Who really knew that, within just a few days, pictures of bees, and references to bees, would propagate across the blogosphere? Well actually, I kinda did, that was in part, the point of the postthe wasps do a lotta watching, or more correctly, monitoring.
Also, some were a little unclear about some aspects of the post, and I had a few loose ends to tie up. So this is, for my part, a wrap up on recent events, and certainly not a reflaming attempt.
May as well get some of the terminology cleared up:
Bumblebees the radfems (and chosen because of fluffiness)
Wasps the pro-porn activists, oops, I mean, anti-censorship or whatever bullshit they hide behind
Bees could refer to either women, or proto-feminists (thanks Lya), for clarity I will use proto-bees for proto-feminists
Honeybees ‘fun’ feminists (or Feminist Lite). Sometimes called sex-pos, however, that is such a misused term from both pro- and anti-porn camps, it is totally meaningless, plus it implies by omission (for those who don’t identify that they are sex-pos) that they are sex-neg. So sex-pos = bullshit term, and erase it from your brain right this second!
Flowers men
Ants whilst I did not use the ants in the original story, Sparkle just threw in Marauding Raiding Ants (MRAs), and it was too good to pass up. Also, since then, found two really good pictures to use - including the watermelon & ant, Melon Farmers, geddit? (thanks to Sparkle for the ants!)
Hives blogs, and hiveroll = blogroll
Collective like-minded hives/blogs (a bit of a StarTrek borg reference)
And I’ll also go for a more elegant solution from the original (because when I write, I just sit down, with only a few key points, and the thing writes itself from beginning to end, I have little control over the process).
Pollination now just to refers to sex
Pollstination now to refers to porn (previously ‘pictures of pollination’)
Paddock Patriarchy
I’ll also need to clarify:
Bee-ism feminism, and bee-ist = feminist
Like it or not (and I’m probably in the latter), feminism IS a political movement. Regular politics and office politics are frequently couched in indirect terms, however that belies the very narrow focus of what they are all about. Feminism is a different political animal, usually far more direct, far more ‘offensive’ to the opposing side, and in a numbers sense, far more encompassing. Radfems are at the extreme end, probably far less palatable to the masses I like the directness. As for ‘choosing sides’, yes, unfortunately, as a political movement one does have to choose sides this is not necessarily in a schoolyard kind of way, but to facilitate the political aims.
Now, back to finish the story. As I said in the intro, a few loose ends.
Firstly, the Laurabee situation. As I said in my earlier post, I was disturbed by a number of ‘don’t upset the flower’ posts going on, which indicated to me, a shift in (political) attitudes and aims. Had another post of similar sentiment gone up, that would have been the time that I removed the hive from my hiveroll. Instead, a particular thread, passively-aggressively attacking a fellow bumblebee (and this is judged by the comments, and the balance of commenters, and who the moderator favoured), so it was a clear enough sign to show a shift in politics. There was no ‘little tantrum’, or humpf on my part, it was fairly much a cool reaction, driven by political motivation rather than personal ones. On a personal level, yes, very disappointed.
As for Laurabee’s ‘having to choose between a Thatcher beetle and a flower’, I can only assume that she meant if she had to choose between her politics and her boyfriend (as nothing else makes sense, no mention of Thatcher was made by me or anyone else). As for having to choose between politics and loved-one, possibly many bee-ists would prioritise the loved one, but it rarely comes down to that (unless safety or death threats are on the agenda). But it is prioritisation, not choices (and on a personal level anyway). Again reiterating, the tone of posts was ‘don’t upset flowers [in general]’. I actually explain this a lot better at the end of the post keep reading, and all will become clear!
As covered earlier, bee-ism is a political movement that is characterised primarily for its disruption and challenge of the status quo, as well as pissing off many entitled flowers. Get over it, or move on. By that I mean, you are not an effective activist by taking into the account (over-prioritising) the ‘feelings’ of the opposition. Possibly part of the problem of these ‘don’t upset’ sentiments coming from bees is their life-long socialisation to be the peacemakers and enable everybody to get along(?). Thankfully my brainwashing in this area wasn’t that strong, so I shook it off quite easily (in many ways, I did have a lot of socialisation as a faux-flower, so that probably explains it).
As outlined in the previous post, there are a number of other bumblebee hives in danger of being taken over by the wasps (wasp conversion, or more accurately, bumblebee ineffectiveness and neutralisation this is what the wasps want, this is their plan). Like Santee Claus, I make my list, do the obligatory check it twice actually, I am just putting you on the endangered bumblebee list, and watch and wait until the inevitable hive takeover takes place. The bumblebee post was written with the endangered bumblebees in mind, to give you a heads-up.
About the wasps, there can be only two reasons why they are doing this, one personal, one political, and my money is on the latter. Personal, they lack friends IRL (in real life) and are desperate for friends, even the cyber variety. Political, they are just neutralising your political effectiveness by some faux-friendship. As I said the latter is my bet.
Lets look at the typical wasp behaviour. Many bumblebees are fooled into thinking the wasps ‘are the same, but with a slightly different spin, and perhaps we can get them to see the dangers of pollstination’. Wrong. In each and every Worm thread that has gone on, did they shift attitude/beliefs in the slightest? Big fat NOPE on that one.
Now the wasp behaviour when they arrive at a bumblebee hive. Firstly they always self proclaim the ‘I’m bee-ist too (…with slightly different views…)’, and cause minimal disruption to the hive (not too much otherwise they get branded trolls). Most bumblebees, socialised into the peacemaker roles, give them the benefit of the doubt, and besides, not causing too much trouble, and perhaps they may change their attitudes on pollstination etc. The thing is, they have just infiltrated, and patiently await a bit of bumblebee faltering or questioning, then the swam begins. Usually with cries of “big nasty bumblebees are kicking you out of the tree house, but we love you and we are more truly bee-ist than they are, ad nauseam”. Forgot the ‘you can paint stripes on your butt without political implication’ malarkey.
Wasp behaviour in own habitat (hive). Not much general bee-ism discussed or analysed, it’s mainly a venue for slagging off the bumblebees (esp the ones who won’t falter). Gotta laugh when I was referred to as “an oppressor” WTF planet are you on anyway wasp? Sure the wasps occasionally talk on hot bee topics such as rape, but make sure the flowers remain invisible, or at least a tone that doesn’t upset many flowers. No (real) analysis as to why flowers want to ensnare bees, or the pollstination influence (hotly contested in fact).
What differentiates a wasp hive from an ant nest? Not much, it is a matter of degree. The ants being more overt in bee-hatred, the wasps, covert (very subtle BTW, congrats on that). The wasps uphold the status quo, pollstination. If they weren’t dressed in bee-like shaped suits, you would actually see them for what they are (and who their allies are).
I actually have not bothered to frequent wasp hives (except a few times in the last week, and a few months ago). From here on in, I think I will ignore their buzzing around as annoying background sounds. Hence, this post is not to enflame a hive war.
Which brings me to a subtle point of the wasp infiltration. Whether some bumblebees are aware of it or not, (some) sista-bumblebees have either reduced or stopped posting on hives that have regular wasp attendance (and I’m not talking primarily about me here, about other bumblebees who fear some ‘contamination’ of anti-pollstination hives. It’s usually in the form of can’t be bothered getting involved in a thread with wasps.) So if you have a bumblebee hive, with regular wasp attendance, and wonder why some of your old favourite bumblebees no longer post, or post little, Stormybee has just given you the answer.
Am I the big bad fluffy bumblebee oppressor? Jokin’ ain’t ya? If I was truly the big bad oppressor the wasps make me out to be, then I would be demanding you rejoin the ranks of the bumblebees. Nope. You are free to choose whichever collective you want I have already outlined as to why those choices may make you ineffective in bumblebeedom. Yep, we bumblebees can be a tuff lot in asking you to question everything, and its role in upholding the Paddock, or serving the flowers, and even I’m not as strict as many bumblebees (hard to believe, I know!). But yeah, I feel disappointed when you fly with the wasps, esp as your time and effort in anti-pollstination is effectively negated.
This is an old bumblebee, with many airmiles on the wings. She has had many relationships with flowers, and is probably(!) disillusioned with how the script seems to always play out, no matter how sweet or ‘different’ this flower appears to be from the rest of the flowers. With double the airmiles of many of the questioning young bees choosing their path, perhaps ask yourselves if clocking up more airmiles does actually lead to a different view on the flowers (hint: yep, it does).
Yes it is possible to have a relationship between a bumblebee and a flower, but it is difficult. My Empress (yep, decided on the upgrade from Queen) BumbleBee (or BB for short) manages to do it, but her companion flower does not get a freepass on flower entitlement issues (which is NOT the same as personal prioritisation, but political prioritisation).
[EDIT: 08 Jan 07 Note that calling BB an Empress is ONLY my view of her to ME. I am not setting her up as Empress of ALL bumblebees/bees or anything else. I admire her work, and have missed her so much over the last two months.]
If one’s political prioritisation is flowers, or even pollination with flowers, then you are a honeybee. Honeybee-ism is a whole other post (perhaps “Having you cake and pollinating it too”??).
Hopefully I have addressed all the points that I wanted to cover, I frequently forget things, or get distracted… oh! something shiny!
But a handy postscript for some of the newbees, or proto-bees, the list of main wasps:
Retrograde Evolution, BelleDodo, Ambutt (yep, always the first to post on the faltering, well done Ambutt), and Pornie Princess. There are a few other minor wasps, but not mentioned in the list because I couldn’t think up funny pseudonyms. It’s been a long, long post!
[EDIT: 08 Jan 07 Quotation removed at blogowner’s request]
In the spirit of finishing with humour, I will post another funny piccy of the ants (what luck to have so many good ant pics to choose from):
[Soundtrack for the picture below, will open in a new window - fuck really knows what the song is all about, I looked at the lyrics… stormy confusion]
Antheads. Possibly pictured in actual action, because some of the stoopid stuff they come up with obviously needs the ‘extra stoopidity’ factor (only achieved by two or more ants working together). Bless their little delusioned antbutts. I think the one in the light shirt is actually Antblog (Trollbuster has already slapped Antblog with her bingo-wings).
About
