Bee Senate

Among the politicians, journalists, my favorite lawyer/journalist, random celebrities, a bot that sends out the lyrics of Toto's "Africa" one line at a time, and random cat-centric accounts, there is an account I follow on Twitter that tweets out random facts throughout the day. It's called Uber Facts if you want to check it out (they're also on Instagram if you prefer). I learn a lot of fun science facts from this account. If the tweet doesn't include an article, I usually go look for one if a particular tweet interests me. 

One of today's tweets was about bees, specifically "Senate" bees. Senate bees, or scout bees, are older bees who break away from a hive when it becomes too crowded in the spring. These bees basically go "house-hunting" to find a new place for this part of the hive. The older queen joins them, and the Senate bees, through a collective decision, find a new home. The best part of this? The bees announce their findings by dancing! It's called waggle dancing. And the other bees dance to vote on their new home. How fun are bees? Now every time I see a bee, I'm going to think, "Is that bee on her way to dance, dance, dance?"

What I found most intriguing about this process is the fact that there aren't bee factions or stubborn bees who hold up progress. If the bee's dance doesn't motivate the hive, they move on. They don't try to derail the process or sabotage the new hive location. They accept the decision of the rest of the bees. What I'm saying is bees are better at democracy than people. 

Anyway, I had already decided to revisit my happy, little bee from last month today along with some honeycomb (really into geometric shapes this week). Imagine our happy bee realizing it's time to form a bee Senate. Maybe in a future piece I try to make our bee waggle dance. Wouldn't that be fun? 

Details:
Stitches: satin, back, and whipped back stitches
Thread palette: DMC B5200, 310, 444, SS 012 (3 strands)