Up to 8M Bees Are Living in an Underground Network Beneath This Cemetery
discovermagazine.com177 points by janandonly 4 days ago
177 points by janandonly 4 days ago
This is the study itself, which is much better, including photos of the equipment in the cemetery: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-026-01256-6
The only illustration in this article is a photo of a bee, not the cemetery, and when I turned my adblocker off the white spaces I thought might be images are all the same advert about apnea with a guy lolling around in bed with his mouth agape.
> > In the classic model of sex ratio evolution, Fisher (1958) predicted that population-wide investment in male and female offspring (as measured by biomass) should approach equality in panmictic populations. In most bees, males are smaller than females, meaning that populations are expected to be numerically male-biased, but to test the hypothesis of equal investment, one needs to consider differences between males and females in adult body weight, or some other measure of offspring "cost". To calculate investment sex ratio in the emerging population of Andrena regularis, we combined numerical sex ratio data from emergence traps with body weight data for male and female A. regularis. Average weights of the male and female A. regularis were calculated by weighing 24 dried specimens of each sex
Why do we want to measure this in dry weight? Water is also a resource, one that takes a good amount of work to supply to a beehive.
Is this more of a situation where...
- We believe that differences in water allocation are significant to the question, but we also believe that all bees receive allocations proportional to their dry weight;
- We believe that differences in water allocation are not significant to the question, because there is effectively unlimited water available and every bee can have as much as they want without affecting any other bees; or
- We believe that differences in water allocation are significant to the question, but we're measuring something else because we don't know how to measure the water allocation?
Not my area of expertise but I expect that water is disproportionately heavy and ephemeral while protein and fat is extremely resource intensive in comparison. I also expect its presence to greatly complicate specimen handling since humidity, airflow, and time since collection would then matter whereas dry weight shouldn't vary over time.
So my guess is that including it would increase variance and error without offering any benefit.
These aren't a kind of bees who build hives, and dead bees dry out on their own for no longer drinking water. Drying them to a specific set humidity removes a confounder.
(Are you a hobby beekeeper, by chance? I notice those pretty reliably fail to attend or care about the existence of any Hymenoptera, save their own invasive livestock.)
Here is a nice video with slow motion footage of the bees in flight, and an interview with the researcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jje1LPrsHbc
The bees live alone and do not seem to socialize in any way, so this is not a “network” or “city”. The study says “aggregation” which is more appropriate.
New burial form unlocked: casket designed for ideal ingress/egress for soil living creatures, including ground dwelling bees and wasps.
I had not previously heard of this kind of brood parasite: https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/nomada-imbricata-f-side-pr...
"Underground network" in the title but "They live alone..." in the article. I don't care enough to look it up but it sounds like its not a network they are just ground dwelling bees that live in close proximity to other bees, and the author needed a click-bait-y title.
Are they zom-bees?
That could've come right outta https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/74983/the-bee-dungeon-a-du...
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> about 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius)
Pet peeve: When the original source had only one significant figure ("20 degrees", probably the scientist rounded to the nearest 10 because it's approximate), but the reporter translates it to another unit with more ("68 degrees", makes it sound more exact).
This shows up all over the place. Temperatures quoted in Fahrenheit always seem more exact, just because naturally whatever science they originate from was inevitably done in Celsius and then someone else converted the number without understanding significant figures.
68°F in particular shows up all over the place (like, it's the recommended thermostat setting in the winter to save energy), and it sounds like it's some sort of exact thing, but usually "about 70°F" would be a more accurate representation of the original source.
Also we say that human body temperature is 98.6°F, and a fever is 100.4°F or higher. Wow those numbers are so exact! Four significant figures on the second one! But actually these just map to 37°C and 38°C. Americans are constantly unsure if 99.0°F counts as a fever but the rest of the world probably understands 37.2°C is not...
In Celcius, it's less common to round to the nearest 10 degrees (or say things like "in the twenties" as you might with Fahrenheit), because that makes a much larger difference than it does in Fahrenheit. So I wouldn't necessarily assume that "20 degrees" only has one significant digit unless it's explicitly stated. (I haven't checked the original paper, though.)
However, converting something like 21°C to 69.8°F is indeed silly and should just be 70°F.
You should assume that temperatures in scientific articles are accurate to the degree unless explicitly noted otherwise. In the vast majority of cases "routine" measurements are taken in Celsius with digital thermometers that display and are calibrated to one tenth.
Also don't significant figures only work within the same units? I believe for conversions you have to explicitly propagate error. You can skip that when moving between power of 10 units (as is typical when working in metric) using base 10 numbers but if the conversion doesn't match the base then the shortcut breaks.
> 68°F in particular shows up all over the place (like, it's the recommended thermostat setting in the winter to save energy)
I thought the recommended minimum setting to save energy was 55? Because any colder than that and you start risking pipes in enclosed spaces freezing due to temperature gradients.
20/68 is for human comfort/health.
Sure but isn't that less a recommendation and more just what people typically find comfortable? Once I've adjusted to the seasonal change, a bit above 70 in a cold climate in the winter and I start to feel fairly uncomfortable if I'm moving around at all.
If you need to save money you want to lower the thermostat as much as possible and then use blankets or if that won't work for whatever reason then a space heater in a small room.
"where they live out their entire lives below ground, building nests, raising young, and going mostly unnoticed." How do they feed?
And later the article contradicts this by saying they go above ground.
I'm confused.
They live beneath the ground (nest building, building the nests, raising the young, etc) and go above ground to feed. No much different from building hives in caves and then buzzing about in the outside.
Welp, it's time for a Candyman remake that works this cemetery into the lore.
I guess that is a pretty smart place to set up your home.
Leave them alone
I don't think the neighbors are likely to raise a stink. Any longer.
This will probably be a new form of markup for funeral companies. Get the new “bee proof” coffin.
Listen, if I'm going to be buried in a coffin, I want bees (or other critters) getting in there with me and making something good out of the space.
Sounds like the plot of a Hammer Horror movie.
HIVE of the DEAD!!!
From the artistic standpoint, any chance we could get John Carpenter to do something with this premise?
Beads?