Subject:
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Re: bees (was Re: A possible way to get cheaper sets?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.loc.au
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Date:
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Tue, 2 May 2000 23:35:53 GMT
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Viewed:
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797 times
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In lugnet.loc.au, Peter White writes:
> A bee question...
> Dave Australian native bees don't sting, correct ?
> Do they counsel their attackers or are threats to them limited ?
> What do they think of all the Europeans in the country ?
>
> pete.w
Note: this is totally non-Lego.
That's right Pete, Aus native bees are stingless. There are two types:
solitary bees (that look sort of like bumble bees), and social bees. The
social stingless bees are related to the northern hemisphere honeybees.
Although they don't bite they can, if provoked, give you a nip with their
mouth, but basically they try to overwhelm any attackers with their incredible
cuteness.
In bee/agricultural/wilderness circles there's actually something of a
controversy about feral honeybees: do their nests displace native fauna (ie
when a honeybee hive sets up shop in a hole in a dead tree, does that leave a
parrot homeless?) I don't think the stingless bees have an opinion on this
question.
Another issue is bumblebees in Tasmania. Bumblebees have been feral in NZ for
about 100 years (green and pleasant land down-under etc), but Aus had been
free of them. Until a kid brought back from holiday a queen in a matchbox.
Since then a guy down there has been making his career out of watching them
spread.
If anyone else wants to know about bees, just ask (the above is the tip of the
iceberg); otherwise, it's back to Lego.
Dave
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: A possible way to get cheaper sets?
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| (...) A bee question... Dave Australian native bees don't sting, correct ? Do they counsel their attackers or are threats to them limited ? What do they think of all the Europeans in the country ? pete.w (25 years ago, 2-May-00, to lugnet.loc.au)
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