While I was pondering over my very ponder-inspiring garden, I saw a bumblebee behaving interestingly on the lattice. With my HD video setting, I hurredly shot this video, but really didn't need to hurry, as it continued this rutine long after I stopped taking the video! Curious about this particular behavior, and not finding satisfactory answers online, I ordered a book that deals specifically with Bumblebees as apposed to honeybees, of which I have read much, and their ecology, evolution, and behavior.
I am excited to delve into this study, as bees fascinate me. Did you know that bees leave chemical signals on petals of flowers which are later decoded by other bumblebees that come to the same flower, letting those bee know that that flower is exausted of its supply of pollen, so that no prescious foraging time is wasted? What I found even more interesting than this, was that a Bumblebee that detects a chemical signal on some surface that was made to direct it to a newfound, and profitable foraging site, can not only find the new site with astonishing precision and speed, but also, durring its flight, can even account for wind drift that it encounteres!!! Awesome right!!! I mean....I coudn't possibly dream of doing something like that without the aid of GPS, and the world at the level of a Bee is so much more complex, vast and confusing than the world we humans think we have "discovered". These little tid-bits of knowledge never cease to astonish me, and fill me with awe..but then, I get thinking to myself...well, of Course, God is a genious, of course he could make a such a tiny, simple-looking insect capable of such complex tasks.
More to come later on this topic, once I dive for a few days into my knew Bumblebee book.
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