In Russian and Ukrainian the word used for drone in the bee family in a figurative meaning means a lazy person who lives off someone else. I’m surprised that it is called a drone in English, because in the other meanings drones are very useful.
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I forgot to mention. Bees make great weather anchormen. They don’t (generally) swarm if there’s rain coming…
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Not as reliable as swallows who fly low because - even more reliable if you’re able to spot them as they make the first move - they are after the moskitos.
Actually I used to rely often on the behaviour of swallows as a kid.
Lovely to see, my dad used to be a beekeeper and he did al lot of swarm pickups with the fire dep. Nature at its finest!!! If you are allergic to bee stings, just keep away. make sure you have some precautions, EPiPen, etc. If you spot them just call the authorities, they know the local beekepers who would be happy to add another hive to the portfolio…
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If the bees are so clever, why do they agree to live in the location chosen by beekeeper, if they already had some other place in mind?
If someone would give me a free ride, gently transporting me to a completly equipped house and say, there you go, it’s all yours … I wouldn’t mind 
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I am allergic to bee and hornets stings (luckily not the most severe type of allergy) so I’m trying to keep a healthy distance away from them…nevertheless, interesting topic. 
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Same, though it’s decades since the last sting.
Still, I got me an Epipen last year, just in case (to be replaced about bi-annually).
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Yesterday we had the most unpleasant and …I don’t even know how to define it - unsettling? experience at the beehouse.
On saturday, a man (blond, on his mid-30s, speaking english with an eastern european accent) stood outside of the hedge, looking at us, working with the bees, for 45 minutes. He didn’t say anything. He disappeared, and then came back and asked ‘do you eat that’? I laughed, and said ‘no, we are rearing queens’ (as we were preparing small colonies to create queenbees). He left.
Yesterday afternoon, I went to the beehouse to clean frames (yes, beekeeping is a physical job), and I got stung three times before I even entered inside the hedged area.
This is strange – bees ‘recognize’ the beekeeper (yes, they do, as much our smell, as our face).
I couldn’t understand why they were so aggressive!
Then I noticed that one of the beeboxes (about the size of a microwave and about 4 to 5 kilos), was not there.
My hubby had been in the morning, and everything was OK.
I immediately thought of that guy.
With that weight, and the bees following him, he couldn’t go very far, so I combed the forest. After 40 minutes, and no success, I went to the entrance of the forest, where there is a fountain. He was there, washing his hands and face. I asked him in English "did you take our bees’? He turned around, shouted “no”, and runned away. As he turned, I noticed that his face was extremely red. I swore something pretty harsh to him in Czech & Russian…and then in English, French, German and Spanish -in case he didn’t understand the first - and started the search again - I was sure that the bees were not far away. I found the frames scattered in the forest, half eaten, with the poor bees roaming around the frames, and then the box, with the frame rearing the queens (in that frame there is no honey), still inside the box. Bstrd!!! Our poor queens! 
.We don’t know if the queens will survive 
- we will only know in the coming week
The worst part – he came back later, and attacked a second one of the beeboxes! These were more aggressive, so he couldn’t take any frame out.
We have resorted to lock the boxes inside the large house.
Can you imagine the number of stings that he got on the face and hands? He is probably mentally deranged.
…one of those days…
Have you reported him to the police?
What a story. I haven’t heard of such lunacy in my entire life. I thought every sane person knows you’re not supposed to “provoke” bees or wasps etc.
You should definitely go to police and report this incident in all details, show pictures if you have any.
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Seems that at least a little bit of justice has bee‘n served.
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no, not yet. I have asked the neighbours, and they had seen him roaming for the whole week between the forest and the houses. Now they are concerned also (as there are a lot of kids playing alone in the forest) - so they will call the police if they see him around again
Yes, I think it is lunacy.
My partner said it is hunger – i saw him on the local Denner, on the Coop, and later on the Migros… ‘roaming idly’ if you know what I mean-- difficult to miss him, given his appearance… As Sunday all supermarkets are closed ,probably he had not got anything and was hungry. But clearly, very deranged…
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