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Honey dressings for wounds

16 (24.6%)

Honey-preservation of foods

19 (29.2%)

Bee Anger (if stirred up, hives stay angry for a while; see post #162)

14 (21.5%)

Sting Effects (allergies/resistance; first post)

15 (23.1%)

Equine Enmity (hives attack nearby horses (unicorns maybe); see post #23)

1 (1.5%)

Addition of Stingless Bees (less risk/less honey; see posts #78-79)

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 34

Voting closed: June 18, 2011, 06:22:09 pm

[Flaede]

Rare Honey: Not every plant flowers every year (sage every 2-3 years, kurinji once every 12 years).

So flowers like that are synchronized the way broods of, say, cicadas are?  Interesting.

I'm thinking that honey should be named after the flower/nectar that it was produced from and not the type of bee.  That is, "clover honey" instead of "bumblebee honey" and that bumblebees should have a lower rate of honey production.

Isn't there a synchronized bloom of bamboo or something that just happened (like 50 years or something) and they fortunately remembered the folklore of how it is synchronized with a migration of rats (to the bamboo). Ah. Yes. here: http://www.projectmaje.org/mautam.htm

[Buzzing_Beard]

Bee-Trees: An unobservant woodcutter might regret chopping into certain trees; certain trees who don't take kindly to smelly woodchoppers (queue unhappy thoughts).

Dwarves would have to clear the area for a day. Future dwarves may wonder about an abandoned axe stuck in a tree.

[ikkonoishi]

Would be nice if we could make hives for things other than bees too. Like say purring maggots. You have to pile dead bodies or decaying body parts around the hive to keep the maggots fed.

[Flaede]

Would be nice if we could make hives for things other than bees too. Like say purring maggots. You have to pile dead bodies or decaying body parts around the hive to keep the maggots fed.

Can't we? There are already two hive vermin. Why not more?

[ikkonoishi]

Can't we? There are already two hive vermin. Why not more?

Eh hives have to be outdoors to work. I was thinking of more diverse methods of sustaining them rather than just more types of vermin. Rotting organics, water, magma, ect...

[Flaede]

can vermin emit clouds of stuff? misasma? I'm thinking of those Zombees.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Ikkonoishi: "Eh hives have to be outdoors to work. I was thinking of more diverse methods of sustaining them..."

I don't think beehives should have to be. As long as they have food (and water), there's no reason a healthy hive of bees couldn't be sustained indoors. Beekeepers use sugar-water/syrup/honey to help support their apiaries during droughts, and some beekeepers in cold climates winter their hives in their homes.

[ikkonoishi]

I don't think beehives should have to be. As long as they have food (and water), there's no reason a healthy hive of bees couldn't be sustained indoors. Beekeepers use sugar-water/syrup/honey to help support their apiaries during droughts, and some beekeepers in cold climates winter their hives in their homes.

Hence me wanting more ways to sustain hives.

[Buzzing_Beard]

A barrel-based DIY Top-Bar: http://makeprojects.com/Project/Your-Own-Honey-Cow/539/1

[Mister Always]

Buzzing Beard, I have to ask you...

Do you like bumblebees?

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Mister Always: "Do you like bumblebees?"

I haven't worked with them, but I like them. The foragers have that abrupt staccato way of flying around, and their queens are humongous!

[Buzzing_Beard]

Suggestion: Give dwarves the ability to embark with some honeybees.

Honeybees are low maintenance, portable (e.g. Europeans brought/introduced them to America),
and could help to feed a fledgling fortress.

Once you arrived, you could just put them somewhere and they'd build up on their own.

[Mister Always]

     Mister Always: "Do you like bumblebees?"

I haven't worked with them, but I like them. The foragers have that abrupt staccato way of flying around, and their queens are humongous!

They're also fuzzy and petable.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Mister Always: "They're also fuzzy and petable."

From bumblebee.org:
     "Thick hair can act as insulation keeping the bee warm in cold weather."
     "When flying a bee builds up an electrostatic charge,...grains of pollen that are not touched by the hairs can jump
     a few millimetres to the nearest hair."

Here's an idea, maybe in the DF world, rather than having bumblebees as wax and honey producers, they were instead domesticated for their Bumble-Fuzz!!

[Neonivek]

Bumblebees are also MANY times more passive then their cousins the Wasp.

I lives in a house with several flowers that attracted swarms of bumblebees. I even managed to pet one.

I have never been stung by a bee but I have been stung by a wasp several times causing me to develop a fear of insects (and before that I'd pick up any insect)