“Goddess Blessed” Bees as a plot device

Title: Silver May Tarnish
Author: Andre Norton and Lyn McConchie
Bug Rating:
Synopsis: Noble Boy looses castle. Peasant Girl looses family. Girl can talk to magic bees. Boy and Girl chased by bad guys; “warrior” bees save them. Boy and girl hook up and form new settlement (with bees). Huzzah.
As soon as I read the back [...]

Newest Geek Discovery–Insect PodCasts!!

Two geek outs today:
InsectaPod Cast: Episode one is an interview about bedbugs and beekeeping! Via their blog, you can find some other cool podcasts. I especially liked the Museum Detective.
SeeqPod Music: It hunts down music people are sharing on the web, and lets you organize it into a play list! Awesome!
Our university had [...]

Insects in the news #19

Aphid “Chemical Weapons”
Cabbage aphids have developed an internal chemical defense system which enables them to disable attacking predators by setting off a mustard oil ‘bomb’, says new research.
Butterfly recovery from bacterial infection
An international team of researchers has documented a remarkable example of natural selection in a tropical butterfly species that fought back - genetically speaking [...]