When the original film of PLANET OF THE APES was distributed, people smirked at the idea that primates could evolve to be as clever as we are. Those humans who refuse to pay attention to scientific discoveries, regardless of how well documented they are, feel comfortable mistreating the creatures with whom we share the planet. Some interpret their BIBLE as granting humanity permission to do what we will as part of dominion. To say certain humans act like animals is to insult animals, because a closer look reveals we have sorely misjudged our fellow beings and the integral roles they’re on earth to play. Only gradually are we eliminating cruel cages, lifelong imprisonment, and many means of cold-hearted torture and killing.
Recently, National Geographic presented a two-part documentary called “The Secrets of the Bees.” Bees? Really? Wasn’t it enough to point out the cleverness of octopuses or primates? Did we have to guilt ourselves with the destruction of bees? We’re supposed to believe insects can be smart with those teeny pin-point brains? Science classes once taught that everything that beasts—including insects—do is merely instinct. Smart people finally have to admit they were wrong.
BEES PLAYING?
Dr. Samuel Ramsey, an award-winning entomologist and researcher from the University of Colorado Boulder, led the creation of the documentary to dismiss misconceptions reinforced over the years. In fact, one jarring scene reveals a university experiment in which bumble bees ignore food in order to play on wooden rolling balls. Yes, play. Not for survival. Not for any clear benefit—just for fun? In another experiment, we observe bees performing two-stage solutions to difficult problems, solutions bees nearby learn by watching. As the documentary unfolds, we see bees in nature figuring out how to survive difficult situations such as cold showers when the swarm is caught in the open or attacks by much larger insects. We learn that commercial efforts to truck bee hives long distances to huge artificial colonies to force them to pollinate farmed hillsides of almond trees will accidentally kill many bees on the trip. We can guess what happens when the almond flowers are spent and there are no other plants nearby. Time to haul the remaining bees off again.
PETTING A BEE?
Bees, like so many other species that amaze us with their relationships and adaptations, are individuals in addition to being part of the swarm. They demonstrate selflessness and daring and sometimes unique solutions to challenges that arise. They’re vulnerable to predators and viruses and bad weather. The many earthly species demonstrate diverse answers to attempts to thrive, many kindly (have you ever wanted to pet a bee?), some aggressive–not entirely unlike human groupings. For example, honey bees sustain a female democracy where the population votes on relocations suggested by scouts, the queen merely deposits eggs to be raised by nannies, workers prepare pollen to become honey, and males are banished once their contribution is done.
WE NEED THEM MORE THAN THEY NEED US
Bees are one example of a variety of life we understood only as fodder for our desires. As global warming devastates age-old ecosystems, we still argue about whether we had anything to do with the destruction because we don’t want to think it’s true. We assume without evidence that the changes we’ve wrought on the landscape are all worthwhile because they were profitable. We’re facing a uniquely vital trial of our ingenuity to enable us to survive–perhaps the most devastating that humankind has ever endured, partially because we’re losing so many species that were once present to help us cope. We had no idea what they were contributing or even that their existence was significant at all. We’re slowly learning to pay better attention and to evolve as a species to meet the test. Survival of the cleverest or the most cooperative or both?
