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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

[Buzzing_Beard]

A serious sampler (with NPK values).

[Flaede]

All organic! None of those pesticide fed bats.

[Buzzing_Beard]

A bee-tree will usually be a honeybee-tree, since bumblebees like to build their hives underground, but there might be exceptions.

     bumblebeeconservation.org.uk: "Back in 2001 we found a new species for the UK - the Tree Bumblebee - very
     exciting!"

Here's a tree-bumblebee-hive in a bird house!

(that's a cloud of males anticipating the mating-flight of a virgin queen)

[Neonivek]

As for poisonous plants making poisonous honey

If I remember the same can apply to Milk

The real question is how Giant Bees should function.

[Buzzing_Beard]

What new things could giant bees bring to the game (besides being cool)?

Normal bees might actually be harder to fight (you can't hurt a swarm with an axe).

EDIT: Beekeepers have tried the bigger-is-better approach in the past. The result of bigger bees appears to be weaker hives.

[Granite26]

Flying mounts, explorable hives?

[Neonivek]

For the most part you can't train insects as they lack intelligence. There MAY be exceptions but it holds true for the vast majority.

[Granite26]

Training is not the only way to use an animal as a mount.

Training (of horses and dogs) hijacks the animals herd or pack instinct to follow the human as the pack leader.

Bees could be used by hijacking their work instructions.

[Buzzing_Beard]

Just add beard.

[Neonivek]

Also being chased by big bees is quite frieghtening.

I mean... we have giant wasps in real life and dang they make me want to run for my life looking at a picture of them.

To my knowledge they mostly attack honey bees and steal their goods.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Neonivek: "For the most part you can't train insects..."

Are bees intelligent enough to train? Bees have already been trained to recognize human faces and find land mines (their sense of smell is better than a dog's). I think they're intelligent enough to be trained. A better question: Are dwarves intelligent enough to ride?

[Neonivek]

Bees already have it in them to do these things sort of.

Insect minds are very robotic and are the closest to machines you can get while still being immensely complex.

Riding insects yes would require MUCH more intelligence out of the trainers then it would the insect as it is their job to take advantage of the insects programming in order to make them do what they need.

Are you sure Bees have "Intelligence" though? I know most insects do not.

For example a Bee will attempt to enter his hive no matter how many times it has been rejected (at least as far as I know).

Though given that I am saying "Are you sure" maybe I should look it up instead.

*Looks it up*

Ok interesting while it says a lot about Bees being a bit more flexible then ordinary insects. It still doesn't say much about riding them.

So far they still seem unridable unless you can blind them and get them to fly and steer them somehow.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Neonivek: "Are you sure Bees have "Intelligence" though?"

+They appear to exhibit curiosity about new things near their hives.
+They can learn to do things like recognize human faces and discover explosives.
+They can communicate complex information with each other using waggle-dances.
To me these things demonstrate a certain level of intelligence.

     Neonivek: "For example a Bee will attempt to enter his hive no matter how many times it has been rejected (at
     least as far as I know)."

That's the most intelligent behavior I can think of in that situation. A worker or drone can't start another colony on their own and will starve if they can't get back into their hive.

     Neonivek: "So far they still seem unridable unless you can blind them and get them to fly and steer them somehow."

Maybe if the rider could tell his giant bee mount where to go using a waggle-dance, he wouldn't need to steer it . As for being unridable, no one's told that to the varroa mite.

[Neonivek]

"That's the most intelligent behavior I can think of in that situation"

There is a difference between instinct, even complex instinct, and intelligence.

The best example is that if you were to take away the insect that a wasp was burying, it would lay its eggs in the sand and bury them.

As for being unridable, no one's told that to the varoa mite

That is difficult to replicate for a species that cannot replicate it through instinct.

Heck I it would be unfathomable for a rider to even attempt to replicate that dance.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Neonivek: "There is a difference between instinct, even complex instinct, and intelligence."

Maybe so, but this isn't a thread about the Chinese room problem. Let's leave the intelligence question alone for now.