
Bees in Brooklyn Hives Mysteriously Turn Red - phreeza
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/nyregion/30bigcity.html?_r=1&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
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jrockway
It's not "mysteriously", right? They ate Red dye #40 and they are now dyed
red.

(I am a little outraged, though. First, it's annoying that bees are eating
artificial food designed to save a few cents per liter of soda. But then you
realize, if you're upset that _bees_ are gorging themselves on HFCS, isn't it
even more outrageous that _people_ do it? I guess we have a conscious choice,
and all, but it is amazing on how little interest the average person has in
natural food.

I guess as long as the investors in the food companies get their 12% a year,
it's all good...)

~~~
ars
I think they are upset because of the honey, not because of the bees.

Honey is normally concentrated flower nectar after all, but these bees are
making concentrated corn syrup, which I have much easier ways of getting.

~~~
burgerbrain
Honey is made _from_ nectar, not _of_ nectar. It's pretty likely that what
these bees are producing is not _that_ unlike regular honey. It just happens
to be artificially coloured and likely has a different makeup of sugars.

What I don't get is why these people are so appalled that bees would do this.
Bees don't know shit about nutrition, they just dig sweet stuff and stuff with
bright colours. "Mother nature" doesn't "know best", it just does what it has
evolved to do. These bees evolved to use what limited computation power they
have to find bright stuff that's sweet. Most of the time this means flowers,
but apparently not always.

If anything, I'd be excited. This is interesting and new stuff, not
horrifying!

~~~
Dylanlacey
Well yeah, it's made from nectar, but there is usually a small amount of
pollen, some amino acids, plant sterols and fats and so on.

That's like saying that banana-flavouring is LIKE bananas because it contains
the same ester.

But you're right about the OTT reaction... The panicked, hand-wringing, "How
COULD they?!" exclamations just show that someone doesn't really have a good
grasp of the realities of being a non-human sapient.

~~~
burgerbrain
Well, like normal honey, this substance is still being regurgitated by the
bees. I'm not terribly familiar with the mechanisms involved but I was under
the impression the conversion from nectar to honey was largely done by the
bees digesting the nectar before depositing it.

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tsotha
Did they execute the queen and divide the honey amongst themselves?

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blahedo
The unanswered question here, for me, is: why is there so much sugar and dye
in the _runoff_ from the cherry factory that the bees are interested in it?
And why is runoff from anything being released untreated into the surface
system?

(I'm glad they made explicit mention of Ms. Mayo's name, though. It was
bugging me the whole time and gave the first half of the article almost an
Onion-esque feel.)

~~~
araneae
The person who said it might be from run-off is a bee-keeper who has never
visited the factory.

I rather suspect that the bees have found their way into the factory through a
small hole, as insects are wont to do, and are directly consuming the syrup.

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icco
Sure the bees don't make good tasting honey anymore, but now they glow red at
night! How is that not a win?

~~~
icco
Oh come on, Direct quote from the article: "But Mr. Selig said there was
something extraordinary, too, about those corn-syrup-happy bees that came
flying back this summer.

'When the sun is a bit down, they glow red in the evenings,' he said. 'They
were slightly fluorescent. And it was beautiful.'"

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Dysiode
Hehe, I like how all the way at the bottom they mention the fact the bee's
glow in the dark now. If that's not a significant mark against artificial
foodstuffs I don't know what is :)

~~~
Dylanlacey
While I understand your sentiment, your reasoning isn't the best. There are
quite a few things that glow in nature:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glowworm>
<http://www.springbrook.info/glow_worms/about_worms.htm> <http://rainforest-
australia.com/Luminous_fungi.htm> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly>

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sliverstorm
Considering cherry trees require bees to pollinate, you'd hope the damn cherry
factory would be _very_ interested & concerned about this.

~~~
wmil
They don't grow cherries. The factory buys cherries and makes Maraschino
cherries (pickled, dyed bright red, and packed in sugar syrup).

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maraschino_cherry>

~~~
Alex3917
For what it's worth, there are still a couple of brands that make something
close to actual maraschino cherries, i.e. without the disgusting amounts of
red 40, artificial preservatives, and corn syrup. The ones made by Luxardo are
reasonably good:

[http://www.amazon.com/Luxardo-Gourmet-Maraschino-
Cherries-36...](http://www.amazon.com/Luxardo-Gourmet-Maraschino-
Cherries-360g/dp/B001CDOBCM)

There are probably even better ones out there, though I haven't been able to
find any yet.

~~~
defen
Make your own the old fashioned way - just buy a bag of whole frozen sweet
cherries, put them in a mason jar, and cover with Maraschino (Luxardo). After
three days you'll have a mason jar full of delicious Maraschino cherries.

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mitko
did they mutate to include arsenic in their DNA

