Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

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

[Neonivek]

     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.

It is an important question to ask if you are judging if a giant bee should be a ordinary capable mount.

[Buzzing_Beard]

Well, if they're capable of the task, does it really matter if they understand what they're doing? A car doesn't understand why it's driving, but it gets you there okay. Sadly, I don't have a giant bee to test my rideability-hypothesis on.

[Neonivek]

Well, if they're capable of the task, does it really matter if they understand what they're doing? A car doesn't understand why it's driving, but it gets you there okay. Sadly, I don't have a giant bee to test my rideability-hypothesis on.

The difficulty is getting it to do what you want.

When you can't train/tame a creature in a similar way you would a lizard or mammal it becomes many times more difficult. (Some intelligent animals are infamous for being untrainable)

How do you get the Bee to fly where you want, to fly when you want, or to be where you want?

Your essentially creating elaborate systems to fool the creature into helping you. It seems very unlikely that you could freely fly a giant bee unless it had some form of elaborate intelligence or yes... if you somehow could decipher its complex formulaic language as well as communicate it back at it AS WELL as having enough knowledge of the geography of the area to communicate it.

To put things in perspective: Zebras are trainable and can be ridden. The reason they arn't is because you cannot, as a whole, train away their tendency to bite.

[Flaede]

Since this is Toady we're talking about, if Giant Bees really got his full attention, then I would expect that a lot of incidental cool things would get added (possibly just for adventure mode).

#1) sting->die mechanics for large nonvermin creatures.
#2) detaching stingers that could then be used as stabbity things. Currently all detached bodyparts are only good as MISC WEAPON clubs.
#3) Poison Sac attached to embedded stinger = who knows what interesting poison/poison-weapon mechanics.

[ikkonoishi]

You could set up a kind of messenger service with giant bees fairly easilly. Just provide sugar water at where you want them to go, and have a mechanical bee that does the dance at the hive/corral. Bees would fly out with your messages to the destination, feed, and bring back the messages from there.

[Flaede]

You could set up a kind of messenger service with giant bees fairly easilly. Just provide sugar water at where you want them to go, and have a mechanical bee that does the dance at the hive/corral. Bees would fly out with your messages to the destination, feed, and bring back the messages from there.

I think clockwork bees are a little beyond "mechanism" magic.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     ikkonoishi: "You could set up a kind of messenger service with giant bees fairly easilly."

Messenger bees are a great idea, they would return to their hive and could have some distinctive marking applied to them so they're easier to spot (not sure if being giant helps with this though).

RED-BEES = GOBLINS

[Flaede]

     ikkonoishi: "You could set up a kind of messenger service with giant bees fairly easilly."

Messenger bees are a great idea, they would return to their hive and could have some distinctive marking applied to them so they're easier to spot (not sure if being giant helps with this though).

RED-BEES = GOBLINS

being giant means the bees can carry larger messages, doesn't it?

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Flaede: "being giant means the bees can carry larger messages, doesn't it?"

Fair enough.
Detached stingers might also make good arrow heads.
And if you down a giant bumblebee, you've got a nice supply of fluffy warm bumble-fuzz .

[Flaede]

     Flaede: "being giant means the bees can carry larger messages, doesn't it?"

Fair enough.
Detached stingers might make good arrow heads too.
And if you down a giant bumblebee, you've got a nice supply of fluffy warm bumble-fuzz .

Shearable bumble bees! Brilliant!

[Michael]

One alternative to "training" bees as war animals -- extract large quantities of alarm pheromone, and then rig up a bucket-fall trap...

This would work with ants too.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Flaede: "#1) sting->die mechanics for large nonvermin creatures."

Bumblebees, wasps, and giant versions of honeybees should be able to sting repeatedly.

Regular honeybees can have problems because their sting-barbs get stuck in mammal skin; the barbs can be worked back and forth and help the stinger saw its way into enemy insects (mammals are a "new" predator for bees).

A queen honeybee has a long and smooth stinger/egg-tube that could allow her to sting multiple times if she wanted to. A drone will die after "stinging", but that sting is reserved for queens-only. If the victim of a sting doesn't have thick, barb-snagging skin, even a worker honeybee can sting them over and over. For example, a bee won't automatically die if it stings another insect (or a squirrel, I've heard).

[Uristocrat]

     Flaede: "#1) sting->die mechanics for large nonvermin creatures."

Bumblebees, wasps, and giant versions of honeybees should be able to sting repeatedly.

Regular honeybees can have problems because their sting-barbs get stuck in mammal skin; the barbs can be worked back and forth and help the stinger saw its way into enemy insects (mammals are a "new" predator for bees).

A queen honeybee has a long and smooth stinger/egg-tube that could allow her to sting multiple times if she wanted to. A drone will die after "stinging", but that sting is reserved for queens-only. If the victim of a sting doesn't have thick, barb-snagging skin, even a worker honeybee can sting them over and over. For example, a bee won't automatically die if it stings another insect (or a squirrel, I've heard).

Does the queen actually have any venom?  I thought they used their ovipositor strictly as an egg-layer instead of a weapon.

[Buzzing_Beard]

     Uristocrat: "Does the queen actually have any venom?  I thought they used their ovipositor strictly as an egg-layer
     instead of a weapon."

Queens do produce venom, and can use their stinger/ovipositor as a weapon. For example, queens hate other queens (or fingers that smell like other queens).

During swarming, the first queen to emerge will seek out the other unborn queens and pith them. Fights between emerged queens are often vicious and spectacular (and to the death).

more

[Flaede]

     Flaede: "#1) sting->die mechanics for large nonvermin creatures."

Bumblebees, wasps, and giant versions of honeybees should be able to sting repeatedly.

I know. But I just love the idea of attacking someone with a pulled-off stinger w/ poison still pumping.