The Bee Underground & Mistaken Identity

25 December 2014 

 Mining Bee Emerges from the Ground

            What’s a mining bee?  I imagined a bee wearing a light mounted on a hat and buzzing around in a dark shaft.  Beekeepers putting bees to work underground!?  Maybe a way had been found to get bees to mine coal.

            Well, I thought, doesn’t that beat all. 

            It’s not as if bees don’t have enough trouble these days with the abuse they take when trucked all over the country for pollination services.  Not only does the travel take them over bumpy roads that deprive the insects of sleep but, then, they’re starved for a day or so (to make them more aggressive pollinators).  Finally, twice as many honeybees are released into the fields as there are blossoms to pollinate.  That way, all the blossoms get pollinated, but many of bees are left exhausted and underfed.

            Now, bees are forced into the coal mines!?

“SOLD MY SOUL TO THE COMPANY STORE”?

            I had visions of the poor bees being sent to work in the coal mines during the “off season."  Worked long hours, exposed to excessive coal dust, only to earn “company script” that could only be redeemed for food at the “company” honeycomb. But soon, I figured out that this wasn’t a “16 Tons” story after all.

Song: “16 Tons” Sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford – Wikipedia & YouTube

THE BEE UNDERGROUND  

            Bees are called mining bees when the individual bees of a particular species nest underground -- burrowing into the ground to build their nests and raise their young.  And mining bees aren’t a particular species.  In fact, about 70% of all bee species nest underground. 

            The most familiar bees, the honeybee and bumblebee, are among the relatively few species of bees that build nests above ground.  But most bee species can be called “mining bees” and, also, a few less flattering and/or interesting names such as “digger bees,” “ground bees,” “dirt bees,” and “mud bees.”   This inoffensive group of bee-species pioneered underground living. 

LIVING UNDER THE RADAR

            Mining bees are quite inoffensive.  They build their nests individually, but they live in communities with dozens of nests clustered together in an arrangement not unlike a modern human subdivision.  There may be a community in your own yard.  The period of frequent above-ground appearances by these
unaggressive bees is a seasonal event.  Their active season lasts, at most, for few months or as little as a couple of weeks.  You can mow over their nests and walk one top of the community without doing much damage. 

            I've heard it said that there are stories of persons walking barefoot over a very large cluster of some types of mining bees and experiencing some stings.  But I couldn’t find the story of single sting.  In any case, the pain from the sting of the worst of the mining bees could never compare to the pain caused by a honeybee or wasp sting. 

            You’d think with this inoffensive lifestyle, everyone would love these retiring, subterranean bees as they went about their business living quietly “off the grid.”  But, instead, a lot of people are trying to kill them.

DEATH BLOW

            In spite of the value of mining bees in terms of soil aeration, when found in yards and gardens, many people go to great lengths to exterminate these retiring bees.

            But why?

            In the post Let Mining Bees Be, Rusty of Honey Bee Suite introduces us to mining bees and goes on to suggest that many people have a mistaken fear of all bees and bee stings.  People confuse the retiring mining bees with the honey and bumblebees – both of which have a much more powerful and painful sting.  Fearing actual injury, pesticides are used to wipe out whole colonies of mining bees – really for no good reason.

            I wondered if that could be true.  But I was suspicious.  Sometimes, there are misunderstandings. But, you know, where there’s smoke there’s fire.  These “apparently harmless” bees must “be up to something.”  So, I started digging, myself -- digging to get the real story.  And the real story was a real surprise.

IDENTITY THEFT!

            Not only is Rusty giving us the straight story, but there’s something sinister going on in the background.  Mining bees are the victims of identity theft.  People mistake them for other stinging insects.  And, while the other insects often escape unharmed, the mining bees get exterminated – for stings they didn’t commit!

            One instance provides an excellent illustration of how it works.  A gardener noticed a mining bee community nesting in, or around, his garden.  The following weekend, while working in the garden, a large yellow and black flying insect suddenly crawled out of the ground and stung him.  The sting really, really hurt.  Then, a large -- almost 2 inch long – prehistoric-looking yellow and black flying insect emerged from the ground.  By now, the disabled victim of the unbearably painful sting suspected that the first bee had just “softened him up.”   Now, it's really big older sister would come out of the ground and . . . “finish the job.”

            But there is a problem here.  The gardener wasn’t stung by a bee at all.  The stinging yellow and black flying insect was a true “yellow jacket.”  Some call bumblebees “yellow jackets,” but the name properly belongs to a large wasp. 

            The “yellow jacket” wasp doesn’t have any relationship to the mining bees.  And these wasps are dangerous.  They are responsible for most of the so-called “bee sting deaths” in the United States during each year.

            But, wait, what about the giant prehistoric looking yellow and black bee that crawled up out of the ground after the “yellow jacket” gave the gardener that painful sting?  Well, that wasn’t a bee either.  It was a cicada-killing wasp.  These two-inch long monsters never sting people.  They just climb up out of the ground, from time to time, to scare the living daylights out anyone who happens to see them.

            Unfortunately, “yellow jacket” stings and cicada-killing wasp sightings probably result in most mining bee extermination.  With the neither of the wasps being touched by the extermination effort.  Terrified landowners take substantial measures to wipe out the offenders.  Unfortunately, more often than not, the innocent mining bees are wiped out and “yellow jackets” are left to go on stinging.

Mark Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

About the Author

When Good Bees Go Bad – Again! Car-Jacking Swarm Goes Free!

18 December 2014 

 Honeybee Gang?

            As a 21 year-old student, George Neal, parked his car in the law-abiding community of Hampshire, U.K., he was suddenly overtaken by car-jackers.  But these weren’t your typical organized criminals or desperate individuals.  These were honeybees!

            But honeybees are insects. 

            How could they steal a car?

            Well, what they lack in size, they make-up for in numbers.  20,000 bees descended on Neal’s car just after he parked.  What were they planning to do with the car after they “subdued” poor George?  Can bees operate a motor vehicle?

            I don’t know.  Maybe the bees hadn’t thought that far ahead.  Maybe they were planning to force George to drive the car for them!  That would have been a game-changer.  Try adding kidnapping to the car-jacking charge!

            One way or another, this story was headed for a bad ending.  But quick thinking by a friend, Rory Edwards, foiled the bees’ evil plan.  Calling animal control, a task-force specially trained to deal with bee-related hostage situations (a beekeeper) arrived on the scene and removed the bees.

            The criminal bee gang was headed by a bee named “Queen.”  It is assumed that she and her gang of worker bees had just rumbled with a rival gang in a local hive.  Losing the contest, she and her gang left the hive in a swarm and went on a crime rampage throughout the city.  

            Experts noted that this is a common pattern with bee gangs.  It all starts with a rivalry between two gangs in the hive.  Typically, each gang is headed-up by a queen bee.  The gangs rumble. The loser leaves the neighborhood with her swarm of gang members (worker bees).  The swarm goes looking for a new neighborhood where it can establish another headquarters (hive).   From there, the gang can wreak havoc throughout the city. 

ARE WE SAFE?

            Mercifully, George was safe and his automobile intact.  But in yet another – all too typical example of the complete failure of modern criminal justice -- the queen and her gang were out on the street within an hour.  They weren’t out on-bond either.  They were released without any changes being filed! 

            But how could this happen?!  You’ve probably guessed already.  It was one of those -- all too common -- legal technicalities.  It seems that U.K. laws are written to apply to people and not to insects.  So, bees can roam in criminal gangs terrorizing honest citizens with impunity.  What will happen when this swarm lets the air out of my auto tires or covers your home with toilet paper?  Nothing!  They’ll be released to strike again!

            You can bet if you or I let the air out someone’s tires or covered someone’s property with toilet paper, we’d be doing hard time.  But, when Queenie and her gang do the same thing – they walk (or, rather, fly) away free.

WHAT TO DO?

            What can honest citizens do?  Well, establish a neighborhood watch.  Keep an eye out for any neighborhood insects sporting the bee “gang colors.”  What are the honeybee gang colors?    Yellow and black, of course.  If necessary you can get a beekeeper’s outfit complete with head to toe netting. 

            But, maybe, it’s time for more aggressive action.  You can arm yourself with a smoker.  A smoker is a device the shoots large amounts of smoke.  And smoke will subdue even the wildest and toughest bees.  With a smoker in hand, you can boldly confront any swarm of bees as they swagger around your neighborhood.  Just blow a puff in the air to let them know you mean business.  If any try to swarm you, just blow a puff of smoke over their heads.  They’ll get the idea!  

Mark Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

About the Author

Bumblebee Superhero Saves Sister from Spider’s Grasp!!!

11 December 2014

            You’re a bumblebee.  Flying along and minding your own business.  As you look for the next flower, suddenly, you’re stopped. You hit something you didn’t see. But, when you try to free yourself, you find you’re caught.  You’re attached to a fine sticky thread.  You can’t break the thread.  You can’t tear yourself away.

            Suddenly, the owner of the thread appears.  Dark black with eight legs, this spider looks hungry.  You, a rather meaty bumblebee, would be a week of food the arachnid. 

            You try desperately to escape, but you can’t get loose.  You try to sting the approaching spider, but the arachnid is nimble on its eight feet and avoids your stinger.  After all, the spider isn’t stuck in a web.  You are. 

            The spider keeps coming.  It can’t sting, but it can bite, and that bite is fatal.  You're sure you’ll never see your nest and sisters again.  This looks like your “final roundup.”  The spider closes-in . . . and, then, . .  “Pow!” . . . “Slam!” . . . “Bang!”. 

            “Holy last-minute rescue, Bat Woman!”

            But was it really Kathy Kane . . .  or . . .  was it Barbara Gordon?

            No, it was your sister bumblebee come to your rescue.  She takes care of that spider in short order.  In seconds, the arachnid is on its back being stung, and you are saved.

  Bumblebee Rescues Sister Bee and Makes Short Work of Spider

            Apparently, there is a genuine sense of sisterhood among bumblebees (most bees are female).  Few would doubt this among honeybees.  The honeybee is the most social of bees. But bumblebees are different.  All bees are social.  But bumblebees come closest to being loner bees.

           

            Instead of building the traditional honeybee hive and living there for years, bumblebees build nests and abandon them, in favor of new nest, every year.  Bumblebee colonies are really quite small.  And, bumblebees don’t hunt for food in groups.  They forage, alone, on wild flowers and grasses in wide open spaces.

            But, when push comes to shove, your sister bumblebee will come through for you – even if you're in the clutches of a large black spider.  When the rescuing bumblebee was caught on video, viewers were surprised.  No one knew that bumblebees could be so brave and loyal.  I guess this loner bee kept its abilities to itself.  You know.  Like Kathy Kane.  

            There’s that name, again.

            Who’s Kathy Kane?

            An ex-circus acrobat turned idle heiress.  But unknown to the world, in her spare time, Kathy was Bat Woman!  In the days just after the end of World War II, being a female superhero wasn’t easy.  The cultural stereotypes were domestic and dependent.  

            Even when Kathy pulled Batman’s fat out of the fire, everyone thought he’d actually done it himself, but given her the credit.  Kathy couldn’t even carry her Bat-gadgets in a utility belt, like her male counterpart. Instead, she had to conceal them as stereotypical contents of the contemporary woman’s purse: lipstick, compact, charm bracelet, and hair net.

            Maybe our rescuing superhero bumblebee has had the same problem. Concealing her dramatic rescues and adventures was necessary because the world wasn’t ready for a bumblebee superhero.  But maybe all that will change.  You know, like it did for Barbara Gordon.

            Who’s Barbara Gordon?

            Batgirl.

            After DC Comics retired Bat Woman, Kathy Kane, it would be almost 15 years before they introduced Batgirl, a female superhero, who was more . . . "in your face."  No idle heiress, Barbara had a PhD and carried her weapons right on her utility belt just like her male counterpart.   

            Like Batgirl, our superhero bumblebee may have no special powers.  But, instead, she may have special training, enabling her to take-out spiders with greatest of ease.  But then, again, this could be a one-time event.  

            Suppose our bumblebee actually does have super powers.  But, maybe, she just got here from . . . “somewhere” else.  You know.  Like Luma Lynai.

            Who is Luma Lynai?

            Superwoman.

            DC Comics' Superwoman, Luma Lynai, came, not from the planet Krypton, but from her own home planet, Staryl.  And this was a problem.  Although she arrived on Earth and stayed long enough to save the planet, the climate wasn’t to her taste. 

            When Superman left the red sun of Krypton, the yellow sun of Earth gave him super strength.  But Luma came from Staryl – a planet with the orange sun.  The yellow sun of Earth made her sick.  

            More tragic, still, was the intense romance that developed between Superwoman and Superman.  Luma wanted Superman to come with her to another planet where they could live happily ever after.  But there were career issues that couldn’t be resolved.

            If most of us decided to go to another planet, we could probably find at least one adequate candidate to take over our job in our absence.  But Superman’s job, defending the Earth against destruction, had a unique job description -- one for which Superman had unique qualifications.  Sadly, he couldn’t leave.

            So, maybe the bumblebee on the video is a “visiting” superhero bee from somewhere else.  But maybe she is braver, stronger and more loyal than your average bumblebee. Then, again, maybe "Super-Bumbles" had super powers and lost them.  But, then, she regained many of her lost special abilities through intense training.  You know.  Like Princess Diana of Themyscira.

            Who’s Princess Diana of Themyscira?

            Well, she used to be a princess with superpowers, but lost her title and powers to become DC Comics' Diane Prince -- operating her own boutique and living in the mortal world.  Blessed by every imaginable Greek god and goddess, she had a bright, royal, and superpower-ed future.  But, then, things got complicated.

            She entered the mortal world with her superpowers intact to become Wonder Woman.  She was helping a mortal -- an intelligence officer named Steve Trevor in his fight for justice, when he was framed for a crime he didn’t commit and imprisoned.  She committed herself to freeing him from prison by proving his innocence.  She knew it would be a long job.

            But wouldn’t you know it.  

            Just when she was getting started, her fellow Amazons decided they would all shift to another dimension.  Even if Diana stayed in this world, her superpowers wouldn’t. 

            But she couldn’t let Steve down.  So, figuratively speaking, she took her lemons and made lemonade.  She found the foremost marshal arts trainer in the world, the blind expert, I Ching.   Under his instruction, she undertook a life of continuous training until she became so good at marshal arts that she might as well have got her superpowers back

            So, maybe our superhero bumblebee doesn’t really have special abilities but, instead, has trained extensively at the nest of a bumblebee teacher who is an expert at defeating spiders.

            No one is really sure if the video shows typical bumblebee behavior.  But if it does, bumblebees are not just social, but far more loyal and brave than anyone expected. Taking on the spider was an act of courage.  Spiders really are particularly dangerous to bumblebees.  

            Being loner bees, we don’t get to see very much of bumblebees interacting with each other.  They do, inside the bumblebee nests.  But these bees don’t leave the nest in swarms.  Rather, they venture out, alone, across the fields of wild grass and scrub brush searching for nectar and honey. 

            These bees are hard workers.  Maybe they don’t have super powers, but they have a special skill.  It’s in the buzz.  With the loudest vibrating buzz of any bee, the bumblebee can buzz even when it’s not flying.  And that strong vibration can free thick pollens from certain flowers in a way that a weaker vibration can't.

            So, bumblebees can pollinate some crops that are a bit of a challenge for other bees – such as tomatoes, cranberries, almonds, apples, zucchinis, avocados, and plums. This bee’s unique style of pollination accounts for about 3 billion dollars in produce each year.

            We already knew these bees were tough, hard workers.  But we didn’t know that, secretly, they fight for justice and rescue the oppressed in their spare time.

Mark Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

About the Author

She Who Would Be Queen – The Virgin Queen Bee

4 December 2014

            A “queen bee” is the “queen” of a colony of honey bees. Honey bees live in colonies and build rather complex structures called hives. A queen is the mother of all of the hive’s population including the (female) “worker bees” and (male) “drone” bees. So, in each colony, there is only one reproductive female. And, again, that female is called the queen.

But, have you ever wondered what it takes to become "the queen?"

Surprisingly, the candidates are selected by the worker bees themselves. I say “candidates” because, although a number of virgin queens will grow to maturity, “[i]n the end, there can be only one.” 

Just one queen to a hive.

The queen’s eggs are cared for by the worker bees. After the eggs have hatched, the young bee larvae continue to be raised by the worker bees.  The members of the brood (young bees of the colony and hive) are raised in a comb -- not unlike a honeycomb.

Their separate “brood comb” is used only to house the young bees -- the members of the growing brood. As the worker bees nurture the brood, they select certain larvae and feed them a diet of a special food. That food causes these larvae to develop into reproductive virgin queen bees.

The young queen bee larvae are, like the young worker bees, sealed into one of those six-sided cells in the brood comb.  But the cells containing the developing queens are fully stocked with pure royal jelly – the food of the “royal” queen honeybees.  There, they develop and, eventually, emerge from their cells as young virgin queens. 

As the virgin queen bees emerge from their cells, the old queen may leave the hive with a “swarm.” The "swarm" is composed of some, but not all, of the worker bees in the hive. Led by the old queen bee, the swarm will find a new location. There, they will build a new hive and form a new colony.

But why does the old queen leave her familiar hive when her own virgin queen daughters reach maturity?
Well, when you hear what happens next, you’ll understand why the old queen wants to “get out of town” as fast as possible.

The first young queens to emerge from their “cells” will hunt down any other young queens and try to kill them. Young queens don’t fight fair. Rivals will be stung to death as they are emerging from the cells of the brood comb. Sometimes, not content to wait for their potential rivals to actually emerge from their brood cells, young queens will burrow into a sealed cell and sting the resident-rival to death.

Although the old queen may have left with a swarm of followers to form a new colony, the process may be repeated with yet another swarm leaving the colony with a few of the recently hatched virgin queens. These young queens will get along until the new colony is established. But once the colony is formed, the virgin queens will have the same cut-throat power struggle. They will fight to the death until there is only one left.

But just being the last surviving queen bee in the colony isn’t enough.  The worker bees still won’t recognize the lone survivor as the queen.

Why?

The queen is the only reproductive bee in the colony.  With honeybees, the lone surviving young queen is still only the “apparent heir to the throne" because she is still a “virgin” queen.  When the surviving queen mates, she immediately gives off a pheromone that signals the worker bees that she is a capable of reproduction.  

One can almost imagine a sudden change in the demeanor or the worker bees who, after days of chaotic behavior toward their would-be sovereign, suddenly become still.  Undoubtedly, they begin buzzing the honeybee equivalent of “All Hail the New Queen.” 

And, then, what happens?  Well, the new young queen will begin her reign.  Occasionally, an outside queen can arrive at the door of the hive and announce a challenge to the reigning monarch.  But this is quite rare.

Still, even aristocrats as absolutely "positioned" as queen bees have to “take a measure” of the political winds.  Queen bees must be ever alert for the bee equivalent of a Parliamentary vote of “no confidence.”  This happens when the aging queen discovers that the worker bees are suddenly raising a large group of new virgin queen bees in the brood comb.

Then, the old queen needs to plan a hasty getaway with a few key supporters – unless she is too old or ill to move.  If she remains, she is likely to be the very last victim of last survivor of the new group of virgin queens. 

Because . . . “in the end, there can be only one.”

All Hail the New Queen.

Mark Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri & Belleville, Illinois

About the Author