What's the Strangest Thing You've Heard About Bees...

[Adam Foster Collins]

...from someone who doesn't know anything about them?

Not "Myth-Information," But just weird ideas, based on a lack of any understanding at all.

Here's a couple I've heard:

One friend was shocked to find out that honey was "ready-to-eat" right out of the hive. He thought it had to be boiled down like Maple Sugar to become honey.

Another time, a guy came over and I pointed out my hives. He marched right over fearlessly amid the cloud of comings and goings and bent down and peered into the entrance - face right near it. I thought 'wow", he really isn't afraid of them" - turns out he was under the impression that bees NEVER sting a human - only bears or other animals - and only if they're damaging the hive.

[brooksbeefarm]

Some human beings, Love Them. Jack

[sevenmmm]

I heard from a friend that "bees make honey like a spider makes thread".

I told her, nonono, honey is nectar that the bees gathered from flowers!

"Oh? Then it must be pollen that bees make?"

Nononono, pollen is what plants need to exchange in fertilizing and producing seeds, I told her, the bees help the flowers polinate.

"Then bees make wax!"

Nononono, bees gather wax from leaf buds.

"Well, then, what do bees make"?

More bees!

[waynesgarden]

"Then bees make wax!"

Nononono, bees gather wax from leaf buds.

Huh? You told her that bees gather wax from leaf buds?

Now that's strange.

Wayne

[BoTBees]

THIS THREAD!!!!!!!!!

[sevenmmm]

Huh? You told her that bees gather wax from leaf buds?

Now that's strange.

Wayne

Opps.

Make that propolis..

[whix]

My boss asked where I kept my bees, I told him in a farmers field. He looked me straight in the eye and asked "what if they get out".
Most people will tell you that bees make honey from pollen.
They also say that bees know their beekeeper.
I have been asked what I feed them to make honey.
Bees hibernate in the winter.

Biggest lie I ever told about bees - "no, bees don't hibernate, they migrate... just like the Monarch butterflies. Sometimes I just can't help it.

[Jim 134]

"Then bees make wax!"
Nononono bees gather wax from leaf buds.

Bees gather wax


Bees make wax out of honey or nectar



BEE HAPPY Jim 134

[sevenmmm]

Bees make wax out of honey or nectar



BEE HAPPY Jim 134

You're right!

Bees make something, they make wax!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bees_wax

Me needs to brush up on this topic.

[Michael Bush]

I got the "what if they get out?" question while I had the hive all torn apart. The neighbor to the house where I had them walked right up while I'm working them and have boxes of bees scattered everywhere (I would have been afraid without a veil) and proceeds to tell me how they have been chasing and biting her grandsons when they are there on weekends. Then asks me "what if they get out?". I couldn't figure out what the question was. Obviously there is nothing keeping them in.

[Mike Snodgrass]

6 out of 5 people aren't good at math.

And theres how much intelligence on this forum? The strangest thing i ever heard from my bees was that they didnt appreciate me crushuing some of their freinds whenever i showed up...They were keeping tabs they said!!

[Heartspark]

I got the "what if they get out?" question while I had the hive all torn apart. The neighbor to the house where I had them walked right up while I'm working them and have boxes of bees scattered everywhere (I would have been afraid without a veil) and proceeds to tell me how they have been chasing and biting her grandsons when they are there on weekends. Then asks me "what if they get out?". I couldn't figure out what the question was. Obviously there is nothing keeping them in.

What you don't ducktape all the holes around hive? For shame!

[summer1052]

Anyone who has seen "The Bee Movie" with the voice of Jerry Seinfeld has several idiotic questions to ask. ("Why do you hurt the bees with smoke? Won't they get lung cancer?")

I get questions about AHB in my part of the world. Unfortunately, I also see commentary from other beeks on this forum, from far northern nether regions about AHB that reflect what they have heard, and not their first hand experience, as well.

And no, AHB are not black bees. (Think about it.) The darker bees I come across in this area are all supposedly descended from "German" bees brought here with European settlers in the late 1870s-1890s.

Yes, there ARE some plants that promote wax production, and not necessarily through nectar alone. Huisache (weesatch), Chinese Tallow Tree, Wax Myrtle are the most common among them. Bayberries are a more northern equivalent. All these plants make waxy flakes or berries that the bees seem to work to help make their wax. The Wax Myrtle and Tallow Tree get worked for wax after the main nectar flows.

Here in cattle country, people's misconceptions about bees have a lot to do with speaking before thinking, and imagining all things to be cattle. Do I brand my bees? How many bees do I have? How do I know they are mine and not someone else's? How do I keep them from leaving? Will they sting cattle? Why don't they like it when I mow? (That one is usually a reference to the vibrations from riding mowers and tractors, and the tendency of AHB to protest firmly when disturbed.) Why don't I personally spray for all those weeds in my pasture? (The "weeds" in question are wildflowers, and bee forage.)

I see it less as a reflection on ignorance of bees than of an ignorance of nature in general. Nobody knows what the food chain is anymore. People don't understand how food gets to their plate. And many of them believe themselves to be "green" and support bio-fuels and the like without understanding what industrial farming of corn and soybeans can do to the environment.

Just keep preaching, teaching, evangelizing, showing off, and shouting from the rooftops.

I figure even when they are asking dumb questions, at least they are ASKING, and want to know something. Better than indifference!

Summer

[alpha6]

Using them for mine detection. (the blowing up kind) The only problem was that since the bees only lived about 6 weeks they had to keep training them and never really got to use them. Now I imagine that someone has one heck of a Govt. grant trying to "train" those bees and it's not their fault they keep dying just as they get trained. In the meantime, they ARE producing a heck of a honey crop. (Oh, they can only work in fair weather...no rain, or cold, or at night.)

[Tia]

Way to go, Summer! I make a point of letting folks know "there's no such thing as a stupid question." (Although there really is) And I, too, have the problem with my wildflower meadow. I hear from my native friend that folks around here wonder why I don' t mow my lawn! Well, I do mow my lawn. . .which is very small and located in front of my home. But I have an acre in front of my vegetable garden--which is in front of my beeyard--that is a certified backyard wildlife habitat. It has mowed paths through the wildflowers and grasses and I think it's really pretty, but folks around here like big lawns with not even a bush to interrupt it! And then they complain that the runoff is killing the fish. Go figure. So I just keep answering questions about what they can do to help the honey bee. . .and at the same time throw in some info about grass fertilizer runoff .

[Batman]

I'd say it would have to be:
"why is it that you can't get them all out in a few hours like that other beekeeper did by using honey?"

I posted the article that was in the paper about it last year, but here it is again in case anyone missed it
http://www.lodinews.com/news/article...26b9609a6.html

C2

[StevenG]

Batman, it is simply amazing what a person can learn, simply by reading the newspaper!
Thanks!
Steven