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Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

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Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#41

Post by VoodooJuJu »

adriand wrote: post #12
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My cat is good at killing birds, chipmunks, bunnies, and mice. I doubt she could deal with a rat - probably too big.

Put a bell on your cat! Outdoor cats are responsible for a huge amount of ecological devastation, the least you can do, if you insist on your predator roaming freely outdoors, is put a bell on it to try and give local species a warning.

Cats don't cause ecological devastation.

Cats as a species kill an emotionally large sum of birds and small mammals, but they don't radically transform ecosystems. It's human industry and habitat expansion that devastates ecologies, not their garden prowlers plucking the occasional bird or chipmunk.

I'd never bell the lad.

Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#42

Post by fouc »

jack_pp wrote: post #2

Are modern cats even that good at killing rats anymore? Haven't we mostly bred cats that have very rarely even seen a rat their entire life?

If you take a kitten away from its mother within the first 2 weeks, and then keep it indoors 100% of the time, it might not get a chance to develop its hunting instincts.

Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#43

Post by [deleted] »

JohnFen wrote: post #39
yomlica8 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bumblebees always seemed pretty docile in my experience. Come to think of it, I can't recall ever being stung by an actual bee. Asshole wasps are another story.

I was stung once, as a child, when I stepped on a bee. Even in the moment, I thought "fair enough". Wasps are just embodied evil.

[deleted]

Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#44

Post by jakubmazanec »

jack_pp wrote: post #2

Are modern cats even that good at killing rats anymore? Haven't we mostly bred cats that have very rarely even seen a rat their entire life?

As others said, the hunting instinct is ever present in cats. Our indoor-only cat is always hunting flies or moths; the flies are very fast, but she manages to catch them under her paw, and play with them before eating them. Sometimes the fly escapes, but the cat catches it again.

Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#45

Post by xp84 »

yomlica8 wrote: post #33
throwbadubadu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how often did that then actually happen? Maybe they left it there intentionally?

Bumblebees always seemed pretty docile in my experience. Come to think of it, I can't recall ever being stung by an actual bee. Asshole wasps are another story.

I didn’t even know those big black bumblebees were bees. I remember catching and gently playing with one and my grandma telling me it was a bumblebee! It never harmed me.

Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#46

Post by vlunkr »

distortionfield wrote: post #3
jack_pp wrote: post #2

Are modern cats even that good at killing rats anymore? Haven't we mostly bred cats that have very rarely even seen a rat their entire life?

My house cat is a natural mouse killer. Idk what cars you’ve seen but they’re very much still hunters.

Yeah, we don't really see rats where I live, but every cat I've ever owned has occasionally brought mice home.

Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#48

Post by mromanuk »

yomlica8 wrote: post #33
throwbadubadu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how often did that then actually happen? Maybe they left it there intentionally?

Bumblebees always seemed pretty docile in my experience. Come to think of it, I can't recall ever being stung by an actual bee. Asshole wasps are another story.

They are docile, until you step near their nest and they became super hostile. We were walking with my two daughters and that happen by accident. They stung my older daughter 7 or 8 times and me 2 times. I thought the stings would be painful, but in fact, they were not so painful, like a horsefly. Those guys chased us for 50 meters (or yards)

Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#49

Post by nerdponx »

yomlica8 wrote: post #33
throwbadubadu wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how often did that then actually happen? Maybe they left it there intentionally?

Bumblebees always seemed pretty docile in my experience. Come to think of it, I can't recall ever being stung by an actual bee. Asshole wasps are another story.

I remember my dad actually petting one that was busy collecting nectar from one of our garden plants, with his bare finger. I've never been brave enough to repeat that particular experiment but my experience too is that bumblebees are usually very docile.

The only time I've ever heard of someone getting a bumblebee sting is when they actually got one caught inside their shirt and got three or four good zaps. They are like wasps in that their stingers don't fall out when they sting, so they can keep going as long as they have venom left.

Apparently they are somewhat less docile when it comes to other bees, apparently they can be fairly aggressive and too many bumblebees around can outcompete local honeybees.

Re: Why bumblebees love cats and other beautiful relationships (2021)

#50

Post by glxxyz »

distortionfield wrote: post #3
jack_pp wrote: post #2

Are modern cats even that good at killing rats anymore? Haven't we mostly bred cats that have very rarely even seen a rat their entire life?

My house cat is a natural mouse killer. Idk what cars you’ve seen but they’re very much still hunters.

Adopted my cat at ~9 months, 8 years in an apartment, moved to a rural property and he knew exactly what to do with mice and how to stalk them. Even losing 3 of his 4 fangs didn't slow him down.
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