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    Queen Bees

    Why do other girls fall so quickly in line when a queen bee holds court? Why don’t our girls revolt and re-deploy themselves to a group that doesn’t engender such negativity? Queen bees prey on the feelings of ineptitude and awkwardness that are common to tweens and early adolescents. These girls seemed to be endowed with a natural narcissism that allows them to overcome or perhaps even disavow their own feelings of uncertainty. Queen bees rely on the insecurity of their charges. Perhaps it is the sense of order and structure these girls bring to the social circle that encourages their fellow peers to fall in line. These girls usually align closest with the peers whom they identify as the most vulnerable. This ensures that if another girl within the circle tries to stage a revolt or even an objection, the queen bee’s minions who are ready and willing to do as she directs, quickly quell her. It is the queen bee’s audacity that is probably her strongest trait. She understands that the majority of her peers do not possess the confidence or the callousness to treat others in the way she chooses.

    In time however, the queen bee is usually eventually dethroned, or at minimum her power over others is deflated. Girls scorned by her often bind together to form other social circles that are more egalitarian and judicious. Those who stick with the queen bee demonstrate acceptance and understanding. It is not uncommon at older ages to hear friends defend her by insisting, “Yes, she can be mean, that’s just the way she is.” As girls become more mature and sure of themselves they have little need or tolerance for queen bees. Although she rarely loses all of her faithful servants, the majority of girls move on to engage in positive peer relationships. Interestingly while some queen bees outgrow their attitudes, many keep their stripes. They can easily be identified holding court among the other mothers or pitting co-workers against each other in their offices at work.
    Understanding Why Queen Bees Are Able to Hold Court - Psychology Today

    This is interesting and I think any female can think back to middle and high school and identify a "queen bee" and the process described of her being "dethroned".

    My first year of high school a girl named Roxy had a close group of friends identifiable by their ugg boots and Abercrombie and pearls - they were considered the preppy cool kids. All of them were dancers. Everyone else in my grade tried to sort of copy them but at the same time hated them. Personally, I didn't give a crap because my social group was probably best described as "nonconformist" where it was "cool" to not do what everyone else was doing. It wasn't until I was 17 and two of her former friends were hanging out with my social group that I found out they had serious problems, like the article says, that possibly kept them trying to stay in the clique and stay "cool", (things like bulimia). When they got invited to one of my parties through a mutual friend they got high and spilled their guts while we drank tequila shots in the bathroom. They also revealed that they'd stopped communicating with Roxy (I asked) because she could be so mean and controlling. We stayed friends during senior year and I haven't spoken to either in a couple years - naturally drift away from high school friends.

    But it's interesting that my own observations are explained in this article.

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    Peter1469 (11-09-2013)

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    I witnessed it in high school, and in college, at least with the sorority girls.

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    I remember them in Middle School but somehow not in High School. I think it's cause we didn't have any sports or cheer leading teams so preppy girls were drawn to other schools.

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    Peter1469 (11-09-2013)

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    There's ALWAYS a queen bee. I never gravitated to one, though.....I pretty much marched to my own drummer....

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    Guys tended to have a similar thing going on as well. But of course the dynamics are different. And often if a dominant male is dethroned, he only leaves the group if it is his decision.

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    Red face

    Bee true to me, honey...

    Bees Follow Car for 2 Days to Save Queen
    May 25, 2016 - How loyal are bees to their queen? Turns out incredibly.
    A swarm of bees in Wales followed a Mitsubishi Outlander SUV for two days after their queen apparently became trapped inside. According to CNN, Carol Howarth, 68, left a nearby nature reserve with a queen bee trapped in her car. For the next two days, a swarm of approximately 20,000 bees followed her.

    On Sunday, the swarm was spotted by local park ranger Tom Moses, who called the sight “spectacular,” according to the BBC. He called the swarm, which was clustered toward the back right quadrant of the vehicle a “big brown splodge.” "It was quite spectacular to see. There were a lot of people in town and when they were coming past they were really amazed by it, cars [were] slowing down and people [were] taking pictures of it," he told the BBC.


    A swarm of bees is seen clinging to a car they followed for two days hoping to find their queen bee.

    Moses was able to get local beekeepers to gather many of the insects. One of them was Roger Burns who speculated as to why the bees followed the car. “We think the queen had been attracted to something in the car, perhaps something sweet, and had gotten into a gap on the boot’s wiper blade or perhaps the hinge,” Burns told British newspaper Metro. He also said he got stung 15-20 times. That was not the end, however.

    On Monday, the bees were back, and the beekeepers were called again. “I have been a beekeeping for 30 years and I have never seen a swarm do that,” Burns said. “It is natural for them to follow the queen, but it is a strange thing to see and quite surprising to have a car followed for two days. It was quite amusing.”

    http://www.voanews.com/content/mht-b...n/3345530.html

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    Question

    Honeybees' Attraction to Fungicide 'Unsettling' for Food Output...

    Study: Honeybees' Attraction to Fungicide 'Unsettling' for Food Output
    January 09, 2018 — Honeybees are attracted to a fungicide used in agriculture with "unsettling implications" for global food production, a scientist said Tuesday.
    Tests carried out by a team from the University of Illinois showed bees preferred to collect sugar syrup laced with the fungicide chlorothalonil over sugar syrup alone. The finding follows other studies linking fungicides to a worldwide plunge in honeybee and wild bee populations that are crucial for pollinating crops. "Bees are kind of like humans in that they sometimes like things that aren't necessarily good for them," said University of Illinois entomology professor May Berenbaum, who led the research.




    A hive of honeybees appears on display at the Vermont Beekeeping Supply booth at the annual Vermont Farm Show at the Champlain Valley Expo in Essex Junction, Vt.



    She said fungicides were bad news for bees because they could exacerbate the toxicity of pesticides and kill off beneficial fungi in hives. Her team set up two feeding stations in an enclosure allowing the bees to choose sugar syrup laced with a test chemical or without. The chemicals included three fungicides and two herbicides at various concentrations. The researchers were taken aback to find the bees choosing one of the fungicides.


    Expanation for contamination


    "It was a surprise when they actually liked them," Berenbaum told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone, adding that it could explain why fungicide contamination in hives was so common. "This is not anything that anyone had even thought about before, so we need to readjust our focus because there certainly could be implications for agriculture," she said. However, she said the bees actively avoided a second tested fungicide and were neutral about a third. The scientists said the findings were "worrisome" in light of research showing fungicides interfere with honeybees' ability to metabolize pesticides used by beekeepers to kill parasitic mites that infest their hives.


    The scientists were also surprised to find the bees showed a taste for the widely used herbicide glyphosate. A study by the Center for Biological Diversity last year said hundreds of native bee species in North America and Hawaii were sliding toward extinction. It said bees provided more than $3 billion in fruit-pollination services each year in the United States. Experts have blamed habitat loss, heavy pesticide use, climate change and increasing urbanization for declining numbers. The United Nations recently announced an annual World Bee Day on May 20 to raise awareness of their importance and declining numbers.


    https://www.voanews.com/a/study-says...t/4200615.html

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