Bees?
May 25, 2016 11:19 AM Subscribe
Inspiration for the most traumatizing Pixar movie of 2020
posted by GuyZero at 11:27 AM on May 25, 2016 [18 favorites]
posted by GuyZero at 11:27 AM on May 25, 2016 [18 favorites]
You might say...
*sunglasses*
...it was a Mitsubishi Colony.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:29 AM on May 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
*sunglasses*
...it was a Mitsubishi Colony.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:29 AM on May 25, 2016 [19 favorites]
Well that was the most charmingly British thing I've read all week. Guy was worried that passersby might hurt the bees, so he brushed the swarm into a handy cardboard box. I'm picturing an orderly mass of buzzing insects, slightly miffed that they can't find their queen but hesitant to stay lest they be thought to be jumping the queue.
If this had happened in the Rust Belt, there'd be a YouTube video of someone solving the problem with a flamethrower built out of PVC pipe and homemade napalm, or attempting to shoot the bees off of the car.
posted by Mayor West at 11:33 AM on May 25, 2016 [32 favorites]
If this had happened in the Rust Belt, there'd be a YouTube video of someone solving the problem with a flamethrower built out of PVC pipe and homemade napalm, or attempting to shoot the bees off of the car.
posted by Mayor West at 11:33 AM on May 25, 2016 [32 favorites]
Paparaz-bees. Always chasing the Queen. Well, the Royals anyway.
posted by chavenet at 11:39 AM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by chavenet at 11:39 AM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Post needs the COVERED IN BEES tag.
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:41 AM on May 25, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by Dr Dracator at 11:41 AM on May 25, 2016 [17 favorites]
Isn't it about time bees got rid of their outdated monarchy anyway
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:42 AM on May 25, 2016 [32 favorites]
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:42 AM on May 25, 2016 [32 favorites]
I don't see what all the buzz is about
posted by museum of fire ants at 11:42 AM on May 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
posted by museum of fire ants at 11:42 AM on May 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
Very disappointed the linked article is not from Buzzfeed.
Very.
posted by Fizz at 11:46 AM on May 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
Very.
posted by Fizz at 11:46 AM on May 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
Finding Bee-mo.
posted by Noms_Tiem at 11:47 AM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Noms_Tiem at 11:47 AM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
honestly though how embarrassing for the queen
you're having a nice day out and about and you're like oh look a comfy spot to rest in the shade for a moment, how lovely, and then all of a sudden you're stuck in the boot and literally every single person you know on earth is running after the car screaming
posted by poffin boffin at 11:49 AM on May 25, 2016 [84 favorites]
you're having a nice day out and about and you're like oh look a comfy spot to rest in the shade for a moment, how lovely, and then all of a sudden you're stuck in the boot and literally every single person you know on earth is running after the car screaming
posted by poffin boffin at 11:49 AM on May 25, 2016 [84 favorites]
The stoner sheep article is pretty buzzing, too.
posted by marienbad at 11:49 AM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by marienbad at 11:49 AM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
of course it was a mitsubeeshi.
posted by Cold Lurkey at 11:49 AM on May 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by Cold Lurkey at 11:49 AM on May 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
This was very sweet and gave me a wee sniff and now I'm worried about the bees. Are they going to be okay? Bees what how are you doing? Pembrokeshire Beekeepers why are you not giving out more information?!
poor bees
posted by barchan at 11:52 AM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
poor bees
posted by barchan at 11:52 AM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Wth is a "splodge"
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:52 AM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 11:52 AM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
i mean imagine she got stuck on a plane or something, all those bees at the departure gate asking when the next flight is, trying to cash in their frequent flyer miles
posted by poffin boffin at 11:54 AM on May 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 11:54 AM on May 25, 2016 [14 favorites]
Oh, good. This will nicely replace my nightmares of a Trump presidency for a couple of weeks.
Nah, you don't have to worry: they're safely on the other side of the ocean. If they want to come live here, they're going to need H1 Bee Visas.
posted by Mayor West at 11:54 AM on May 25, 2016 [43 favorites]
Nah, you don't have to worry: they're safely on the other side of the ocean. If they want to come live here, they're going to need H1 Bee Visas.
posted by Mayor West at 11:54 AM on May 25, 2016 [43 favorites]
Beads?
posted by univac at 11:57 AM on May 25, 2016 [12 favorites]
posted by univac at 11:57 AM on May 25, 2016 [12 favorites]
Wth is a "splodge"
Highlight it and force-click and the Apple dictionary says it's 'another term for splotch (Brit.)'
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:58 AM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Highlight it and force-click and the Apple dictionary says it's 'another term for splotch (Brit.)'
posted by Coda Tronca at 11:58 AM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
So I take it Oprah was visiting England?
posted by happyroach at 12:03 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by happyroach at 12:03 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
Surely, if the Queen asks for a ride, you say yes.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:04 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:04 PM on May 25, 2016 [3 favorites]
Poor bees!!! By the way, if you ever see anything like this in the states, you can go to beeallies.com and find someone to come help your swarm.
Yay bees!
posted by Sophie1 at 12:05 PM on May 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
Yay bees!
posted by Sophie1 at 12:05 PM on May 25, 2016 [8 favorites]
Have they not considered that Mrs. Carol Howarth, 65, of Haverfordwest, West Wale may in fact be the Queen bee?
posted by Kabanos at 12:12 PM on May 25, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by Kabanos at 12:12 PM on May 25, 2016 [20 favorites]
Have they not considered that Mrs. Carol Howarth, 65, of Haverfordwest, West Wale may in fact be the Queen bee?
You could call her queen bee.
And baby she'll rule, she'll rule, she'll rule, she'll rule.
Let her live that fantasy.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:15 PM on May 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
You could call her queen bee.
And baby she'll rule, she'll rule, she'll rule, she'll rule.
Let her live that fantasy.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 12:15 PM on May 25, 2016 [7 favorites]
Can a Queen bee
Be said said to be
A proper Queen bee
When half the bee
Is squashed inside
A Mitsubishi?
posted by Kabanos at 12:16 PM on May 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
Be said said to be
A proper Queen bee
When half the bee
Is squashed inside
A Mitsubishi?
posted by Kabanos at 12:16 PM on May 25, 2016 [16 favorites]
I'm sad that they did not actually rescue the queen.
Though not too sad to point out the beekeeper's dilemma: to hive or hive not?
posted by zompist at 12:17 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
Though not too sad to point out the beekeeper's dilemma: to hive or hive not?
posted by zompist at 12:17 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
In other news, pheromones are really powerful.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:19 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Sophie1 at 12:19 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
They could have just followed Noah's example and sent the swarm to the Ark-hives.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:25 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:25 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I think we're all missing the bigger opportunity here: bee swarm pranks! We just bottle up that queen bee pheromone, and imagine the chuckles to be had! Dab a bit on your chin for an instant bee beard. Pheromone + volleyball = BEEach ball! Melissophobic friend? Just a few drops and his car will be a seething mass of unspeakable horror that will haunt his dreams forever!
posted by Mayor West at 12:27 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 12:27 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Was it over when the . . Queen drove off in a Mitsubishi?
Hell no! And it ain't over now!
posted by petebest at 12:35 PM on May 25, 2016
Hell no! And it ain't over now!
posted by petebest at 12:35 PM on May 25, 2016
I'm enjoying all the jokes, but I was really hoping for a mefite entomologist. Were they following a queen? If so, why was the queen in the car? How and how far could a colony follow a queen in that situation? Since they didn't find the queen, is the colony okay? Does any of this actually make any sense?
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:44 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:44 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I'm sad that they did not actually rescue the queen.
Reading the actual article, I find myself wondering if any of the beekeepers actually knew what they were doing. I think they meant well, but they never did find the queen either day, didn't get all the workers transferred either in town or at the woman's house, at one point wandered off and let the box full of bees blow off the car onto the ground, got stung a lot (in the picture in the article the beekeeper's arms aren't even covered), and eventually they just gave up and summed up the whole incident as "amusing." O-kay then.
I have a (alas, late; fuck you cancer) friend who was a lifelong beekeeper and he I think would have been horrified by this account. (A former hippie Buddhist entomology (apiology) PhD, he used to frequently successfully rescue errant swarms from places people didn't want them to be and relocate them to safer spots.)
posted by aught at 12:45 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
Reading the actual article, I find myself wondering if any of the beekeepers actually knew what they were doing. I think they meant well, but they never did find the queen either day, didn't get all the workers transferred either in town or at the woman's house, at one point wandered off and let the box full of bees blow off the car onto the ground, got stung a lot (in the picture in the article the beekeeper's arms aren't even covered), and eventually they just gave up and summed up the whole incident as "amusing." O-kay then.
I have a (alas, late; fuck you cancer) friend who was a lifelong beekeeper and he I think would have been horrified by this account. (A former hippie Buddhist entomology (apiology) PhD, he used to frequently successfully rescue errant swarms from places people didn't want them to be and relocate them to safer spots.)
posted by aught at 12:45 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
Hey - not an entomologist but a beekeeper. Worker bees will follow their queen ANYWHERE (pheromones). The colony was likely swarming. The colony could be requeened, but it's always an unknown whether they will accept a new queen, but more likely than not, it can be done by an experienced beekeeper.
Yes. It makes sense.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:46 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
Yes. It makes sense.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:46 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
I haven't seen the reports of how the swarm was caught, but ugh, that sounds horrible. I can imagine not finding the queen as she really doesn't like light and she probably hid in a very safe space in that boot. I have trouble locating my queens and I have Lang hives. Also, I tend to have poor eyesight.
posted by Sophie1 at 12:49 PM on May 25, 2016
posted by Sophie1 at 12:49 PM on May 25, 2016
Your firearms are useless against them!
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 12:56 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 12:56 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Inspiration for the most traumatizing Pixar movie of 2020.
Starring Jerry Seinfeld.
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:09 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Starring Jerry Seinfeld.
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:09 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Inspiration for the most traumatizing Pixar movie of 2020.
Starring Jerry Seinfeld.
GuyZero already said "most traumatizing".
posted by Etrigan at 1:11 PM on May 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
Starring Jerry Seinfeld.
GuyZero already said "most traumatizing".
posted by Etrigan at 1:11 PM on May 25, 2016 [10 favorites]
Oh that's terrifying. I have no ill will toward bees but they make my throat close right up, so we'd do best to just leave each other alone. I would not want to be in or near that car.
You don't have to move the bees off the car though. Just sell it on Craigslist.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 1:27 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
You don't have to move the bees off the car though. Just sell it on Craigslist.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 1:27 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
Ironically, the queen was named Abecedarius.
posted by maxsparber at 1:41 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 1:41 PM on May 25, 2016 [6 favorites]
...why was the queen in the car?
To get to the other side of the road?
posted by mudpuppie at 1:48 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
To get to the other side of the road?
posted by mudpuppie at 1:48 PM on May 25, 2016 [4 favorites]
MetaFilter: ReQueened
posted by petebest at 2:15 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by petebest at 2:15 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
Your firearms are useless against them!
This is not the link to the individual bee-shooting scene from Save The Green Planet that I was expecting. In other news, a quick search on YouTube failed to yield the individual bee-shooting scene from Save The Green Planet.
posted by comealongpole at 2:48 PM on May 25, 2016
This is not the link to the individual bee-shooting scene from Save The Green Planet that I was expecting. In other news, a quick search on YouTube failed to yield the individual bee-shooting scene from Save The Green Planet.
posted by comealongpole at 2:48 PM on May 25, 2016
I hate that thing where they use "grandmother" as shorthand for elderly woman. If the grandchildren aren't part of the story (they aren't) then the fact that she's a grandmother is the least important detail to include.
posted by emelenjr at 4:05 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by emelenjr at 4:05 PM on May 25, 2016 [5 favorites]
of course it was a mitsubeeshi.
Not an older model of a (Freddie) Mercury.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:07 PM on May 25, 2016
Not an older model of a (Freddie) Mercury.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 4:07 PM on May 25, 2016
“Thank you, bees! But our queen is in another Mitsubishi.”
posted by Going To Maine at 7:31 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Going To Maine at 7:31 PM on May 25, 2016 [1 favorite]
My friend who was a rural postmaster said that when people ship live bees through the US Mail, which is a thing you are allowed to do, they often box up the queen really well and the workers fairly loosely, since the workers will just follow her through the postal system, progressively escaping their box, such that it's not unusual to see a rural delivery truck with a swarm of bees placidly following it as the queen gets delivered to her new home.
The postmen don't like it, though. (Although she said live swans are worse because they mostly arrive as dead swans and then they smell.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:42 PM on May 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
The postmen don't like it, though. (Although she said live swans are worse because they mostly arrive as dead swans and then they smell.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:42 PM on May 25, 2016 [9 favorites]
it’s not unusual to see a rural delivery truck with a swarm of bees placidly following it as the queen gets delivered to her new home.
I demand video of this greatest thing.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:47 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I demand video of this greatest thing.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:47 PM on May 25, 2016 [2 favorites]
I don't know about the states, but in Canada, you can mail a queen bee with up to eight attendants, but they must be securely contained. I'm mostly mentioning this because I love that the postal regulations refer to them as "attendants."
posted by RobotHero at 10:53 PM on May 25, 2016 [11 favorites]
posted by RobotHero at 10:53 PM on May 25, 2016 [11 favorites]
I'm mostly mentioning this because I love that the postal regulations refer to them as "attendants."
This is amazing.
"Affix additional postage for her majesty's retinue."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:43 AM on May 26, 2016 [5 favorites]
This is amazing.
"Affix additional postage for her majesty's retinue."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:43 AM on May 26, 2016 [5 favorites]
Every possible joke has been done, so I will satisfy myself with thinking about our own modest little bee house, which has so far had 3 of its little bamboo tubes filled with the grubs of (solitary) buzzers - I believe they are masonry bees.
Every time I look at the plugs in the tubes and think of the incubating grubs in there, I get all warm and fuzzy.
posted by Myeral at 6:21 AM on May 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
Every time I look at the plugs in the tubes and think of the incubating grubs in there, I get all warm and fuzzy.
posted by Myeral at 6:21 AM on May 26, 2016 [1 favorite]
You can definitely mail live bees, but there are all sorts of regulations. As far as I'm concerned, if I ever ordered a package* that had loose bees, I would be fairly pissed off.
*I don't order bees though as I catch live swarms that would otherwise be exterminated and relocate them.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:27 AM on May 26, 2016
*I don't order bees though as I catch live swarms that would otherwise be exterminated and relocate them.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:27 AM on May 26, 2016
>loose bees
According to sonascope, it's not that the bees inside the box are escaping, but that the pheremones from the queen attract additional bees from nearby.
posted by yuwtze at 8:18 PM on May 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
According to sonascope, it's not that the bees inside the box are escaping, but that the pheremones from the queen attract additional bees from nearby.
posted by yuwtze at 8:18 PM on May 26, 2016 [2 favorites]
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posted by Etrigan at 11:26 AM on May 25, 2016 [15 favorites]