Thursday, July 19, 2007

At Long Last: Honeycomb Hideout Found

I generally do not enjoy the creepy crawlie things that live on this here planet. And flying creepy crawlie things are the worst of this subset.

But it was not with happiness, but a heavy heart that I followed stories of the declining honeybee population. Sure, just because every time I mow my lawn I seem to get stung by a bee who's a little angry about me running over the patch of clover in the backyard that provides many of meals and that honey-making stuff, but still, I understand the need for honeybees in agriculture, etc.

So it is with a great amount of pride in the old homestate of PA that I bring you the following items. It seems that bees aren't actually declining in population, just redeploying to PA en masse. Check it out:

First, this story about a guy who found "tens of thousands" of bees in the walls of his house:

Matthew Danchanko has squatters in his new home. And they won't leave without a fight. They're honeybees — tens of thousands of of them. They buzz through the four-bedroom house, creating a low hum and an estimated 100 pounds of honey.


An estimated 100 POUNDS of honey??? Think of all the HoneyBears that would fill!



Bees? Honey? Wha?




And on the other side of the Commonwealth, this lucky woman managed to escape from:

A swarm of about 10,000 bees that had taken up residence beneath the recliner, where they had formed a football-sized hive.


I don't want to know how they were able to count them all, unless "football-sized" is an apidae-ic unit of measure for 10,000.

Have some, scientists! I was able to solve the whole disappearing bee mystery just by regularly reading the ever wonderful Fark.com, where I was able to find these links. They're not disappearing, they're merely moving to Pennsylvania (now with 100% more Casinos)!

[Note the massive amount of bee-knowledge I dropped. You'd never believe I did a report in 4th grade on honeybees since the girl I had a crush on also chose honeybees. How'd that work out for me you ask? Not well. Her engineer dad "helped" her draw schematics of bees, while my salesman father drove me to the library to plagiarize Encylopaedia Britannica. She got an "O" (our elementary school's version of an "A"). I got an "S-", our school's version of a pat on the head and that look that says "How is this kid going to ever survive without a helmet and constant adult supervision?"]



NOT the girl I had a crush on in fourth grade. Although...I feel a new crush developing...

1 comment:

Yeti's Yell said...

Do those hives provide lumbar support? The vibrating action might work great on lower backs as well.