That’s why I only date “dumb” women.

They suck, and beautifully…

Just sayin’…

A honey bee that is away from the hive foraging for nectar or pollen will rarely sting, except when stepped on or roughly handled. Honey bees will actively seek out and sting when they perceive the hive to be threatened, often being alerted to this by the release of attack pheromones (below).

Although it is widely believed that a worker honey bee can sting only once, this is a partial misconception: although the stinger is in fact barbed so that it lodges in the victim’s skin, tearing loose from the bee’s abdomen and leading to its death in minutes, this only happens if the skin of the victim is sufficiently thick, such as a mammal’s. Honey bees are the only hymenoptera with a strongly barbed sting, though yellow jackets and some other wasps have small barbs.

The sting’s injection of apitoxin into the victim is accompanied by the release of alarm pheromones, a process which is accelerated if the bee is fatally injured. Release of alarm pheromones near a hive or swarm may attract other bees to the location, where they will likewise exhibit defensive behaviors until there is no longer a threat, typically because the victim has either fled or been killed. (Note: A true swarm is not hostile; it has deserted its hive and has no comb or young to defend.) These pheromones do not dissipate or wash off quickly, and if their target enters water, bees will resume their attack as soon as it leaves the water.

The larger drone bees, the males, do not have stingers. The female worker bees are the only ones that can sting, and their stinger is a modified ovipositor. The queen bee has a smooth stinger and can, if need be, sting skin-bearing creatures multiple times, but the queen does not leave the hive under normal conditions. Her sting is not for defense of the hive; she only uses it for dispatching rival queens, ideally before they can finish pupating. Queen breeders who handle multiple queens and have the queen odor on their hands are sometimes stung by a queen.

The main component of bee venom responsible for pain in vertebrates is the toxin melittin; histamine and other biogenic amines may also contribute to pain and itching.[1] In one of the medical uses of honey bee products, apitherapy, bee venom has been used to treat arthritis and other painful conditions

Human beings would not have “survived” for as long as we have, were it not for the “tree huggers.”

May God bless them.

“I’m glad nobody was hurt…”

Somebody WAS hurt: An entire colony of bees was slaughtered, for absolutely NO legitimate reason, due to ignorance and unfounded fear.

Try to not be so paranoid and afraid of things you don’t understand. The “homeless person with a knife” was nonsense and generally a poor analogy.

But don’t worry, we all do stupid things now and again and sometimes (like in your honeybee killing incident), we even act like assholes.

JB
Nashville, TN

LOL!

I agree with the person who said this is not the act of someone who is afraid–I’ve seen people afraid of bees and they don’t take the time to devise contraptions for killing bees (nor do they say “hehehe” about their carnage.

Perhaps if more people who are wise about bees help educate the public, there will be fewer in the Kill em’! crowd. We can only hope. What ruffles my feathers is the selfishness of the person who did this–couldn’t wait one day to use your grill that you hadn’t used all season? Really? There are so many people who would have loved to rescue those bees! I’ve been looking for ages. *sigh* It would have been a win win win to skip the poison–you get rid of the bees, a beekeeper gets a new hive (and honey!) and the bees get to live (and do the job only they can do best–which benefits us all).

I hope the bee killer who sent your sister, who sent you this email, sees all these comments! I hope s/he learns a thing or two. I hope s/he has a change of heart. I hope s/he makes a better choice the next time–IF there is a next time.

Very cool pics (of the comb, not the “mass grave.” Would have preferred a different ending to the story.

If you were pretty smart as you claim to be you would have got a beekeeper to remove them safely and alive, instead of going to the trouble of putting pesticides effective for 3 months on an item you planned to prepare food on.

I’m just someone who realizes how important bees are to the ecology of Planet Earth, and who is saddened by the way the bees in the article were “removed” from someone’s private property.

The owner of the barbeque could have found a better way to remove the bees, and one that would have preserved the comb (and the honey therein).

Also, that comb took a very long time to “construct,” so it wasn’t as if that barbeque was used “frequently,” at all.

Idiot….