Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Wednesday, April 29. 2009

How do honey bees do it?


From the NYT article:



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.



Photos from the NYT piece.

Posted by Bird Dog in Natural History and Conservation, Our Essays at 17:17 | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

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Nobody really seems to know! There has been lots of research on honey bees but they are still mysterious in many ways. We have an urban beehive and are always amazed at these wondrous creatures. They have done good things for our neighborhood's plant life.
#1 Susan in Seattle on 2009-04-29 18:18 (Reply)
Amazing creatures - their mating process is pretty unique, too.
#2 Stretch on 2009-04-29 20:04 (Reply)
When the NYT goes out of business, one of the few parts of it I'm going to miss will be the science section.
#3 Texan99 on 2009-04-30 11:08 (Reply)

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