Is it possible to get bees to "forget"

[foidulus]

that my office may be a source of food for them? A bee came into my office(windows with screens are pretty uncommon here in Germany) and I managed to shoo it out the window without having to kill it, but today she brought a friend with her

This time I killed one of them, shooed the other out the window and thought all was good. I opened my window 30 minutes later and the bee was right there waiting! I couldn't kill it, so I got it to go outside again, and have kept the window shut. However, I'm afraid that I may have advertised my office as a bee buffet.... is there any way to get them to "forget" that this is a good restaurant or am I doomed to keep my window closed for here on out....

I have 8 macs in my office, maybe they are just attracted to the shiny

 

[Stardotboy]

When bees find a source of food they'll go back to their hive and do a dance to represent where they found it. The only way to stop a giant swarm of bees attacking your office is therefore to find their hive and perform a dance for them indicating a plentiful food source at a competitor's office.

Good luck!

 

[iJohnHenry]

And take a cameraman, please.

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

Buy a strobe light and put a green filter over it. Green strobe lights are very threatening to bees, and, some studies suggest (Harvard 2002, Yale 2006, etc...), actually disrupt their neural pathways and cause them to lose some of their short term memory.

 

[themadchemist]

Buy a strobe light and put a green filter over it. Green strobe lights are very threatening to bees, and, some studies suggest (Harvard 2002, Yale 2006, etc...), actually disrupt their neural pathways and cause them to lose some of their short term memory.

My girlfriend is doing a writing project about bees, and as her faithful scientist boyfriend, I have grown interested in bees from a more biological point of view. If you have citations on these papers, I would be interested in seeing them. Thanks!

 

[SkyBell]

When bees find a source of food they'll go back to their hive and do a dance to represent where they found it. The only way to stop a giant swarm of bees attacking your office is therefore to find their hive and perform a dance for them indicating a plentiful food source at a competitor's office.

Good luck!

That gave me a good laugh, thank you sir.

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

My girlfriend is doing a writing project about bees, and as her faithful scientist boyfriend, I have grown interested in bees from a more biological point of view. If you have citations on these papers, I would be interested in seeing them. Thanks!

I'm sorry madchemist, and with all due apologies to your girlfriend, but I'm afraid I made all of that up.

 

[iShater]

I'm sorry madchemist, and with all due apologies to your girlfriend, but I'm afraid I made all of that up.

That sounded too good to be made up!

 

[SkyBell]

Yeah, if it's beyond my comprehension level, it must be true.

 

[idyll]

LOL this thread is comedy gold

 

[és:]

Get them to 'look into my eyes, look into my eyes, the eyes, the eyes, eyes, not around the eyes, not around the eyes, look into my eyes... and you're under'

 

[BlakTornado]

I'm sorry madchemist, and with all due apologies to your girlfriend, but I'm afraid I made all of that up.

You were very convincing... So convincing that I no longer trust anyone at all. Thanks, jackass.

 

[themadchemist]

I'm sorry madchemist, and with all due apologies to your girlfriend, but I'm afraid I made all of that up.

I should have been skeptical of that awkward citation style. I mean, who cites the university??

 

[jsgreen]

Buy a strobe light and put a green filter over it. Green strobe lights are very threatening to bees, and, some studies suggest (Harvard 2002, Yale 2006, etc...), actually disrupt their neural pathways and cause them to lose some of their short term memory.

Sounds a lot like the old EPROM chips my dad used to burn his programs to in the 80s (you used light to erase them).

 

[GfPQqmcRKUvP]

I should have been skeptical of that awkward citation style. I mean, who cites the university??

My friends and I always make up really strange and illogical facts and fake cite the information that way. Yes, that would be an indication of me lying

BlakTornado:

Sorry for causing you to lose faith in humanity. I guess it's better to trust no one?

 

[themadchemist]

My friends and I always make up really strange and illogical facts and fake cite the information that way. Yes, that would be an indication of me lying

If you see my latest post in the diet thread, you'll see how seriously I take citations. I just spent the last hour writing that post, goodness knows why.

 

[foidulus]

When bees find a source of food they'll go back to their hive and do a dance to represent where they found it. The only way to stop a giant swarm of bees attacking your office is therefore to find their hive and perform a dance for them indicating a plentiful food source at a competitor's office.

Good luck!

Alas, my bee suit is at the cleaners...

 

[dllavaneras]

is there any way to get them to "forget" that this is a good restaurant or am I doomed to keep my window closed for here on out....

Being a budding entomologist, the green strobe remark cracked me up.

On a more serious note, Nikolaas Tinbergen (a very famous ethologist) did several experiments with digger wasps regarding their spatial recognition. Basically, wasps recognize landmarks and use them to locate their nest. I'd have to look it up again (you can look up bee's ways of indicating nestmates where to find food in John Alcock's book "Animal Behavior: An Evolutionary Approach (2005)"), but if I recall correctly, the same basic principle applies: if you move stuff around in your office enough so that bees can't recognize the place anymore, they'll leave. Granted, that would require a pretty big office.

If all else fails, you can keep your window shut for a couple of days. Eventually bees will stop coming since there's no source of food there.

 

[foidulus]

Went on vacation for 5 days, hoping that they would move on by the time I got back, but left my window open today and the little buggers remembered! They are just too friggin' smart for insects

 

[carlgo]

Once, I was working on my house and a huge brown spider dropped out of the overhang, right next to me. I mean huge, the biggest one I've seen short of a tarantula. A little wasp attacked it viciously, repeatedly, very fast, all the way to the ground. The spider was laying on the ground, obviously in a bad way. The wasp kept attacking it. I shooed it away, but it came back, determined and kept attacking. The spider died. It was, like, nature, man.

Bees are ok, we co-exist fine in the garden, but wasps I don't like cuz they will come after me and I don't like my reaction to their stings. Wasp-away with the new gel formula ends that.

 

[rdowns]

Just get a screen. I can't believe screened windows aren't common in the 21st century.