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Little experiment i did

Ok, as some of you may know, I've got a pond in the backyard. Anyway, the story is that I was bored and my sis was doing something which involved paint and paintbrushes. Bees like to use this pond as a watering hole during the summer...especially during the evening. I heard they use the water to cool down the hive. So I decided to try a little experiment. I took a paintbrush, dipped it in some blue paint, and went outside. I spent a good portion of the evening dotting the backs of the drinking bees with the paintbrush(if it got on the wings the bee would be temporarily grounded). Most of the time they stayed still long enough to let me put some paint on their backs.

As of today, maybe half of the bees that are coming to the pond have been "marked". I don't know what interests me more...the fact that the paint didn't come off or that the same bees seem to be on the job of getting water for the colony.

Just thought someone might find this amusing.
 
Maybe, you should have painted half of the bees-blue and the other half-another colour. The bees let you put paint on them, they didn't fly away or try to sting?, the bees must have liked the paint fumes :p
 
xD That's awesome! Wow! And I thought I did weird things when I got bored!

I didn't know that bees could sing. xD
 
I love bees. The reason why a lot of the same ones are coming back is because bees take turns doing jobs throughout their life. When a bee first hatches into an adult it does work in the hive, then they often become guards, and towards the end of life they become foragers, at least I think how it goes, its either that or they do guard duty at the end of life and foraging in the middle. I cant quite remember.
 
I can't remember either. *Thinks back to that one episode of "The Magic Schoolbus."*
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (ChronoKiento @ Aug. 16 2005,12:15)]xD That's awesome! Wow! And I thought I did weird things when I got bored!

I didn't know that bees could sing. xD
This reminds me of some topic, awhile back, where someone colored the traps of their VFT. That thread just wouldn't go away!
 
There was another bee experiment recently as well. Bees were bred in captivity and never shown a flower. Then they release them on to prints of various paintings - some with flowers, some without. They liked the paintings with bright colours the best but their favourite was actually.....Van Gogh's Sunflowers!
 
Ok...now the numbers are dropping ever so slightly but this is just me observing...no counting or catching them to have real records(would be nice though). Maybe a little less than half that come in are marked now. Perhaps I should paint this next batch with some other color...mwahahaha! It could be that the paint is coming off on some or that they are being replaced(I think the second is more likely).

Most of them seemed too absorbed in filling up to worry about me painting them. Just a few seconds to dab on the paint. Sometimes they would move and I'd get some on the wings and so they'd spend maybe a minute or so cleaning it off before taking off. If I pressed down too much or spent to much time on one then they would get a bit annoyed and leave. I have never been stung by a bee or wasp(which is funny as I should have been stung long ago as I don't give them much "respect" so to speak). Then other people tell me of bees landing on them and stinging them...go figure!

LOL Jimscott I remember that topic! Maybe I should go paint faces on my VFT traps now.

Alvin: That is really interesting. I suppose perhaps the shape of the flowers might influence them alot too...who knows!
 
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