Studies Say Bees Drink Wine

Did you also know that bees like to get snockered?

At the vineyard, during harvest, bees buzz in and around the newly brought in grapes, the leftovers of the crushed grapes, and the juices spilled onto the ground, just about any exposed grape they can find. As early as 7:45am there are happy little bees sucking up all the sugary goodness they can find. Pretty early for a bee, it isn't exactly warm in mid October.

Apparently the little annoying buzzers like to drink the good stuff too. According to a study at Ohio State University a honeybee will drink the equivalent of a human drinking ten liters at one sitting. Now imagine five two liter bottles sitting in front of you, filled with your favorite alcoholic beverage. Then imagine yourself drinking it all. How drunk would you be? I think after half of one I would be dead to the world after having stripped naked to run through sprinklers. I'm sure my family would be so proud.

My mom used to have pony who would eat fermented peaches and get a little tipsy, but I can't imagine that it was the equivalent of ten liters!

So anyway these little bees buzzing around work, I always wonder if they are drunk? Certainly the new fruit isn't going to get them slammed, but if they find some that's been crushed and sitting for a few days? Are drunk bees more likely to sting? Are drunk bees less likely to sting? Because I don't like being stung. Not at all. How do I get into the psyche of a drunk bee? Perhaps I should try drinking ten liters of something alcoholic.... except I'd like to keep my job so that won't work.

So what do we all do when we need some quick research? GOOGLE!

After perusing the many sites listed when you search for "drunk bees" I have determined that scientist think honeybees are calm, sweet, docile creatures. WHAT? Sure they are calm and sweet when compared with a cougar! But the damn things sting and that is not sweet! If you have meat (or alcohol it seems) watch out! Bees will swoop in, contaminate it, and if you piss them off in the process they will sting you. Well the joke is on them because then they die, but still they are not sweet!

They do however perform some neat tricks while drunk. In that same study at Ohio State they observed the bees flying while upside down on their back. Sadly in all my readings I was not able to determine if a drunk bee is more aggressive then a sober bee, but I'm thinking if they fly upside down they will be a little dizzy and have worse aim. And apparently most drunk bees just fall right down and @$$ out, unable to stand or fly. So drink little bees, drink all that you can and keep that blasted stinger away from me!

With my luck they are actually yellow jackets and something tells me they would be hard core drinkers with no problem stinging while intoxicated! They seem like the frat boys of the stinging insect world.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!