When I came to class at the beginning of the semester and saw a beehive sitting n the stage, I knew I'd made a good course selection. The intricate structure of a beehive is a fascinating phenomena of nature, but the nasty stings which accompany a swarm make it difficult to get too close and personal. This hive, with its amazing aroma of rotting apples and aging honeycomb, was a rare treat for sure.
As a kid, most of my experiences with bees and their hives were accidental and semi-painful. Numerous times I recall my friends and family members stumbling upon a hive of winged stingers who were not pleased at our intrusions. Running away from angry bees is an experience that nearly everyone has at some point. It's nice to be able to examine a hive and not get stung.
The movie we watched on bees was very eye opening. Bees can communicate with special buzz dancing! This is incredible. The scientist in the film was able to track the bees by tagging them with distinguishable paint marks. This is indeed a clever system. Then he was able to monitor the dances of the bees who knew the location of the food sources. The bees did their dance in a certain direction, at a certain speed, and the bees who saw the dance were able to locate the food source. All in all, this is amazing! No one ever told me that bees communicated through buzz dancing, so the film opened a whole new realm of possibilities. If bees are capable of giving each other directions, what other detailed messages can animals communicate with one another? If we can interpret the secret dance of bees, is it something we could replicate? What other forms of animal communication are accessable to the human world?
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