6.27.2011

Infinity for bee culture

I heard about this on the radio one day.  When a bee colony decides it wants to relocate, they make this huge swarm and just kind of hang on a branch, chillin'. It looks like a moving beard and you could stick your hand in there without getting stung. Then some of the bees go off to find a new place to live and they come back to the beard to report what they scouted out. Here's the best part: the bees dance. They do a dance for the colony. Each step tells which direction and how far to fly to get to the spot. If it's a decent spot, the bee will do the dance about 30x over. If it's a particularly good spot, the bee will do the dance at least 100x over. And if that bee loves that place, if it can picture having little bee babies and happily growing old in that spot, it'll just dance and dance and dance. Some of the other bees will go check it out, and as a colony, they'll pick the best spot. And maybe they won't pick the spot of the bee who danced its heart out, but that bee will still go with them anyways. She'll just stay quiet and secretly long for the spot with the view of the little creek.

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