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posted by martyb on Friday May 22 2020, @11:01PM   Printer-friendly
from the Catching-a-Buzz! dept.

[NB: Athlone is a town of over 20,000 located on the banks of the River Shannon in County Westmeath, Ireland. ]

https://www.westmeathindependent.ie/news/roundup/articles/2020/05/18/4189375-video-athlone-mans-beehive-made-out-of-lego-/

He said he now has approximately 30,000 native Irish black bees in the lego hive, and this will increase to between 50,000 and 60,000 at the peak of the summer.

"The bees seem happy out, even though they weren't too sure about it at the start!" he laughed.

Ruairi said the hive is made entirely of lego, and no glue was used in it.

"What the bees will do, given enough time, is they will propolise the whole thing. Propolis is a kind of glue that the bees get from trees, and with any gaps in a beehive, with any wind or air getting through, they will basically put their 'glue' in between to seal it up."


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  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:41AM (3 children)

    by looorg (578) on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:41AM (#998029)

    I guess the image is somewhat better on their gofundme-page (currently apparently scoring 2239 euro of donations).

    It looks quite odd. So I can understand the bees being somewhat confused about the whole thing. I figure they'll eventually just cover the entire thing in propolis.

    At least is seems to be mostly made out of bricks and not those annoying prefab wall pieces.

    https://ie.gofundme.com/f/athlone039s-wildlife-apiaries [gofundme.com]

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 23 2020, @01:39AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 23 2020, @01:39AM (#998045) Journal
    For me, the problem would be figuring out how to get in and out of the hive - visually the entrances are camouflaged. Maybe it's not as bad as it looks, or maybe it's a good thing?
    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday May 23 2020, @02:19AM

      by Arik (4543) on Saturday May 23 2020, @02:19AM (#998051) Journal
      "Maybe it's not as bad as it looks, or maybe it's a good thing?"

      Probably.

      Bees do see color, but not the same way we do. Their vision extends into the ultraviolet, but stops short of red on the other end. I'm not at all certain what this thing would look like to them. The entrances do look a bit small, but hive entrances are normally pretty small, and I've seen bees block them up further with propylis, presumably to make them more defensible?
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:13PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @12:13PM (#998120)

      It's best that the entrances are small and have only a small landing strip. Mice can fit through pretty much any hole larger than a nickel, but it also needs to allow the bees leeway to adjust the airflow and allow them to get in and out.