-aunt of mine used to keep bees and just like the two ladies in the first video she never wore any protection whatsoever and never was stung. She talked to her bees, too.
But did the bees talk back?
In their own way, yes. They would come to her when she called them and get out of the way when she asked them to when she was about to harvest some honey – she didn’t use smoke for that.
That’s worth investigating – worth some extensive research to find out what is really going on there. But it won’t happen, of course; your observation will be dismissed as merely anecdotal, unimportant for science.
Why don’t you do it? Provide unedited video, preferably from several angles , with audio.
We don’t keep bees, as such, but I have built a few ‘bee hotels’ to help support solitary, mostly carpenter, bees. They are just small, open-fronted boxes, stuffed with short lengths of bamboo, although drilling holes in blocks of wood from deciduous trees works just as well.
Attached to walls and trees in sunny spots around the garden, they seem to be popular. We certainly have decent crops of plums and soft fruit!
That is really nice of you, nice for the bees and for your garden and orchard!
I am no longer living in the country but in an apartment in the city. A few years ago, I was growing small red peppers (the elongated spicy kind) in a pot on my kitchen’s windowsill. One day, I noticed tiny minuscule bees going into the flowers and taking refuge in the hollow of the thin bamboo support for the pepper plant. I never knew that there were bees so small, only a couple of millimeters long! I googled it and got confirmation that such tiny little bees exist!
Song of the Queen Bee – EB White (a masterpiece)
E.B White: Song of the Queen Bee
New Yorker Magazine 1945
“The breeding of the bee,” says a United States Department
of Agriculture bulletin on artificial insemination, has
always been handicapped by the fact that the queen mates
in the air with whatever drone she encounters.”
When the air is wine and the wind is free
and the morning sits on the lovely lea
and sunlight ripples on every tree
Then love-in-air is the thing for me
I’m a bee,
I’m a ravishing, rollicking, young queen bee,
That’s me.
I wish to state that I think it’s great,
Oh, it’s simply rare in the upper air,
It’s the place to pair
With a bee.
Let old geneticists plot and plan,
They’re stuffy people, to a man;
Let gossips whisper behind their fan.
(Oh, she does?
Buzz, buzz, buzz!)
My nuptial flight is sheer delight;
I’m a giddy girl who likes to swirl,
To fly and soar
And fly some more,
I’m a bee.
And I wish to state that I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.
There’s a kind of a wild and glad elation
In the natural way of insemination;
Who thinks that love is a handicap
Is a fuddydud and a common sap,
For I am a queen and I am a bee,
I’m devil-may-care and I’m fancy-free,
The test tube doesn’t appeal to me,
Not me,
I’m a bee.
And I’m here to state that I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.
Mares and cows. by calculating,
Improve themselves with loveless mating,
Let groundlings breed in the modern fashion,
I’ll stick to the air and the grand old passion;
I may be small and I’m just a bee
But I won’t have science improving me,
Not me,
I’m a bee.
On a day that’s fair with a wind that’s free,
Any old drone is a lad for me.
I’ve no flair for love moderne,
It’s far too studied, far too stern,
I’m just a bee—I’m wild, I’m free,
That’s me.
I can’t afford to be too choosy;
In every queen there’s a touch of floozy,
And it’s simply rare
In the upper air
And I wish to state
That I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.
Man is a fool for the latest movement,
He broods and broods on race improvement;
What boots it to improve a bee
If it means the end of ecstasy?
(He ought to be there
On a day that’s fair,
Oh, it’s simply rare.
For a bee.)
Man’s so wise he is growing foolish,
Some of his schemes are downright ghoulish;
He owns a bomb that’ll end creation
And he wants to change the sex relation,
He thinks that love is a handicap,
He’s a fuddydud, he’s a simple sap;
Man is a meddler, man’s a boob,
He looks for love in the depths of a tube,
His restless mind is forever ranging,
He thinks he’s advancing as long as he’s changing,
He cracks the atom, he racks his skull,
Man is meddlesome, man is dull,
Man is busy instead of idle,
Man is alarmingly suicidal,
Me, I am a bee.
I am a bee and I simply love it,
I am a bee and I’m darn glad of it,
I am a bee, I know about love:
You go upstairs, you go above,
You do not pause to dine or sup,
The sky won’t wait —it’s a long trip up;
You rise, you soar, you take the blue,
It’s you and me, kid, me and you,
It’s everything, it’s the nearest drone,
It’s never a thing that you find alone.
I’m a bee,
I’m free.
If any old farmer can keep and hive me,
Then any old drone may catch and wife me;
I’m sorry for creatures who cannot pair
On a gorgeous day in the upper air,
I’m sorry for cows that have to boast
Of affairs they’ve had by parcel post,
I’m sorry for a man with his plots and guile,
His test-tube manner, his test-tube smile;
I’ll multiply and I’ll increase
As I always have—by mere caprice;
For I am a queen and I am a bee,
I’m devil-may-care and I’m fancy-free,
Love-in-air is the thing for me,
Oh, it’s simply rare
In the beautiful air,
And I wish to state
That I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.
GOGGLE FOR THE WHOLE POEM
Crop production reduced (at minimum)by bee colony stress, diminishing fresh water supply, encroaching sea level on area occupied by almost 3/4 of the population (only three items on a lengthy list of potential horrific conditions): what to do? Why, enact the TransPacific Tade Agreement. Unfettered capitalism will save the world and make us free. It will.
I don’t know what Tade means. Trade, instead? Yes, better.
But but but economics!
http://perc.org/articles/everyone-calm-down-there-no-bee-pocalypse
Do note the absence of honey prices in this “analysis,” which are up by over 10% per year since 2006.
You know, I want to listen to what chemical or pesticide companies have to say on the issue. They have skin in the game, just like beekeepers do. Although beekeepers can’t afford the same quality/quantity of PR, so you have to adjust for that. But what really cheeses me off is them using clandestine operations like PERC to try to pass off this “research” to nudge public opinion. Despicable.
That’s remarkable stuff.
However, can anyone here answer why the bee dies from mating? I understand why worker bees die from stinging, since their barbed stingers, once sunk into it’s foe, rip out part of it’s abdomen.
But what is it about mating that would cause a worker bee to die?
Vaal
Workers never mate, and the queens of course don’t die, so it’s just the drones that do. Apparently their genitalia remain inside the queen after sperm are released, so the sex organs detach from the drone himself.
Bee mating was a big mystery for many hundreds of years, in part because it took a long time to figure out that the queen was indeed a female (along with the workers). One of the clues was the discovery of the male genitalia attached to the queen after she returned from her nuptial flight.
Ah, that explains things. Thanks very much!
Vaal
In climates with a real winter, any drones who are still alive (i.e., have not successfully mated) are kicked out of the hive to starve or freeze. Other than their brief moment of genetic glory, they have no purpose and do no good for the hive. They can’t even defend it as they don’t have a sting.
That’s how they die. The why answer, I’m guessing, probably has to do with the cost/benefit ratio of barbed stingers compared to unbarbed ones, as well as the cost of keeping maimed “war veterans” alive after they’ve done their duty. So the loss of one worker per sting is a price the hive is willing to pay for effective defense.
Males don’t sting. The sting is a modified ovipositor. Males (=
Drones , not workers) really are just flying sperm.
Right. I was addressing Vaal’s point about workers and their fatal sting, not males and their fatal mating.
But I see that Vaal did confuse workers with drones in his last line, so perhaps your comment was meant for him.
Fortunately, Gregor Mendel became emeshed in administration before he could carry out his proposed study of bee genetics.
I presume you mean social wasps. There are many, many kinds of wasps that aren’t social of course, and one of the species most often observed mating is the ammophiline sphecid Eremophila aureonotata, in which the female is often observed nectaring while a male is copulating with her. The largest family of Hymenoptera is Ichneumonidae, which is also known as ichneumon wasps; the family includes more species than all birds and mammals combined. They do not mate in flight, and I don’t know that any can even fly while mating.
“Bees – like wasps and most ants – mate on the wing.”
It beats the Mile High club, but you have to hold on very tight…
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Stunning footage indeed, but computer generated I was told by a wildlife filmmaking friend of mine.
It appears your friend is wrong. Here’s what the director says:
Thanks for clarifying. Should have read this before.
Reblogged this on Mark Solock Blog.