Little Bee with a Dream

A honeycore/honey bee stimboard 🐝🍯

I drew three of the four main characters in Fairies and Honey! :D And when I put it that way, I feel a little bad I left Princess out of the frame. She’s working hard, I’m sure. XD

Say hello to Harry, Diana and Jolie with her trusty baseball equipment. I don’t think I mention it flat out in the novel, but I like to imagine she’s always got her gear with her to go to the practice fields after work. ;D

And if you’re curious about these guys, you can read Fairies and Honey right now! :D

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Paperback $7.99: Createspace * Amazon

happy Friday everyone, you’ve made it through the week and now it’s time for an all-new episode of Weird Biology! 

this week, we’ll be learning about a horrifically lethal insect whose very name makes you cringe. it’s that special bug buddy that I want to stay very far away from me forever,

I’m of the opinion that the words “giant” and “hornet” should never be combined, but maybe that’s just me. 

the Asian Giant Hornet has a perfectly descriptive and terrifying name. it’s the largest hornet on the planet, and is also known as the “Yak-Killer Hornet” because of its incredibly painful sting. (‘Yak-Killer Hornet’ is not a set of words that I ever wanted to type, but I got myself into this.)

as the name suggests, the Asian Giant Hornet is found, uh, in Asia. specifically, the lowlands and forests of East Asia. this unfortunately means the Hornet shares elbow space with hundreds of millions of humans, so if you live in East Asia you have my condolences.

I am so, so sorry.

and like the name suggests, the Asian Giant Hornet is, well. Giant. (though basically anything over half an inch is Too Damn Big when we’re talking about the wasp family.)

but we’re shit out of luck in this case, because this hornet is almost 2 inches long. it’s upsetting to find a spider that large, never mind what’s basically an overpowered and permanently angry wasp. and if that weren’t enough, they make underground hives that they share with 30+ of their brethren. jesus.

that is TOO MUCH HORNET. PUT IT BACK.

their stingers are only 6 mm long, which might not seem that bad! but like a lot of things in life, it’s what they do with it that counts. in this case, what they do with it is inject a large amount of corrosive venom into your helpless flesh. fun! (don’t…. google this. just don’t.)

the sting of the Asian Giant Hornet is considered to be one of the worst insect stings in the world. a single sting can really fuck up a human, and multiple stings can be lethal. which really sucks, because a hive of these things is more than enough Hornet to kill your face right off. right off. 

but normally, Asian Giant Hornets aren’t using their stings to kill humans. they use them to kill the living fuck out of other insects, which they then eat.

no joke, Wikipedia describes them as “intensely predatory”.

Asian Giant Hornets will eat any insect they can get the drop on, including praying mantises and smaller wasps. they’re like a pack of hungry and extremely toxic wolves. 

and one of their favorite foods is… honeybees! (in case you didn’t think these things were awful enough, they especially love baby honeybees.) 

when an Asian Giant Hornet scout finds a honeybee hive, they leave a scent marking outside. the scout then retreats to its own hive and returns with a Giant Hornet invasion force. an entire bee hive can be destroyed in hours by as few as 30 Hornets. the honeybees fall trying to defend their queen and then the hornets steal their larva. the poor bees have absolutely zero defenses against them.

this is the saddest picture I’ve ever put in a Weird Biology article.

well. MOST honeybees, anyway.

the Asian Giant Hornet has exactly one counter, but it’s a fucking good one. it’s-

that’s right, it’s a two-for-one special! hurray, time for bees!

the Japanese Honeybee is pretty identical to the European Honeybee, down to being kept commercially for their honey. but there is one major difference.

if an Asian Giant Hornet scout approaches a Japanese Honeybee hive, the entire beehive is immediately on alert. the Honeybees respond to the Hornet by creating a diabolical and kind of insane trap: they abandon the entrance of the hive, which attracts the Hornet scout into investigating. 

and once the Hornet scout is inside the beehive, it’s TIME FOR BEE MOSH.

LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOOOOR

the secretly-metal-as-fuck bees dogpile the Hornet, immobilizing it. the bees then vibrate their flight muscles, generating a massive amount of heat. this causes the mosh pit temperature to skyrocket over 115 F, literally cooking the Hornet scout alive. the bees escape relatively unharmed because they can tolerate much higher temps than Asian Giant Hornets, probably because Metal fills their tiny bee souls. 

with the Hornet scout disposed of, the main invasion force will never arrive. this strategic assassination keeps the beehive safe for another day, and it’s all thanks to murder! yay, bees!

yeah that’s right, RUN, MOTHERFUCKER.

the relationship between Asian Giant Hornets and Japanese Honeybees is a case of ongoing biological warfare. we might learn things from observing, orrr we might not. whatever the case, you have to admit that it’s cool as shit.

so long, Asian Giant Hornet! I hope I never have to type your name again!

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thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series here.

if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee or check out my Patreon to see extra content and support Weird Biology.

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IMAGE SOURCES

its a lil ace bee

I’m on the porch attempting to construct a railing for the stairs when I notice a weird noise. Like, a kind of droning or buzzing? And it’s getting loud. So I investigate. It’s coming from the neighbor’s yard. 

It is a metric fuckton of bees. I have never seen so many bees in my life. It is a fucking swarm of bees, and I have been reading about bees because I got a wild hair a few weeks back about wanting a hive of my own, but haven’t yet convinced Husbandthing, and there is suddenly a SWARMING HERD OF WILD HONEYBEES IN THE NEIGHBOR’S YARD.

I see postings on the neighborhood page all the time for feral swarm collection, but I also know the guy in the house across the alley just set up a hive. “Hey I think your hive escaped,” I text him. 

He calls me back about three minutes later. Turns out, the swarm he was supposed to get never came; the company went out of business and his order got cancelled, and he’d found out HALF AN HOUR AGO. And he says he’s got a friend who is a professional beekeeper, and he’s going to go pick her up and would it be okay if they came and got this swarm please please please?

So Bee Neighbor and Professional Beekeeper show up and immediately don bee suits. Apparently there is fierce competition for feral swarms, and the swarm in the neighbor’s tree is HUGE, and also twenty feet off the ground, and Bee Neighbor wants them very badly. 

The tree the bees are in is in a yard belonging to neither of us, so we go knock on the door, but there’s no answer. I knock on the house adjacent to it, but that guy’s not home either. Finally, I text the neighbor on the other side of me to see if he’s got contact info for the property owner, who is incredibly shy and in three years has never made eye contact. No luck. 

So…we trespass. We get my extension ladder, and Bee Neighbor climbs the tree while Professional Beekeeper stands on the ladder and walks him through the swarm collection. Turns out, you just shake the swarm into a box, and as long as the queen makes it into the box, the rest of the swarm will eventually follow. Bee Neighbor has never collected a swarm before (this is, in fact, his very first swarm of bees ever) and it takes the two of them the better part of an hour in the tree trying to shake the swarm into the box. 

Bees eventually get into the box. Bee Neighbor gets out of the tree without dying, and Professional Beekeeper examines the swarm and makes pleased noises. At this point, the box is the neighbor’s driveway, and about two thirds of the swarm is still milling around the box all confused. Since the neighbor isn’t home and we can’t contact him, he risks coming and parking right in the middle of a huge cloud of bees. Professional Beekeeper doesn’t want to move the box too far away, because we risk the milling bees losing the queen’s scent and never going into the box. An equidistant point between the current location and Bee Neighbor’s yard is the top of my recycling bin. 

So they put the box of bees on my recycling bin, and I text Husbandthing.

Now I have a box of bees that I am babysitting. They’re being all lazy and dopey and bumbling around. I think I might be in love. Bee Neighbor will pick the box up later tonight and put them in his hive, and then the bees will be MY neighbors too!!

I’m on the porch attempting to construct a railing for the stairs when I notice a weird noise. Like, a kind of droning or buzzing? And it’s getting loud. So I investigate. It’s coming from the neighbor’s yard. 

It is a metric fuckton of bees. I have never seen so many bees in my life. It is a fucking swarm of bees, and I have been reading about bees because I got a wild hair a few weeks back about wanting a hive of my own, but haven’t yet convinced Husbandthing, and there is suddenly a SWARMING HERD OF WILD HONEYBEES IN THE NEIGHBOR’S YARD.

I see postings on the neighborhood page all the time for feral swarm collection, but I also know the guy in the house across the alley just set up a hive. “Hey I think your hive escaped,” I text him. 

He calls me back about three minutes later. Turns out, the swarm he was supposed to get never came; the company went out of business and his order got cancelled, and he’d found out HALF AN HOUR AGO. And he says he’s got a friend who is a professional beekeeper, and he’s going to go pick her up and would it be okay if they came and got this swarm please please please?

So Bee Neighbor and Professional Beekeeper show up and immediately don bee suits. Apparently there is fierce competition for feral swarms, and the swarm in the neighbor’s tree is HUGE, and also twenty feet off the ground, and Bee Neighbor wants them very badly. 

The tree the bees are in is in a yard belonging to neither of us, so we go knock on the door, but there’s no answer. I knock on the house adjacent to it, but that guy’s not home either. Finally, I text the neighbor on the other side of me to see if he’s got contact info for the property owner, who is incredibly shy and in three years has never made eye contact. No luck. 

So…we trespass. We get my extension ladder, and Bee Neighbor climbs the tree while Professional Beekeeper stands on the ladder and walks him through the swarm collection. Turns out, you just shake the swarm into a box, and as long as the queen makes it into the box, the rest of the swarm will eventually follow. Bee Neighbor has never collected a swarm before (this is, in fact, his very first swarm of bees ever) and it takes the two of them the better part of an hour in the tree trying to shake the swarm into the box. 

Bees eventually get into the box. Bee Neighbor gets out of the tree without dying, and Professional Beekeeper examines the swarm and makes pleased noises. At this point, the box is the neighbor’s driveway, and about two thirds of the swarm is still milling around the box all confused. Since the neighbor isn’t home and we can’t contact him, he risks coming and parking right in the middle of a huge cloud of bees. Professional Beekeeper doesn’t want to move the box too far away, because we risk the milling bees losing the queen’s scent and never going into the box. An equidistant point between the current location and Bee Neighbor’s yard is the top of my recycling bin. 

So they put the box of bees on my recycling bin, and I text Husbandthing.

Now I have a box of bees that I am babysitting. They’re being all lazy and dopey and bumbling around. I think I might be in love. Bee Neighbor will pick the box up later tonight and put them in his hive, and then the bees will be MY neighbors too!!