Friday, May 1, 2009

Bees Fact of the Day

In effect the honeybee has a daily diary that can include as many as nine appointments — say, 10:00 a.m., lilac; 11:30 a.m., peonies; and so on. The bees’ time-keeping is accurate to about 20 minutes....

Honeybees can tell their sisters how far away the food is up to a distance of about 15 kilometers. For good measure, they can also allow for the fact that the sun moves relative to the hive by about 15 degrees an hour and correct for this when they pass on the information. In other words, they have their own built-in global positioning system and a language that enables them to refer to objects and events that are distant in space or time.

-Let’s Hear It for the Bees

1 comment:

Rhys said...

I used to think of bees purely as a nuisance (even though I'd never been stung, I hated that if I walked too near a trash can, I'd often find a bee stalking me), until I heard the argument that life as we know it couldn't really go on without them. They're a good example of "the power of small." That's why it's disturbing to hear that bee populations have been going down.