I’m both allergic and still slightly phobic, and I would totally want to meet the bees. I have met bees as part of exposure therapy to diminish that phobia. They are cool as hell.
Not just honey bees either. I’ve even developed a fondness for bumblers. I still don’t want them on me, but I smile when I see them.
May I invite you to !beebutts@lemmy.world ?
Here is a preview:
Edit: Most of my contributions to !awwnverts@lemmy.world are also adorable bees:
You made my day with presenting me !beebutts@lemmy.world! Thanks a lot! I also love the wild bees and especially the fluffy but bumblebees 🥰
I love beebutts :) both the actual butts and the community.
I’ve become convinced that bees know how cute their butts are and wiggle them just to give the world a little beauty
That last picture is so adorable. What a cute face!
Bumblebees are fuzzy and cute. Wasps are assholes, though, it’s not just a meme.
Got stung on the tongue by a wasp as a kid. Never forgave them.
I have more trouble with hornets than wasps. But, as long as they aren’t near me, I respect what they do. From afar. Very afar.
Believe it or not, bees, hornets and ants are all wasps. https://youtu.be/u095VH5zp6s
Explains how I got stung by an ant once
I knew ants were, I did not know the others were too
My parents taught me to leave them alone. I’m Indigenous Canadian and I grew up seeing my parents talking to creatures like they were people. They’d see a bee nearby and just ask it to leave … and most of the time it would. But other times, the bee would linger and they’d start getting mad at it and almost negotiating for it to leave until it eventually did. They would only kill it if it was endangering someone like a small child or baby or if the bee actually stung someone.
I do the same now … if I see a bug or a bee where it shouldn’t be, I just open the door or window and ask it to leave. Funny part is … 9/10 times, the bee takes the advice and just leaves.
Wasps on the other hand set off panic alarms, even with my parents because everyone knows these things are just born angry and will sting you relentlessly no matter what you ask of them.
Curiously, in my country we are taught that for wasps and hornets you must stay silent and wait still until they leave. Like dealing with a blind predator.
I’m in northern Ontario in Canada and the wasps we have here can be aggressive no matter what you do, which is why we stay away from them.
We have swarm migration season. Picture thousands of paper wasp all flying through open wide savannas in stereotypical black clouds of murder. There’s no staying away. If they come, you wait.
Holy crap … I rather have swarms of mosquitoes than swarms of wasps … my condolences to you during that migration season … wow
When I come across bees I always talk to them too!
I’m like
hello Mr Bee! How are you today?
And then just keep going with my day.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one who does that.
You know, that’s one of the ways I learned to control the phobia. There’s something about talking to them that cuts the fear off, or turns it down. Can’t say that leave when I ask them too, but it really helps to talk to them.
I think it has a lot to do with pheromones and energy and phenomenon we haven’t fully discovered or explained yet … I don’t go too far into the science of it but I do believe that between humans we can ‘sense’ certain energies, personalities, feelings or anxieties between ourselves … and I think that same process happens between species as well. If we feel fear, anxiety, apprehension or aggression, I think most animals and insects would be able to sense that. There is even some research that suggests that same kind of energy or connection also happens between plants and with plants and trees.
There is a lot of science and biology that leans towards the possibility that there is more to our natural world than what we see, hear, touch and taste. And I think that is why we have these kind of unusual interactions with animals and insects more often than would be explained by chance.
I can definitely say that as my phobia faded, I got buzzed less by any of them. That could be perception shifting more than reality, but I swear that even standing near a hive, they reacted different the calmer I got. They had to be smelling a difference or something.
Earlier this year I had to catch an absolute unit of a bumblebee inside my house. Must’ve been a queen that just came out of hibernation, she was very confused that my ceiling light wasn’t the outside.
My nextdoor neighbor has bees. I meet them all the time cause they try to come in to my yard to build a new hive lol. My neighbor will come over and talk to them and try to get them to come in to a box. She treats them like little dogs, its pretty cute. Then she gives us free honey for our trouble.
I thought bees only do that when the hive they have is not good. But I am no expert, and might be reciting some bee propaganda.
Pretty sure sometimes they just split like that when they get a new queen, one takes a bunch of bees and heads out and the other stays there.
Saw someone else sharing bees, yo, I got some bees.
A couple years ago I rescued a yellow jacket from my basement. For the next few weeks, every time I went outside, I had one yellow jacket following me around.
Not a bee story…but cute nonetheless.
I think a good contrast to this is when my dad saved a goose he accidentally snared in his fishing line. If flew straight across mid-cast.
He had to reel it in while it honked and freaked out and and tried to bite him but after that, they were pals.
Brought its goslings to see him on subsequent visits and everything.
First good goose story I have ever heard ever
I have a dog, we got as a puppy. He’s a mutt. We named him Gus (after the mouse). His nickname became “Goose”.
Once he grew up, we noticed his white markings on the underside of his neck (the rest of him is brindle) actually looks like the silhouette of a goose.
A dog dressed up as a goose is about the best you can expect from a goose really
You rescued? Those things are pure evil. It was probably waiting to inflict the most pain.
Would it be better to say I rescued my family from a yellow jacket? Who rescued whom?
You rescued a yellow jacket??? What is wrong with you
When I was growing up, what I remember calling “yellow jackets” were small yellow and black things, smaller than a bee. When I Google yellow jacket, I get images of flying death machines with a badass livery. Maybe you have different yellow jackets? Just a guess.
Forgiven.
So, ya like Jazz?
Years ago we had a big ass yellowjacket nest above our front door. They were calm enough so I never removed them, and they kept the salesmen and soul savers the fuck away.
The bees are happy.
Sounds like it was the bees’ knees
Not sure how many people will get this, but way back when I have Eve online a go, I made either some containers or markers (guessing markers? Cause otherwise I’d have just took the cargo but can’t recall why I had two then), but they were called the bees knees and the cat’s pajamas. For some reason I always liked those terms for something good. I’m ‘only’ in my 40s so not quite from my time lol.
I was born with the bees. My father was a beekeeper and showed me and many other curious people his bees. Recently he passed away. Even his burial was bee themed and now the bees come to visit the flowers on his grave.
beehold, he’s watching over your.
Watching over your what?
Your well-beeing
That, and they’re paying their respects.
I think my level of excitement is going to be tied to the person asking me if I want to meet the bees. If it’s a nice old German lady, cool. If it’s Christoph Waltz, I’m going to be concerned.
You never really know.
Christoph Waltz is so charming though! I would totally agree to meet his bees.
Yknow that “not the bees” bit is a deleted scene. Imagine my disappointment when I watched the entire film and it wasn’t in there.
Although the scenes of him dressed as a bear made up for it. https://youtu.be/YyigAW-14w0
Please… “Dressed as a Bear punching a woman in the face.”
I was looking at some bees working near their hive when one of them decided to take a break by landing on my (closed) eye. I kept still for a while and eventually the bee went back to work.
It liked your iris.
I would beed to wear a pretty resistant beekeeper suit 💧
So, like, what… it’s a vending machine?
No, the honey is on a sort of shelf outside and there’s a box for you to put the money in. You could steal the moneybox and the honey but in civilised society it doesnt happen. This system is big for eggs around where I live - spare eggs are sold on an honesty basis at the end of driveways and if you are a really good customer you should return the eggboxes for reuse.
I’ve seen videos of some of these for honey, eggs, etc. Sometimes there’s a sort of vending machine, but often if it’s rural/small town, they can just get by with the honor system: drop money into a box, grab what you paid for.
That happens in some places yes, I have seen vending machines for Strawberries, Eggs, Bread, Pizza, Factor like Meals among other things
I live out in the country with a lot of farms and yeah people do this. I’ve seen apples, peaches, firewood, and a few other “shelf stable” things.
Also bowls of ramen, live crabs, whiskey.
The first vending machine was from 1st century Rome!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vending_machine#HistoryCool!
I freakin’ love this! 🐝
Beads?
