4 ms·

"To survive a Northern winter, bees change the composition of the swarm by shrinking the overall population, caulking the hive, getting rid of the deadweight ma

"To survive a Northern winter, bees change the composition of the swarm by shrinking the overall population, caulking the hive, getting rid of the deadweight males (i.e., ALL of the males), and laying just enough eggs to preserve a minimal survivable population through the winter and into spring. They cluster together in the center of the hive, keeping the queen in the center, shivering their wings to create kinetic energy, occasionally sending out suicide squads to retrieve honey stores from the outer combs. They lower their metabolism by creating a cloud of carbon dioxide in the hive." Thanos would approve of bees' survival strategies. Jokes aside, what I always found really impressive is how bees deal with hornets, which are way bigger and their natural predators: https://www.livescience.com/19078-bee-ball-cooks-enemies.html https://www.livescience.com/19078-bee-ball-cooks-enemies.htm...

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
The bees would teach Thanos how stupid his idea was by surviving year after year, because cutting a population in half does almost nothing. This is one of the things that have irked me the most about the Avengers movies, they propagate his idea as somehow making any sense at all, when in fact it is doing a great disservice to the world by not teaching them about populations and use of resources. A reduction of the universe's population by half would be made up for quite quickly as if nothing had ever happened and billions or trillions slaughtered for nothing. In cancer treatment you usally need at least a log kill or preferably multiple log kills to affect change. A better snap of fingers would have probably been to teach the universe to use less and recycle more or teach how to use contraception. https://www.endurocide.com/knowledge-base/blogs/log-reductions-a-beginners-guide-2/ https://www.endurocide.com/knowledge-base/blogs/log-reductio... http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfitzake/Lectures/DMED/Antineoplastics/GeneralConcepts/CellKillHypothesis.html http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfitzake/Lectures/DMED/Antineoplastics...
- CleaveIt2Beaver 8y ago
  They literally title him "The MAD Titan" because everyone agrees his plan is idiotic. I'm not sure it gets more obvious than that. That said, it made a lot more sense in the comics when he was doing it because he fell in love with Death herself.
  - JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
    Yes if they made him seem more crazy in the movie, I think that would have been a good tack. As is, it feels like we are supposed to take him seriously and he just seems too stupid to know his plan won't work so I can't. Maybe he is a thinly veiled reference to Trump, now that I think about it.
MattSteelblade 8y ago
That's actually how Japanese bees defend themselves. European bees do not have this defense as I learned from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ1eAM8CChc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ1eAM8CChc
hellofunk 8y ago
I wonder how techniques like this came to be. Was there a single "genius" bee that thought of this and convinced the others to give it a try? Bee brains are so tiny, how is advanced behavior like this possible?
aportnoy 8y ago
All animals create carbon dioxide clouds around them with this technique called breathing.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago

The bees would teach Thanos how stupid his idea was by surviving year after year, because cutting a population in half does almost nothing. This is one of the things that have irked me the most about the Avengers movies, they propagate his idea as somehow making any sense at all, when in fact it is doing a great disservice to the world by not teaching them about populations and use of resources. A reduction of the universe's population by half would be made up for quite quickly as if nothing had ever happened and billions or trillions slaughtered for nothing. In cancer treatment you usally need at least a log kill or preferably multiple log kills to affect change. A better snap of fingers would have probably been to teach the universe to use less and recycle more or teach how to use contraception. https://www.endurocide.com/knowledge-base/blogs/log-reductions-a-beginners-guide-2/ https://www.endurocide.com/knowledge-base/blogs/log-reductio... http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfitzake/Lectures/DMED/Antineoplastics/GeneralConcepts/CellKillHypothesis.html http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfitzake/Lectures/DMED/Antineoplastics...

CleaveIt2Beaver 8y ago
They literally title him "The MAD Titan" because everyone agrees his plan is idiotic. I'm not sure it gets more obvious than that. That said, it made a lot more sense in the comics when he was doing it because he fell in love with Death herself.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
  Yes if they made him seem more crazy in the movie, I think that would have been a good tack. As is, it feels like we are supposed to take him seriously and he just seems too stupid to know his plan won't work so I can't. Maybe he is a thinly veiled reference to Trump, now that I think about it.

MattSteelblade 8y ago

That's actually how Japanese bees defend themselves. European bees do not have this defense as I learned from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ1eAM8CChc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ1eAM8CChc

hellofunk 8y ago

I wonder how techniques like this came to be. Was there a single "genius" bee that thought of this and convinced the others to give it a try? Bee brains are so tiny, how is advanced behavior like this possible?

aportnoy 8y ago

All animals create carbon dioxide clouds around them with this technique called breathing.