Jack Has A Brain

but the bar itself is also really cool looking? i found a diagram that says exactly how big each piece is

the wikipedia article reads like an ad but i gotta say, this part in particular is pretty fun

Support your local beekeepers

Set up bee hotels for solitary bees

If you see a lethargic bee feed it sugar water

the fact that we find honey yummy and nutritious is part of why we keep bees, true, but the truth is we mostly keep them to pollinate our crops. the vegetable crops you seem to imagine would still magically sustain us if we stopped cultivating bees.

and when you get right down to it… domestic bees aren’t confined in any way. if they wanted to fly away, they could, and would. they come back to the wood frame hives humans build because those are nice places to nest.

Every place has different types of bees. Every place has different types of plants/flowers. Those hyped-up “save the bees” seed packets that are distributed across North America are garbage because none of those flowers are native in every habitat. Don’t look up “how to make a bee hotel” and make something that only bees from the great plains areas would use if you live on the west coast.

Look up what bees you have in your home! Here’s a great (excellent) resource: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/630955-Anthophila

This is every bee that has been observed and uploaded to the citizen science network of iNaturalist. You can filter by location (anywhere in the world! This is not restricted to the US!), and you can view photos of every species people have added. Here’s the page for all bees, sorted by taxonomy, not filtered to any specific location [link]. Have you seen a bee and want to know more about it, but you don’t know what kind of bee it is? Take a picture, upload it to iNat, and people like me will help you identify it–and it will also become part of the database other people will use to learn about nature!

Some native Texan bees I’ve met!

A sweat bee! [link to iNat]. These flowers are tiny, no larger than a dime.

A ligated furrow bee! [link to iNat] They burrow and nest underground.

A longhorn bee! [link to iNat] I don’t know where they nest, but I often find them sleeping on the tips of flowers at night (so cute!)

But, because so much $$$ is tied into the continued production of food, governments and food production companies will do whatever they can to mitigate the effects of colony collapse and other honeybee health issues. What can you do to help honeybees? Buy and eat food. Easy, right?

What is being done to protect native bees? Well,

1) Scientists and researchers are feverishly trying to get them listed as protected species and absolutely failing (see @thelepidopteragirl’s post about colleagues of hers: [link]).

2) Scientists and researchers are trying to get pesticides known to have devastating effects on bees and other pollinators banned and absolutely failing ([link]).

3) Scientists and science communicators (like me now, apparently) are trying to spread this information about native bees and their importance so more people can do little things like plant native flowers (lookup North American species for your zip code here: [link]), change how often they mow their lawns ([link]), and vote out the assholes who are profiting by destroying our environment ([link]). Success on this one: TBD, and by people like us.

As a gift to the honeybee lovers out there, please accept this photo of one making out with a stinkhorn mushroom:

Australia (where I live) has honey bees that are a native, non-invasive species AND who make honey!?

They aren’t at all like “honey bees” and don’t usually make enough to share (but can with certain care); you can find out more HERE!

I mean think about it 

-his special interest is like Welsh king/Glendower stuff and has anything else ever really held his attention for more than five minutes 

-the 4am hyperfocus research spirals are too real honestly 

-insomnia, lots of folks with ADHD have severe trouble sleeping 

-he’s canonically a picky eater and has like his one go to nino’s order and this part is probably just me projecting, but me & a few other folks I’ve talked to that are on meds agree that our meds severely reduce appetite except for a couple very specific things we like 

-the thumb on lower lip thing could be a favorite fidget/potentially even stim? not sure abt that tho 

-he just has like zero interest in school honestly like he tries but it doesn’t hold his interest and he’s daydreaming a lot 

-he has a lot of insecurity and anxiety over not knowing when to shut up and saying things impulsively without thinking them through and like… hello, ADHD 

-he starts talking about Glendower and he just. keeps going because he’s very very very hyperfocused af on that 

-I know a lot of the anxiety thing stems from beefuck2k05 or whatever, but also tons of people with ADHD develop anxiety as a shitty half assed internal motivator and procrastination prevention mechanism 

-I’ve heard some people with ADHD say that driving a car that’s really mentally taxing to drive helps them focus while driving; Gansey drives a piece of shit stick with a Fucked alternator and a gearbox made of molasses 

-do I even need to get into the way Monmouth is constantly a mess, or 

-“his words were unerring tools of destruction" 

-his whole getting tired of places and itching to travel and constantly shifting and moving thing 

-overemotional 

I mean think about it 

-his special interest is like Welsh king/Glendower stuff and has anything else ever really held his attention for more than five minutes 

-the 4am hyperfocus research spirals are too real honestly 

-insomnia, lots of folks with ADHD have severe trouble sleeping 

-he’s canonically a picky eater and has like his one go to nino’s order and this part is probably just me projecting, but me & a few other folks I’ve talked to that are on meds agree that our meds severely reduce appetite except for a couple very specific things we like 

-the thumb on lower lip thing could be a favorite fidget/potentially even stim? not sure abt that tho 

-he just has like zero interest in school honestly like he tries but it doesn’t hold his interest and he’s daydreaming a lot 

-he has a lot of insecurity and anxiety over not knowing when to shut up and saying things impulsively without thinking them through and like… hello, ADHD 

-he starts talking about Glendower and he just. keeps going because he’s very very very hyperfocused af on that 

-I know a lot of the anxiety thing stems from beefuck2k05 or whatever, but also tons of people with ADHD develop anxiety as a shitty half assed internal motivator and procrastination prevention mechanism 

-I’ve heard some people with ADHD say that driving a car that’s really mentally taxing to drive helps them focus while driving; Gansey drives a piece of shit stick with a Fucked alternator and a gearbox made of molasses 

-do I even need to get into the way Monmouth is constantly a mess, or 

-“his words were unerring tools of destruction" 

-his whole getting tired of places and itching to travel and constantly shifting and moving thing 

-overemotional 

~taking a sip of water every 5-10 seconds

~clicking your pen repeatedly until you realize you’re doing it

~doing that pen shaking thing with your fingers

~doodling

~more doodling

~WAIT SHIT TOO MUCH DOODLING

~tuning in in the middle of a sentence

~wait what was the professor saying about this right before this very second when I started listening again

~staring at the teacher without hearing anything they’re saying

~looking everywhere but the teacher and comprehending everything they’re saying

~looking around the room wait did I just see something looks again oh wait no that was something else looks at clock when is this class over looks at teacher looks lOOKS

have you ever seen a junebug get to grips with a window screen? it’s remarkably persistent, but not very focused. all that matters is location.

how to junebug: choose the location you feel you can probably get some shit done on today. be specific. not ‘the bathroom’ but ‘the bathroom sink’. you are not choosing a range, you are choosing a center; you will move around, but your location is where you’ll keep coming back to. mentally stick a pin in it. consider yourself tethered to that spot by a long mental bungee cord.

go to your location. look at stuff. move stuff around. do a thing. get distracted. remember you’re junebugging the bathroom sink and go back there. look at it some more. do a different thing. get distracted. get a sandwich. remember you’re junebugging and go back to the bathroom sink.

nt’s will go crazy watching you, and if they demand to know When You Will Be Done you will probably have to roll them in a carpet and stuff them up the chimney. you’re done when you feel done, or you’re too bored to live, or it’s bedtime, or any number of other markers, you get to pick. but the thing is, by returning repeatedly to that one spot, you harness the ‘hyperactivity’ part instead of wasting all that energy battling with the ‘attention deficit’ part.

not only will the bathroom sink almost certainly be clean, and probably the mirror and soap dish too, you might’ve swapped in a fresh toothbrush, a new soap, you might’ve unclogged the drain – you will probably also have cleaned or fixed up several things in the near vicinity, or in the path between the sink and where you get the fresh toothbrush, or maybe you did your grocery shopping cuz you were out of soap, or maybe you couldn’t find a clean hand towel and ended up doing laundry.

this is good. you got shit done! it wasn’t necessarily Cleaned The Bathroom in the way nt’s think of it, but screw ‘em. things are better than they were.

- skewed sense of time eg; i can easily get there and back before my eggs cook!

- altered sense of reality//tendency to get sucked up in daydreams and temporarily lose track of real life

- extremely vivid daydreams// alternative realities

- feeling really lonely but getting the urge to isolate yourself for no reason

- getting overwhelmed by too many choices and freaking out

- hearing the instructions but not really being able to hold onto them

- people cant speak to you while you’re really focused on something because you can’t hold on to multiple things in your brain at once

- repeating things over and over in your head to try and remember them

- feeling like you never really appreciate things as much as you should because you get too sidetracked

- getting super excited by small things but sometimes feeling indifferent towards the things everyone’s raving about

- being self conscious from everyone telling you you’re annoying but being scared you’ll come off as boring

- getting hyperfixations on a certain person and getting really wrapped up on them regardless of if they like you back

- putting too much into things and getting disappointed when it’s not reciprocated

- constantly being told that you’re too intense and need to chill it out a bit

- ^ thinking you’re cool and desperately wanting to just be chill and laid back but your personality is just 24/7 overdrive

- building things up so much in your head to the point that it gets stressful because what if it doesn’t live up to expectations??

- extremely over-emotional (this includes when it’s inappropriate such as giggling at sad things and then feeling really bad after)

- feeling when you just don’t know when to stop

- getting increasingly uncomfortable in a situation for no apparent reason until you feel like you’re gonna cry or scream but you do none of that and just sit there

also:

- talking to someone for like thirty minutes and naming them your new best friend for the week even though you barely know them but like time to hyperfixate on them all the time

- knowing you’re being annoying but NEEDING TO TALK ABOUT THE THING

- having constant very long conversations with random people in your head when you can’t talk about the thing out loud