Althouse: The Dying Bumblebee's Journey Across the Landscape of a Man.

August 17, 2019

The Dying Bumblebee's Journey Across the Landscape of a Man.

A bumblebee lands on Meade and undertakes a difficult journey...

61 comments:

Yancey Ward said...: The unbearable lightness of bumblebeeing.; 8/17/19, 7:57 PM
Yancey Ward said...: That is one sad looking bee- at the end of the road.; 8/17/19, 7:59 PM
David Duffy said...: I envy the people who use media to capture normal family/married life. It all seemed so mundane and ordinary at the time. I thought I would remember everything important and forget the ordinary. The few photos and videos I have of the Mrs and I, especially with our now married kids, are priceless. I miss the ordinary.; 8/17/19, 8:00 PM
Darrell said...: And, yet, it's still better than My Dinner With Andre.; 8/17/19, 8:03 PM
Ann Althouse said...: It gets very exciting at about 5:30.; 8/17/19, 8:04 PM
Fernandinande said...: Love the pulsating stinger @2:20 DANGER !

"Paper" wasps built a nest in my Jeep's driver-side rear-view mirror. I drove it after it'd been sitting a few months, and wasps came flying out the mirror housing as I drove, and when I got back another eight or so wasps made a, er, beeline right to the mirror as soon as I pulled in and stopped. I'm amazed how accurate they were, especially since the car had been gone for a while.

I had sprayed it weeks before but that didn't seem to work, since there were still wasps, so I put a black plastic bag over the mirror so they'd die of heat in the sun, and after a while another eight or so wasps landed on the bag exactly where they'd been going in and out of the mirror, and huddled there in a lump.; 8/17/19, 8:09 PM
Darrell said...: She was trying to get into Meade's ear and burrow into his brain and lay eggs. What comes next may surprise you.; 8/17/19, 8:09 PM
Bob Boyd said...: A stunning tour de force.
Epic.
Heart breaking.
Riveting.
Intense
Will change the way you look at bumblebees forever.
Beautifully acted. Beautifully shot.
Amazing! Simply amazing!
Simply the greatest film about a bumblebee crawling on a man's pants ever made.; 8/17/19, 8:19 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: I hope someone points a big finger at you when your time comes.

I always play videos with the sound off. Maybe there was some witty, redeeming commentary that I missed.; 8/17/19, 8:20 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: What a vast Landscape, is a Man.; 8/17/19, 8:21 PM
madAsHell said...: Slowly becoming John and Yoko......; 8/17/19, 8:23 PM
Bob Boyd said...: Don't miss the alternate ending.
Spoiler alert: Meade gets stung, but not where you think.; 8/17/19, 8:26 PM
FullMoon said...: Ok, I'll do it. Two minute version

Larry David pants tent; 8/17/19, 8:27 PM
mockturtle said...: Great photography, Althouse! I can see you have a natural talent for wildlife photography.; 8/17/19, 8:27 PM
Greek Donkey said...: Are we sure this is a bumblebee and not a carpenter bee?; 8/17/19, 8:28 PM
Josephbleau said...: Duty has the weight of a mountain, but death is light as a feather.; 8/17/19, 8:30 PM
Chuck said...: The bee never knew he was living in a simulation.; 8/17/19, 8:35 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: I took Our Hostess's hint and skipped ahead a bit.

I see that Meade does not shave on Saturdays. Neither do I. (Although it appears that Meade's weekend starts on Wednesday. Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

My patience with Nature's many multi-legged creatures greatly exceeds my wife's. Having said that, Meade's may exceed mine, with bees at least.

Question for Our Hostess: How is he with spiders? Is he a smash on sight type, or a carefully collect under a glass and let them go outside type? (Left to my own devices, I let them stay in the house, on the theory that they take care of the moths and mosquitoes and so on.); 8/17/19, 8:36 PM
chuck said...: Next up, grasshoppers and mantises. I always feel sorry for mantises, although the lucky males are already gone by the time the females reach their end.; 8/17/19, 8:42 PM
Tank said...: Very steady hand.; 8/17/19, 8:52 PM
Meade said...: Is this where I come to take my bows? *Thank you, thank you very much.*
Would love to join you all in your cafe this evening but presently I have a scheduled rendezvous with my razor and nail clippers.
Might take me awhile.
See you Tuesday.; 8/17/19, 9:07 PM
stephen cooper said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/17/19, 9:17 PM
wildswan said...: And ... that's it? Movie ends, lights go up and people leave the theater while the bee is still bumbling ... to what end? I think he was looking for a suitable day lily to close about him as the sun set for the last time..; 8/17/19, 9:19 PM
The Godfather said...: Meade, you are a patient man. I commend and envy you.; 8/17/19, 9:23 PM
traditionalguy said...: Love in the time of Bumble Bees.; 8/17/19, 9:26 PM
effinayright said...: My adventure with tiny critters in the car involved a VW Beetle I had some time back.

One morning I got into the driver's seat and found a triangular spider's web extending from the overhead sun visor down to a point-of-attachment on the steering wheel, partially interfering with my view.

I said out loud, "Well?" ---and a spider appeared from behind the visor, rappelled down his web, unhooked the attachment on the wheel, rolled the web up, and tucked it and himself out of sight.

Beautiful.; 8/17/19, 9:34 PM
stephen cooper said...: Spiders are great, they are underrated as pets.; 8/17/19, 9:39 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Fact check the Babylon Bee now.; 8/17/19, 9:53 PM
Darrell said...: When it opened. I thought that Meade was getting his weekly sting in the junk--his scheduled 4th-Wave Feminism reparation ritual. I was hoping it wouldn't go all Wicker Man in the first episode.; 8/17/19, 10:09 PM
effinayright said...: stephen cooper said...
Spiders are great, they are underrated as pets
*********
Guy in my fraternity had a non-hairy tarantula as a pet, named Oscar.

He didn't last too long; many were afraid of him, even though he was enclosed in a terrarium.

Someone poured lighter fluid on him.; 8/17/19, 10:26 PM
stephen cooper said...: Well of course you should not have a spider pet and simultaneously have a psychotically animal-hating housemate.

When I was a little kid I assumed that I was wrong in my original observations that there are a lot of bad people in this world, and I hoped that one day I would realize that people were better than I thought they were.

Then I grew up and realized that yeah, there are lots of fucking psychos who are the sort of vicious people who pour lighter fluid on spiders.

The poor hate-filled creatures, why do they have such hate in their hearts? It is such a bad thing to hate innocent animals.; 8/17/19, 10:32 PM
walter said...: Honorary directorship at Bos Meadery
Bee well.; 8/17/19, 10:46 PM
David Begley said...: Al Gore invented the Internet for that?; 8/17/19, 10:48 PM
commoncents said...: Feel Good Video - When a Bf-109 spared a stricken B-17
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2019/08/feel-good-video-when-bf-109-spared.html; 8/17/19, 10:49 PM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Hey, better than this!; 8/17/19, 11:14 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: How is it that Beto's parents couldn't afford braces for the lad? I'm genuinely curious.; 8/17/19, 11:16 PM
Ralph L said...: Good thing Meade doesn't bathe often. The bee just couldn't take it and rolled off.; 8/17/19, 11:38 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Blight of the Bumblebee.; 8/18/19, 12:30 AM
Lawrence Person said...: A Texas political controversy you may not have heard of.; 8/18/19, 12:49 AM
Bob said...: That was utterly fascinating, and I loved listening to the banter. Thank you for sharing it.; 8/18/19, 1:32 AM
virgil xenophon said...: Unbeelievably fascinating vid..; 8/18/19, 1:35 AM
Crazy World said...: Bee careful out there.; 8/18/19, 1:35 AM
Mr. Groovington said...: Not a lot of sad commenters above.

I kept bees in my early 20’s.

The end of such a sophisticated object, a direct living link to an origin 3.5 billion years ago, in an otherwise most probably empty universe, this scene leans me towards the not cheery Benatar-esque anti-natalists.

So maybe you’re all hardened to the futility. Although, according to Benatar, life is worse, -1, not even the give-or-take zero of futility.

But then again, I’m a little bit high right now. Botswana field-grown. If it wasn’t so aromatic I wouldn’t bother, but it’s strongly nostalgic. Marianne Williamson has my vote for the next 90 minutes.; 8/18/19, 4:32 AM
Fen said...: Marianne Williamson has my vote for the next 90 minutes.

She's about to have mine too :); 8/18/19, 5:36 AM
rhhardin said...: blessed are the beekeepers; 8/18/19, 5:40 AM
stevew said...: "How is it that Beto's parents couldn't afford braces for the lad? I'm genuinely curious."

Climate change and that racist Trump.

Bees are good, usually good natured and harmless. Wasps on the other hand, aggressive and vicious!; 8/18/19, 5:47 AM
rhhardin said...: O death where is thy sting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRYU0wi82p8&t=19; 8/18/19, 6:03 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: Shoes for Industry chuck-o.; 8/18/19, 6:10 AM
Hagar said...: A long time ago, a friend was sitting in his windowsill studying and did not notice a bumblebee on his arm. When he moved to turn the page, it stung him in the main artery on the inside of his elbow. The doctor said that if we had been 15 minutes later getting him to the hospital, he would have died.; 8/18/19, 6:37 AM
Rusty said...: How de we know the little guy died? Maybe he was just drunk. On Meade!; 8/18/19, 7:31 AM
M Jordan said...: It was good ... but it wasn’t great. (Old Homer Simpsons line.)

I’d give it a B.; 8/18/19, 8:02 AM
M Jordan said...: I bee-lieve Mead is made with fermented honey. Mr. Bumble is, like a spawning salmon, simply returning home to die.; 8/18/19, 8:05 AM
Night Owl said...: Last week I took a 6 min video of a large spider building a huge 4 ft x 3 ft web outside near the back door. I joked to a friend that it was trying to catch a human. It would build a web every night and the following morning the web would be in tatters. It would start rebuilding at sundown, and when it finished spinning it would sit right in the center, big as life, and wait. It did this for almost a month.

The night after I videoed it, I saw it finishing its evening web as I went out to walk the dog. When I walked away it had positioned itself right in the center, as always, just sitting there big as life, waiting. When I came back from the walk about 20 minutes later it was lying under its web on its back, its long slender legs all curled up. At first I thought it was a different spider because it looked so small. But it was the same one. It was dead. Just moments before it was full of life, spinning its web like always; and then it just fell off its web.

The remains of its last web lasted for a few days. When I walked past that spot it honestly made me a little sad. But last night it occurred to me that this spider got to live a full spider life w/o being eaten or squashed and it died w/o a care in the world. Maybe it's not so bad to just fall off your web.; 8/18/19, 9:30 AM
Ann Althouse said...: That bee has a shriveled left front leg and only one antenna. The wings look messed up too. He couldn't climb when he tried and kept tumbling backward. It was his last rodeo... ro-bee-o.; 8/18/19, 9:36 AM
rcocean said...: Just an excuse for Meade to show off his six-pack abs.; 8/18/19, 10:05 AM
rcocean said...: Bees look cuter from a distance.; 8/18/19, 10:06 AM
rcocean said...: Incredibly there's a whole webpage on how to help Bumblebees. you're supposed to give them a solution of sugar water, or if they're wet carry them to a dry place. However, we're warned that Bees don't make good pets!

Bumblebees - outside the nest only live 6-7 weeks or even less. Its a short but glorious life. A life of flowers and nectar. But death comes swiftly, like when a big shoe squishes you.; 8/18/19, 10:14 AM
LA_Bob said...: Everyone assumes the bee was male. Aren't the worker bees typically female?

Might explain her attraction to Meade's neck. A little competition for Althouse!

I see dying bees on my porch quite frequently. They amble slowly and aimlessly about. Once one surprised me by winging off, so maybe they're not all dying.

I usually squish 'em to put them out of their presumed misery.; 8/18/19, 10:40 AM
MalaiseLongue said...: Cruelly neutral commentary.; 8/18/19, 12:49 PM
rcocean said...: I love bees and hate wasps and yellow jackets. those bastards will chase you 50 yards just for the pleasure of stinging you. Kill 'em all, and let God sort 'em out.; 8/18/19, 1:22 PM
Maillard Reactionary said...: Some spider love in the thread above. Very heartwarming. Nice to see there are some open minded people out there.

I had one a couple of years ago that set up shop in my darkroom. It made what they call a tangle-web-- not a nice symmetrical orb. Anyway, it being winter at the time, business was slow. As opportunity presented itself, I'd capture a stray insect (what the hell are they doing in my lab anyway?) and drop it into the web.

This was one of the spiders that wraps first, then bites.

The spider thrived, molted a few times, and made lots of little egg sacs in the spring. I assume that the young-uns that didn't eat each other made it to the outside, as there is no spider metropolis in there now.

You can observe a lot by just watching, as a famous American philosopher once said.; 8/18/19, 4:26 PM