BBC - Queen of The Savannah

[RoofTops]

For those who didn't see it yesterday the programme about African honey bees is on iPlayer. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01f875l/Natural_World_20112012_Queen_of_the_Savannah/

The best honey bee video photography I have ever seen and apart from a few anthropomorphisms a very good programme.

Interesting to wonder how the bees learned to migrate. There is a theory birds learned through continental drift - as the continents drifted apart they simply flew further. Perhaps the African honey bees did something simliar and remembered as the climate warmed where to find forage in the dry season. Flying further and further back to the highlands as they expanded across the savannah.

Also interesting to speculate if or whether European races might also try to migrate when stressed. It would be one explanation for Mary Celeste syndrome - they have gone on their holidays.

 

[mark s]

Excellent programme very interesting

 

[MuswellMetro]

In sri lanka Apis dorsata and Apis cerana both migrate and Apis dorsata returns to the same nest site or same tree each year

now work that out....no worker memory of the site

 

[rockdoc]

where's the drone?

I agree, great photography, although I thought the fudge over mating was a bit off. People who do not know could be forgiven for thinking the queen comes out ready to lay!

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

Repeated yesterday afternoon, so available in iplayer here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01f875l/natural-world-20112012-12-queen-of-the-savannah

Very good photography and interesting to see the differences between them and our little darlings

 

[Monsieur Abeille]

One thing though - the program states that the queen is the only bee able to sting more than once - is this the case?

I'd always assumed that (for AMM to least) workers could sting more than once, unless their target had nasty tight skin that kept hold of the stinger - e.g. stinging other bees OK, humans less so.

 

[Russel]

In sri lanka Apis dorsata and Apis cerana both migrate and Apis dorsata returns to the same nest site or same tree each year

now work that out....no worker memory of the site

Bit OT but the Monarch butterfly migration is another example. They travel 2500mls, 4 generations during trip and use the same nest sites the following year????

First shown in 2012 appears to have taken BBKA 3 yrs to mention the bee crop defence in latest mag.

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