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Honeybees Quotes

Browse 9 quotes about Honeybees.

Honeybees Quotes

“I don’t remember the particulars but when he [Dr. Hichiro Shimanuki, aka ‘Shim’] was nearly finished he offered an observation that was, for the most part, missed by the majority of those present. … Answers and dogma, went the feeling, saves bees, money, and time. … Shim’s observations were, however, profound, and any beekeeper who listened carefully to his challenge is probably doing quite well today. Basically, his observation was this: He called it the Rule of Rights. — If you produce the right number of bees that are the right age and the right condition, and are in the right place at the right time, you will be successful. The complexity of achieving this goal is well hidden in the simplicity of his statement. But to accomplish this requires making intelligent and correct decisions based on sound planning, correct timing, and getting the balance of business and biology to work in an operation. There’s little how-to hidden within this simple statement. Rather, it is a goal to strive for in many ways. It is, in the real world, not easy and it is not often that it will be achieved. [From the ‘Introduction.’]”

“He decided to take the C downtown and fumbled through blizzardy wind to Central Park West. Once there, he stepped inside the park. The wind dropped magically away. In the stillness, Gregory noticed that every twig and branch held a delicate stack of snow. Snow swarmed like honeybees in the golden glow of the old-fashioned streetlamps; it slathered tree trunks and sparkled like crushed diamonds at his feet. He heard a whispering noise and saw two people glide from among the trees on cross-country skis. A lavender lunar radiance filled the park. It was a world from childhood: castles and forests and magic lamps and princes scaling walls of brambles.”

“Honeybees possess amazing numerical skills that rival those of many vertebrates. Honeybees have a reputation of being insect geniuses: not only can they enumerate and order numbers, but they also possess elaborate working memory to ponder about upcoming decisions, understand abstract concepts such as 'sameness' and 'difference', and learn intricate skills from other bees. And they achieve all of this with fewer than one million neurons.”