another less than thrilling bee article

[BjornBee]

Here is an article that includes "Bees terrorizing the airport", (I see a movie coming soon) the idea that honey bees are protected by law (news to me), and that swarms are the result of the colony growing too large.(pure hogwash)

http://bbc-worldnews.net/2012/08/delta-flight-delayed-when-thousands-of-honeybees-descend-on-planes-wing/

I know some will automatically suggest that all article details were probably from some ignorant reported who looked up such facts online.....hey!...maybe even on a forum!  

I just wish information such as this was not sometimes coming from beekeepers themselves. Beekeepers in such places as New York, and other cities are fighting off bad publicity from a heavy swarm season, and the idea that swarms are from "bad" beekeepers not doing their job. That if they only were "certified", swarming would cease to exist, which to me is nonsense. While some may suggest that a beekeeper should (and can) control swarming, this idea that the colony swarmed due to allowing them to grow too large, is not correct. What's next....some limitation on hive size?

As with many of these articles, we (beekeepers) do a poor job getting the facts straight, and sometimes include information that seems hardly supportive or positive for the industry.

[kingbee]

You are probably right.  My take on it is that it is just another example of how ignorant and out of touch with the real (meaning THE NATURAL) world most people are today.  This is the reason organizations who claim to represent nature, (honeybees included) like PETA, HSUS, and organizations opposed to scientific advances that reduce the amount of insecticides sprayed on crops, can lie to the media through their false teeth. 

There are very few "News reporters" anylonger who have the intelligence or perhaps who are willing to invest their time, to sift through and separate the trash news from the news treasures.  These "reporters" repeat their own foolish pre or mis-conceptions in print or on video yet expect us to fall over ourselves to be first in line to pat them on the back.

[Joe D]

Those awful, terrorizing bees should be sent to Guantanamo.  And for the swarms being from bad beeks,  in the spring when mine did swarm I was talking to our club president, told him they had plenty of room in the brood chamber and in the supers, etc and he told me good beeks don't have swarms.



Joe

[AllenF]

Bees on a plane.   Can't be any worse than snakes on a plane. 

[David McLeod]

Having had that conversation with reporters abouts bees, snakes and all things wildlife I can testify to the general lack of intellect in the fourth estate.
I don't know what is taught these days but it isn't critical thinking or logic. I swear I have been holding forth at length with some of these journalists when the thought occur to me, prompted by the vacant looks of my audience, that I could be divulging the secrets of the cosmos and it would be reported "that local man likes stars".
No longer are the days when the oddities of life spark inquiry but instead the rote repetition of wiki, and often only every other word or other such misaprehension, or some other public nuisance.
In complete spite of the information age we actually live in an age of willful ignorance.

[kingbee]

... In complete spite of the information age we actually live in an age of willful ignorance.

No argument from me.