Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let’s do it, let’s fall in love…
— Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love), by Cole Porter, 1928
There’s actually no scientific evidence that ‘educated fleas’ do it, so we should probably view Cole Porter’s claim with a healthy dose of skepticism.
But we know, with some certainty, that birds do it, and that bees do it. In fact, photographs of birds and bees, in the act, are available on the internet, although we have naturally avoided sharing the more explicit ones in this family-friendly magazine. (Address your complaints to our editor.)
Of course, the phrase “the birds and the bees” is a common idiom for referencing the ‘talk’ we might have with our children, about love and related matters.
Since we’re being frank, I never had that talk with my kids. I let Darlene take care of it. It just seemed like something a mom should handle.
(I tackled the more complicated topics, like how to invest in the stock market.)
Speaking of my own childhood, almost everything I learned about the birds and the bees, I learned on the school playground, where no one bothered with animal stories. My school buddies got right down to the real facts of life, in all their glorious (if occasionally dubious) details.
But just lately, I found myself wondering about the actual birds and bees. I was wondering, for example, if they spend most of their waking hours thinking about romance. Or if it’s more like, “Well, I can take it or leave it.”
Bees pose an interesting situation, for instance. (My research is mostly from the internet, as a by-product of my search for photographs.) In a hive of honey bees, for example, we would typically find one Queen and 12-15 drones. The drones are the male bees, and they have one job. Keeping the Queen happy.
Personally, I’m not entirely happy with the word, “drones”. I’d prefer something like, “escorts”. But not much I can do about that.
Besides the drones, the hive includes maybe 1,000 to 1,500 worker bees, who are all females and who a have a couple of important jobs. Collecting pollen and nectar and stashing it away in the honeycomb… and taking care of the babies. In other words, a bee hive is sort of like a big daycare center, with an executive director who spends most of her time fooling around.
The female worker bees generally avoid the drones, who are actually pretty boring. But there must be something attractive about drones…? If you’re a Queen, or perhaps, a Wanna-be Queen?
According to an article on ABC.net, drones leave the hive on a daily basis, looking to hook up with young Wanna-be Queens who haven’t yet fallen in love. (The article refers to them as ‘virgin queens’.) The drones gather in huge swarms, all looking to score. The odds are not too good.
From the ABC.net article by Holly Richardson:
Bee-mating events can involve several thousand drones all gathering in areas about 20 meters above the ground in open fields, according to University of Sydney behavioral geneticist Benjamin Oldroyd.
Once mature, a young queen bee will leave her mother’s hive and may visit several different “drone congregation areas” on different days, possibly mating with about 50 drones.
“She will fly to this place at about two o’clock in the afternoon, mate with, let’s just say, a large number of males, 30, 50 … and she’ll go home again about 15 minutes later, really quick,” Professor Oldroyd said.
The article doesn’t say what’s so magical about “two o’clock in the afternoon.” We have to use our imaginations, I suppose. (Probably need some imagination for the “30-50 males within 15 minutes” part as well.)
Among the birds, things are a little more… shall we say, familiar?
According to George Harrison, an expert in avian behavior, birds meet and carry on a courtship that includes dinner dates, dancing, and just hanging out together. The males typically show off a lot, and some sing songs to impress their female targets. Then — if the two birds like each other — they become a pair, build a nest, raise youngsters, school them and send them off to form their own families.
Then — usually — they get divorced. It’s rare to find monogamous birds that remain together “until death do us part,” says Mr. Harrison. Prior to the development of DNA fingerprinting techniques in the 1980s, most people thought birds faithfully mated for life, or at least for the season. Using DNA, scientists learned that most birds do not mate for life, and most of those that do, aren’t quite as faithful as we might want to believe.
Over 92 percent of all bird species form a pair bond and stay together for at least part of the nesting cycle. But DNA tests of baby birds have shown that, in over 75 percent of these species, some birds have mated with one or more birds other than their “spouse.”
That’s somehow comforting to find out.
Because I suspected as much.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.