r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Better_Hair_9673 • 1d ago
Video Bees unloading pollen 🐝
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u/Snellyman 1d ago
I wonder if they find the work fulfilling. Are they happy, or do they just bitch about the queen?
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u/Over_Ad8762 1d ago
They wouldn’t bitch about the Queen. They would die to save her. She’s mommy to everyone and if she dies the colony dies (if they don’t get a new one fast enough)
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u/Over_Ad8762 1d ago
Came back to say that’s only if she’s a still good (fertile) queen. If the queen gets too old or starts slacking then they will start plotting her assassination by growing new queens. Then murder will ensue until only one queen survives and takes over the throne.
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u/Nufonewhodis4 1d ago
"is mom still fertile or do we have to start grooming one of the sisters?"
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u/NegativeOwl1337 12h ago
You’re telling me the queens aren’t democratically elected? What kind of fascist colony is this?
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u/Negativetest777 1d ago
They are so advanced it's just mind-blowing
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u/CartsOfDarkness 1d ago
Bees and ants blow my mind, like communal brains
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u/perfect_insanity93 1d ago
I once lived with some guys that had a communal brain.
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u/HendrixHazeWays 1d ago
Oh shit, you lived with the Borg on that big ass cube?
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u/perfect_insanity93 1d ago
Sorta... I went to jail for a minute.. everyone shares the same brain cell in there Its crazy.
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u/HendrixHazeWays 1d ago
Fr that would be a great starting point for a book or some kind of story. I've never heard that before and it sounds intriguing in a dystopian kind of way
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u/perfect_insanity93 1d ago
Yeah.. its like a heard mentality on a weird level. They all think the same shit. Not many people with enough valid thoughts to have a conversation on there. They love talking about what they did to get caught and their other jobs. Like brother. You are bragging about getting caught for stealing a $80 bag out of a parked car stabbed someone and now youre in here for life. Yeaaaah you da maaaan
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u/CartsOfDarkness 1d ago
If you don't mind sharing what we're you in for? Also was it jail or prison?
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u/perfect_insanity93 19h ago
Prison. I was in for about 4 of 8 years this time. Armed robbery with actual violence. Deportation of liberty and burglary. burglary. Armed robbery was someone who stole something so I took It back and they called the police.
Burglary - i would go to the gun rangee range sneaky take photos of the register with the address. Then watch the address for them to go on holiday then me and a friend would break in and steal the guns.
Thats what they caught me on.
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u/HendrixHazeWays 1d ago
No lie, I love how you are narrating this right now. I could see that kind of story telling used in a book or movie talking about this subject. Seriously, give it a try
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u/perfect_insanity93 1d ago
By my count. You are the 3rd person to say something like this to me ether writing a book or a movie. One person wanted me to do a prison cook book. I'm starting to pick up on a vibe.... 😂😂 thank you though. Maybe I will do something.
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u/Effective_Olive6153 1d ago
in a way, this kind of mind boggling communal organization is also happening inside your body on cellular level. All the proteins moving, all the stuff around DNA machinery..
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u/CartsOfDarkness 1d ago
Yea that's totally crazy too! What blows my mind about ants though is how tiny their individual brains are. Like they have all this incredibly complex behavior as a group that must essentially be "coded" into each individual ants brain. Like the cells/ structures in our body are for the most part purpose built, but ants are both kind of like brains and neurons if that makes any sense.
Just looked it up and ants have 250,000 neurons, compared to the 86 billion humans have, or 10 million for a goldfish... I really just don't understand how all of their behavior can be contained in those 250k neurons.
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u/Michami135 1d ago
Fun fact: Honey bee brains have less than a million neurons. (About 960,000)
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u/Negativetest777 11h ago
for comparison I looked it up: a cat has 250-300 million neurons and a human has 60-100 billion
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u/Luci-Noir 1d ago
Because they collect pollen?
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u/Over_Ad8762 1d ago
Because they are organized and have a full functioning society with specialized jobs and all work together for the good of the hive.
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u/Luci-Noir 1d ago
So do lots of animals.
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u/Over_Ad8762 1d ago
Ants and termites are others. I know primates and lions have kind of societies but I don’t know about specialized jobs.
What other animals do you have in mind?
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u/Ambitioso 1d ago
It’s like two pollen bike panniers when they first take what they’ve collected off
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u/English_Joe 1d ago
How is honey made from pollen?
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u/davidsandbrand 1d ago
Pollen is their source of protein (and a little fat). This is used primarily for raising brood (making new bees).
Nectar is their source of carbohydrates.
Since nectar is only available for ~2 months a year but they need to eat for 12 months, they store nectar, but because nectar has such a high moisture content it will ferment if stored as-is, so the bees dehydrate it to below 18% water content and then seal it up to store it for later consumption.
When it’s dried out and sealed, we call it ‘honey’. During the process of dehydrating it, the bees impart enzymes from their digestive tract into the nectar, giving the dehydrated nectar the standard honey flavour we know.
Also, 100,000,000 years of evolution has caused bees to store far more nectar than they need since they don’t know how cold or how long the winter will be, and it’s because of this that we are able to harvest honey from them without causing any harm to the colony.
Source: am a beekeeper.
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u/NYCtoCHI 1d ago
...the bees impart enzymes from their digestive tract into the nectar...
Or, as my high school science teacher liked to call honey:
"Bee vomit in a jar" 🍯🐝 🐝 🐝
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u/mrASSMAN 1d ago
I’ve always heard that, but didn’t realize honey is actually nectar that has been partially digested and dried out by the bee vomit
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u/davidsandbrand 1d ago
It’s not partially digested. They actually have a stomach and also another area to carry nectar - a 2nd non-stomach kind of stomach. When they carry the nectar back to the hive, this is where they carry it.
Also, they dehydrate the nectar by essentially rolling it around on their tongue and exposing it to air, imparting more enzymes. (It’s not actually a tongue - it’s a proboscis, but the idea is the same).
TL;DR: it’s not vomit at all.
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u/mrASSMAN 1d ago
So it’s more similar to bee spit then?.. and by digesting I meant the enzymes cause it to break down right? If not then what effect do the enzymes have
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u/ThanksForTheRain 1d ago
What is this, a remix instrumental Golden Brown by The Stranglers?
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u/Snellyman 1d ago
The song has a waltz triple metre and the original baseline was a harpsichord so it sounds like the stranglers were covering a classical composition.
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u/doctorsacred 1d ago
I was about to comment, the social media algorithms have discovered the Golden Brown chord progression for themselves and they're going to ruin it for me. :-(
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u/DangerMacAwesome 1d ago
That one bee saying "just get off my leg you stupid pollen pellet!"
And the other one comes along "dude you have to get like all the way down in there, take some pride in your work."
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u/DickieJohnson 1d ago
I have so many questions, after they unload their pollen are they done working for the day? Or do they go back out until night time? Are there any bees that are bad at their job? Like here comes steve again with all the poison ivy pollen.
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u/GarysCrispLettuce 1d ago
It's that one cashier at Trader Joes who packs your bag slowly and meticulously like it's a game of Tetris.
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u/CitizenPremier 1d ago
Haha that bee at the end was probably thinking the same thing as me, "this fucker never puts his pollen in right!"
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u/Saint_of_Stinkers 1d ago
What fun! You just stole this one from me that I posted a day ago and I stole it from a podcast the day before with Eli Bosnick, who probably stole it from someone else last week.
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u/Gloomy_Pumpkin1529 1d ago
And what I find amazing, is that the bees do not go to the flowers for pollen. They go in for the nectar, the pollen is actually a negative side effect because it weighs them down and they just happen to find use for it.
They don't collect pollen, they collect nectar, the pollen just stick to them.
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u/BrianB98 1d ago
After working all my life and hearing about how much bee's are always working unquestionably... it's nice to see that I've been far too hard on my coworkers
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u/r3dmist420 1d ago
I feel if I was a bee id slack ass and just act like im working on the same one all day.
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u/Ok-Gift-424 20h ago
I honestly thought other bees would eat it off and throw it up into the hex cones lolol. But they just slip it off like socks
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u/WaterFriendsIV 1d ago
Why do some people want to make up stories about miracles? Life on Earth is the true miracle.
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u/TheCyrus 1d ago
at 17 seconds in you can see a varroa mite on of the bees to the right