241–250 of 251 posts
Honeybee queens are the only honeybees with stingers that don't die when they sting. That's because the queen bee's stinger has no barbs, and the reason for that is that the queen must not die easily, and she must use her stinger, so if she's going to survive at all her stinger has to not have barbs. The queen almost certainly has to use her stinger when she exits her cocoon: to kill ther other queens that are about…
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BTW, when I get stung, if the stinger doesn't get stuck I sometimes don't even notice till much later -- this happens when I get stung through my gloves. If the stinger does get stuck in my skin the first thing I notice is the buzzing of the bee that stung me. The frequency of the buzzing of the bee that stung me and that is trying to rip off the stinger is absolutely terrifying because I know what comes next: a doze…
What I noticed is that pitch of buzzing is higher when bee is attacking, not after sting. Higher pitch means probably higher frequency of wings, so bee has more velocity and it is more nimble. When I was kid visiting frequently a place with 100 hives in a summer. I started to recognize that pitch of attacking bee and learned to keep head lower, between arms. Sometimes I was chased by a bee several tens of meters. It…
Honeybee queens are the only honeybees with stingers that don't die when they sting. That's because the queen bee's stinger has no barbs, and the reason for that is that the queen must not die easily, and she must use her stinger, so if she's going to survive at all her stinger has to not have barbs. The queen almost certainly has to use her stinger when she exits her cocoon: to kill ther other queens that are about…
Does TFA stand for "the f...ine article"?
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Wasps and bees have different ecological constraints with different risks involved. There is no contradiction here. They evolved as the fittest in their own constraint set. If bees weren’t fit enough, they would have gone extinct and replaced by bees with non-barbed stingers. There is no magic that makes them survive. Evolution doesn’t have any goals or agenda. That’s why whales still have vestigial hip bones despite…
I think this is a perfect example of what your parent comment is talking about, being: > unprovable, unfalsifiable, and have the same circular logic as bad religion. You said: > There is no contradiction here. They evolved as the fittest in their own constraint set. If bees weren’t fit enough, they would have gone extinct and replaced by bees with non-barbed stingers. There is no magic that makes them survive. Sure,…
What you're saying is that "but why did you pick that specific ball, what were the factors at play?". I say "probability", and you call it circular reasoning. You expect me to explain the physical forces at play that pushed forward a specific ball on the top when you filled the jar, and made it collide with your fingers, and your brain's reasoning chain to pick the first ball that you touched, so you pick that one.
But, basically, you can't. It's impossible because 1) we can't time travel. 2) we can't stop the universe and examine all of its properties. We work with the mathematical model we have and expect everything to work aligned with it. "Why do certain monkey species have holes in their bellies?". You can reason about that question, you can even come up with some answers, but it would be impossible to prove due to our universe's observability constraints.
But the mathematical model works, it even works beyond our physical realm (e.g. it works to solve mathematical problems). And no, it will never explain why certain monkeys have holes in their bellies. That's an entirely different domain of causal analysis.
I don't understand why any "why" question in evolutionary biology is ever satisfied with a "survival of the fittest" truism. Any evolutionary explanation you give me is also falsified by the existence of another species with a different/opposite trait. Whatever explanation you give for a bee's barbed stinger is falsified by the wasp's non-barbed one. Also doesn't answer other questions, such as why didn't bees evolve…
I think you misunderstood what people mean by "why" in the context of evolution. For example, you ask a random person what his job is. He: I fix TVs You: Why? He: Uh, that's what keeps a roof over me and keeps my family fed? You: But clearly other humans do other jobs and still have roofs. So it's not a real "why". Your statement is falsified. > Evolutionary explanations like these for "why" things are the way they a…
Can someone answer this without an evolutionary presupposition?
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Wow. Those hornets seem surprisingly clever. I know Yellowjackets, we have them in Argentina. Their bite is said to be extremely painful but I haven't been bitten yet despite some pretty reckless behavior on my part. One nice afternoon I was having a snack in a cafeteria, by the open window, and a bunch of yellowjackets started dipping in my drinks and my pie. Apparently they like raw meat (locals use it to drive the…
White-faced hornets[0] are a lot more painful than yellowjackets[1] (they are about twice as big, but pretty much the same configuration). I don't think yellowjackets will swarm, if a forager gets killed. Don't step on one of their nests, though (they dig holes). Also have a friend who did that, once. Also, if you get close to one of their nests (hard to see), they might swarm you. The biggest difference, is that yel…
Honeybee queens are the only honeybees with stingers that don't die when they sting. That's because the queen bee's stinger has no barbs, and the reason for that is that the queen must not die easily, and she must use her stinger, so if she's going to survive at all her stinger has to not have barbs. The queen almost certainly has to use her stinger when she exits her cocoon: to kill ther other queens that are about…