Bumble bees have been in the news a lot recently (well, bees in general – all species) as they’ve been dying out in their billions.

Why? Pesticide usage on plants, and general pollution, has made scientists all concerned that bees could go and get themselves extinct. And why would this be bad? No bees would basically mean the collapse of the ecosystem as we know it. Plus, no more honey! And bees, although a bit moody at times, are cool creatures with a very busy schedule. Indeed, hence “as busy as a bee”!

Bees have been the subject of everything and anything over the years, including classical compositions (Flight of the Bumble Bee), films (I’m sure I saw one in Jaws), music (Madonna based several albums on bees), TV series (24’s Jack Bauer often dresses as a bee in the show), theatre (Shakespeare alludes to bees constantly in his works, “Is this a bumble bee I see before me?!?”), literature (Ernest Hemingway was always wasted on honey), and in Kung Fu (the karate chop is based on a bumble bee’s sting). Whilst the majority of these examples May Bee complete and utter nonsense, you can get our drift right? Right? Good.

There are actually 250 species of the Bumble Bee, the most famous being the 70ft Godzilla Bumble Bees which invaded parts of Europe during the 17th century (the monstrous beasts later migrated to Mars). Like the Honey Bee, Bumble Bees are bees.

Amazingly, they can detect the presence and pattern of electric fields on flowers (no, this isn’t an act of god, it occurs due to the positive static charges generated when bees fly through the air – “Atmospheric Electricity”), which then head on down into da ground.

They use this info to find out if some other tosspot bee nicked the pollen before them. And you thought they were just mindless buzzy things?

Never! The Bumble Bee is; free from prejudice and bigotry, doesn’t care what race or gender you are, and won’t kick off World War III (probably). No, they just want honey, and good on them!