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After all of the hullabaloo this year, you could be forgiven for thinking that the largest hymenopteran is the Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia aka “murder hornet”), a formidable insect which can measure up to 40 mm (1.6 inches) long with a 60 mm (2.5 inches) wingspan. But the murder hornet might be outweighed by a behemoth bug from the Moluccas…assuming it still exists.
Way back in 1858, the renowned British naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace (who was working on the theory of evolution on the opposite side of the world from Darwin, without either man knowing it) was cataloguing the wildlife of the Moluccas when he found a colossal black resin bee. Resin bees are pretty interesting (they are also known as mason bees) since they carefully cut up pieces of leaves and then glue them together into little houses. We probably need to talk more about them at some point. But what was remarkable about the bee Wallace found was not that it was gluing together tiny houses, but rather that it was an enormous insect, a veritable flying bulldog. Wallace’s giant bee was given the cool scientific name Megachile pluto (although the Indonesian name rotu ofu, “queen of bees” might be even cooler). Female bees measure in at a length of 38 mm (1.5 in), with a wingspan of 63.5 mm (2.5 in), however, with their huge mandibles and heavy tanklike bodies they look heavier than the Asian giant hornets [eds note: sadly we do not have the mass for either insect and, although we here at the Ferrebeekeeper division of weights and measurements tried to coax them up onto the bathroom scale for a weigh in, we were quickly dissuaded by…ummm…the modesty of these colossal stinging creatures).
Wallace’s giant bee disappeared from the public eye and was thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in 1981, but the bees again vanished. Once again they were believed to be gone from the world until last year (2019) when they were re-rediscovered on the internet! Somebody even filmed a live one! (ed’s note: please don’t harass Wallace’s giant bee or try to buy specimens online)
You are probably wondering where these bees were for all of those long years of presumed extinction. Well it turns out that they do indeed build little houses just like other resin bees, however they build them inside living colonies of tree-dwelling termites! This is why they are so robust and have such terrifying mandibles–for bulldozing into termite mounds and doing as they wish! Wallace’s giant bees are hopefully doing just fine snug in their little homes, built safely inside a writhing river of biting termites inside rotting trees within the remote rainforests of quasi- inaccessible Indonesian islands. We could all learn from their fine example of staying home. Let’s not molest them so that they are a pleasant surprise when they are re-re-rediscovered in 2107 (assuming any of us self-destructive are around to be cataloging tropical bugs then).
Worldwide there are about 17,000 species of bees…and most of them seem to be is some sort of trouble. However it is not easy to keep track of 17,000 anythings…much less 17,000 species of small flying insects. So the plight of all bees is not clearly understood (even if we have shocking anecdotes of how poorly some individual bee species are doing). To remedy our ignorance of the bigger picture, a group of apiculturists, hymenopterists, ecologists, data scientists, and biology-minded cartologists collaborated to create a worldwide bee map.
Assembled from piecing together millions of individual data points, The bee map is a god’s eye overview of how bees are doing across the entire planet. Just glancing at it reveals some strange patterns about our little flying friends. Unlike most animals, bees are more numerous and various in temperate and arid habitats than in tropical forests. I wonder if this is because tropical forests do not offer the sheer acreage of uncontested flowers that prairies, croplands, & blooming scrublands do, or if it because nobody is marking down data points about tiny flying (and stinging) insects in the middle of the trackless Amazon. Perhaps as the bee map evolves into greater complexity and thoroughness we will have a definitive answer to that question.
The bee map should also help us to track the results of habitat loss and climate change on bee populations (and distinguish the impact of such vectors from natural bee predilections/behaviors). Dr John Ascher of the National University of Singapore expresses this point with greater clarity: “By establishing a more reliable baseline we can more precisely characterize bee declines and better distinguish areas less suitable for bees from areas where bees should thrive but have been reduced by threats such as pesticides, loss of natural habitat, and overgrazing.”
I hope the bee map fulfills its purpose and helps nature’s hard-working pollinators and flying fieldhands to worldwide recovery. But beyond that wish, I am excited to see more visual representations of vast ecological datasets. Big data had such promise…but so far it seemingly has mostly been used for targeted marketing, tearing apart democracy, and crafting esoteric financial schemes. Sigh… Let’s have more thoughtful use of the tools that technology gives us to solve actual important problems.
We will get back to plans for a Hart Island memorial in the immediate future, but right now there is something which needs to be dealt with right now. Eight years ago, Ferrebeekeeper blogged about the nightmarish Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarinia) a 5 centimeter (2 inch) long flying murder machine from East Asia. The Asian giant hornet’s sting contains neurotoxins and an enzyme which dissolves flesh. They are capable of stinging again & again & again…and then going home and living long successful lives untroubled by regret (unlike poor honey bees which perish after delivering one sting). Every year the giant hornets kill dozens of innocent people who aren’t even allergic to bees.
And now they are here…
To quote ABC News,
The hornet was sighted for the first time in the U.S. last December, when the state Department of Agriculture verified two reports near Blaine, Washington, close to the Canadian border. It also received two probable, but unconfirmed reports from sites in Custer, Washington, south of Blaine.
This is obviously bad news for humankind…but, let’s be honest…nobody is really that worried about us. We are already the Asian Giant Hornet of the primate world (and primates are truly aggressive, cunning animals). Plus there are billions of us and we have all sorts of diabolical machines and contraptions. The ones who are really in trouble because of this terrifying invasive hornet are bees. Asian Giant Hornets live by hunting other insects like smaller hornets, praying mantises, and, especially honey bees. Washington is the nation’s orchard. It’s honey bees were already in trouble and they are not ready for this (did yoou click that link to the earlier post). Gentle, kindly honeybees may never be ready.
All of this means the giant hornets have got to go. We have a brief window where we could maybe stamp them out (figuratively…even our big feet might not be big enough to stamp them out literally). So if you see a hornet the size of a goldfinch with Deadpool’s face (except the color of a finely aged, um, schoolbus) kindly call the Washington Department of Agriculture as soon as possible*. Do not grab a machete and a flamethrower and try to tackle these things on your own: you will just end up on the Schmidt pain index.
(*Seriously? It’s only May, how much weirder are public service announcements going to get this year?)
One of the things which I think we humans underestimate is the degree to which organisms within ecosystems exchange information for mutual benefit. The idea of wolves watching sheep in order to jump on them and eat them is familiar to us (we hominids are competitive and ruthless) but we are only now beginning to apprehend how widespread and commonplace symbiotic interactions are. For example, a team of Israeli scientists conducted an experiment to see whether pollinators communicate with the plants they are pollinating…and it seems like maybe they do!
The scientists subjected a common flower, the beach evening primrose (Oenothera drummondii) to five sorts of noise: silence, a bee buzzing from four in away, and low, medium and high pitched electronic noises The scientists assayed and measured the amount of nectar that the primroses produced after being exposed to these varying noises.
Oenothera drummondii
Flowers exposed to silence and to high and mid-pitch noises produced the same nectar as always, however primroses which were exposed to the humming bee and to the low pitched computer noises produced sweeter nectar. The sugar content of the nectar flowers produced after “hearing” these sounds rose from between 12 and 20 percent!
Flowers and bees have co-evolved for 100 million years, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that they interact through sound (we already know that plants can communicate with hymenopterans by means of chemicals). Yet somehow the results do surprise me. Are plants hearing a great deal more than we suspect? A great many flowers (and leaves) are shaped rather like ears. Are different plants listening for different things. The nascent field of phytoacoustics will work to answer this question, but the fact that we are just now asking it leads me to believe that we humans have been talking rather than listening. We are still not grasping the extraordinary scope and complexity of the webs of life which supports us (my experience with synthetic ecosystems already taught me about our great ignorance). We need a greater understanding of dynamic ecology, yet our obtuseness in dealing with even the most familiar fellow life-forms is making it a challenge to even conceive of the right questions!
This story doesn’t really have a point–it is just the brief tale of a senseless crash on the road. Yet it is impossible not to be impressed and horrified by it. Today in Montana, a driver lost control of a semi truck and crashed the enormous vehicle into a ditch. Although the driver and his shotgun man were both unhurt, the truck’s cargo, 40,000 pounds of honey bees, came loose during the collision and I guess are now at large in Montana (this could be the beginning of a very special modern western). The truck was traveling from California to North Dakota which is also fascinating to me. Were these bees going to work the orchards of North Dakota? Was this a honey bee colony ship? We just don’t know all of the details. We don’t even know if the bees will be recovered, although firefighters on the scene (in full fireproof gear and contained breathing devices) said that “only” a quarter of the bees fully escaped.
This incident has taught us that 40,000 pounds of bees is roughly equal to 133 million individual bees! There were more honey bees on that truck then there are people in Japan. I hope some of them set up permanent shop in Bozeman, Montana and it becomes an apiculture Mecca (maybe even changing its name to Beesman, Montana), but probably some insurance accountant will more a few numbers and the incident will be forgotten. It really makes you wonder what is in all of those huge trucks out there on the road though…
Childeric was a Frankish king who was born in the middle of the 5th century AD and lived to around 480 AD. He was the son of Merovech (after whom the Merovingians were named) and the father of Clovis I who united the Franks and was thus arguably the first king of France. Childeric has an interesting life with lots of weird seductions and thrilling battles against the Goths, however these cinematic aspects of his career scarcely concern us here… instead we are talking about the tomb of Childeric which was discovered in 1653 in what is today Belgium. The 12th-century church of Saint-Brice in Tournai was built close to Childeric’s grave (although who knows if this was by design or by accident?). Childeric’s grave was filled with rich treasures of 5th century Frankish craft, which were given first to the Hapsburgs who presented the find to Louis IVX (who, as the apogee of absolutist monarchs, was somewhat unimpressed with the pieces and kept them in his library rather than his vault).
The treasure of Childeric’s tomb included a golden bull, some coins, a signet ring, and other such precious odds and ends. The real highlight of the collection however were 300 golden insects inlaid with garnets (these mysterious jeweled bugs were most commonly regarded as bees) which were sewed onto the monarch’s grave cloak. These bees inspired the bees of Napoleon (who was looking for insignia which was symbolic of France but which was not the fleur-de-lis of the Bourbons). Unfortunately, the vast majority of Childeric’s bees were stolen and melted down during a break-in during 1831. Only two of the splendid red and gold bees remain. Fortunately we still have the engravings which were commissioned by Leopold William, governor of the Austrian Netherlands (the aristocrat to whom the treasures of Childeric’s grave were first presented).
Today’s garden-themed post features a flower which I have never planted—indeed, having grown up in farm country, I am somewhat alarmed by this plant. Yet, as I walk around the neighborhood I am beguiled by its seductive beauty (plus there aren’t too many ponies in Brooklyn these days). I am of course talking about the Rhododendrons, a large genus of woody heaths which speciate most prolifically in Asia around the Himalayas, but also can be found throughout Eurasia and into the Americas (particularly the Appalachian Mountains). Actually, I was dishonest in the first sentence (it’s a national fad these days), I have, in fact, planted azaleas, which are a species of rhododendrons, but I am writing here about the big showy purple rhododendrons, and we will leave real talk about azaleas for another spring.
In the In the Victorian language of flowers, the rhododendron symbolizes danger and wariness. This is fully appropriate since some of showiest and most highly regarded rhododendrons are indeed poisonous: they contain a class of chemicals known as grayanotoxins which affect the sodium ion channels in cell membranes. Rhododendron ponticum and Rhododendron luteum are particularly high in grayanotoxins. Humans are somewhat less susceptible to these compounds than other mammals (like poor horses, which just are apt to drop stone dead from browsing on rhododendrons), however, as is so often the case, our cleverness, grabbiness, and our taste for sweetness also puts us at higher risk for consuming grayanotoxins.
Bees are drawn to the large colorful (and sweet) flowers of rhododendrons and they use the grayanotoxin rich pollen and nectar to make honey. If a bee hive incorporates a few ornamental azaleas into the honey, this is not too dangerous, but in regions where rhododendrons dominate and all come into bloom at once, the resultant honey can be extremely dangerous. This “mad honey” is said to cause hallucinations and nausea in lower doses, but in larger quantities it can cause full body paralysis and potentially fatal breathing complications. Like the hellebore, rhododendron honey was one of the first tools of deliberate chemical warfare. Strabo relates that Roman soldiers in the army of Pompey attacking the Heptakometes were undone by honeycombs deliberately left where the sweet toothed Romans would find them. It seems best to appreciate rhododendrons by looking at them. In fact, if you live in a Himalayan fastness surrounded entirely by rhododendron forests (or if you are attacking the Greek people of the Levant) maybe don’t eat honey at all…not until later in the summer.
The Otomi people are an indigenous Mesoamerican people of the Mexican Plateau. During the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish, the Otomi allied with the Spanish against the Aztecs (since the Aztecs were a hated upstart empire oppressing and enslaving them). Otomi populations practiced (and continue to practice) shamanism. The sacred spirit animals of the shaman’s spirit journey take a central position in the most characteristic artforms of the Otomi—which consists of exquisite embroidered animals in dazzling colors. This is the subject of today’s post because…well look at these textile artworks! I just innately love them. They are masterpieces. The colorful animals seem to come to extravagant life on the elaborately sewn panels.
In these embroidered medallions and picture squares, fantasy birds, fish, quadrupeds, and insects embroidered out of brilliant stripes swirl together among equally colorful flowers and vines. Most of the creatures seem to be based off of familiar domestic animals like burros, chickens, rabbits, turkeys, and bees—but the farm creatures are turning into each other and exchanging characteristics and identities. I am a bit surprised that Ferrebeekeeper has only just found out about Otomi art….
It isn’t like I went to the Mexican national art gallery and cherry-picked a few hallowed masterpieces from the walls either. Most of these beautiful examples were for sale on the internet by anonymous living artists and artisans whose work I like better than basically anything on sale right now in Chelsea for a thousand times more. I could have one of these amazing handmade artworks if I possessed…35 American dollars? How can such a beautiful thing cost less than a dvd of Fifty Shades of Grey? People who claim that the market is all-knowing should take note (and people who love beautiful art should be taking out their wallets).
Conservationists and biologists often have a hard time explaining their concepts and concerns to politicians and business leaders: our leaders are frequently motivated by political and economic calculations which seem pretty far removed from the living world. One of the ideas which environmentalists have invented in order to rectify this communications problem is “ecosystem services” the concept that there is a real and calculable use value of living organisms and systems. A famous example right now is bees—which pollinate crops and thus provide immediate tangible value to fruit and vegetable farmers. There are all sorts of fruits, nuts, vegetables, and other crops which would not grow without bees. Some other current examples are wetlands—which filter water and provide a sort of storm safety zone around coasts—or fisheries which provided delicious fish. By putting a pricetag on ecosystems and endangered animals, scientists hope to emphasize to leaders how important conservation is.
Eco what? Yeah, that’s great now run along.
Unfortunately this methodology is prone to all sorts of problems, as was demonstrated by a bee study for Nature Communications which was conducted by a team lead by David Kleijn. The survey set about assessing to what extent economically useful crops are pollinated by wild bees. The authors thus hoped to appraise the ultimate value of the native bees. You can look at the actual paper and draw your own conclusions about their assumptions and methods, but the team concluded that wild bees are immensely valuable—with a worth of about $3,251.00 per hectare of agricultural land.
Thanks, bees!
The team however went further and broke down the economically valuable labor all of the different bees by species. This led them to conclude that only 2% of bee species were contributing in a meaningful way to crop pollination (and this hard-working 2% of wild bees are from species which are actually doing pretty well, and seem unlikely to go extinct). All of the remaining bees were deemed worthless shirkers of no economic use to humankind. The paper seemed to suggest that if they all go extinct it won’t take food off the table or money out of anyone’s pockets.
Hmm…
What? Are David Kleijn and his team dangerous hyper-rationalists who belong in an Ayn Rand book? Regular readers of this blog will already be wondering about these conclusions. Aren’t parasitoid wasps critical to protecting crops? What ecological niche do the allegedly valueless species take up? What happens if they die off and there are horrifying consequences which the ecologists, agricultural scientists, and theorists never anticipated? Indeed we have seem such things happen again and again—like Australia’s rabbits or these accursed crown-of-thorns starfish. Life is a web and when you start removing strands the entire edifice begins to flip around and malfunction in unexpected ways.
In fact I believe the paper might be designed to poke some critical holes in the irrational nature of purely economic cost/benefit calculations. The introductory paragraphs seem calculated to stir up the media into asking some important questions about this kind of thinking (and, of course, the paper is also designed to give a PR boost to David Kleijn and co.). However, the fact that the results may have been designed to stir up controversy does not make the fundamental questions less valid. The fundamental calculus behind ecosystem services as a policy tool is inadequate. But what else can we use in a world of ever-growing population and ever-diminishing resources?
My roommate and I were talking about the history of the United States and the subject of times when states printed their own money came up. One of these times was during the era from 1777 to 1789 when the new nation was governed by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (the not-very-successful precursor to the constitution which left the new states plunged in debt and squabbling with each other). Another time when the states printed their own money was during the civil war when the southern states each printed wads of increasingly useless paper money to hold up the faltering southern economy. Sadly I could not find any pretty samples of the former online, but I did discover some images of North Carolina paper money from the Civil War.
The notes are surprisingly lovely with Roman and agrarian symbolism and hand-written copperpoint calligraphy. A the top of this post is a ten-cent note (coins were expensive to make and metals were needed for the war—although soon rampant inflation did away with sub-dollar bills). The hornet’s nest symbolizes anti-Union defiance and military puissance. The second note down is a seventy-five cent note which features the allegorical figure of commerce surrounded by hives of industrious bees which represent prosperity and fruitful labor. Thhe note below is a twenty-five cent note which features a very Roman looking (and bare-breasted!) imager of the goddess Ceres, the kind mother of agriculture—which was the root and mainstay of the southern economy. Such money became worthless even before the war was lost: money printed with hymenopteran insects and naked ladies must have seemed like a good idea, but apparently it did not hold up the same way as bills with dead presidents and creepy Masonic images!
ferrebeekeeper 