"Gnarly, right?"
But what is your favorite animal? For years I loved the camel above all, that proud desert animal capable of making or breaking empires in the Middle East. Now, I’d say its the hummingbird fluttering so delicately on the wind though though I might swap with the lowly honeybee as it was just revealed in The New York Times that when they fall into water, they can create their own waves and ride them to safety but don’t take my word for it. Take the Grey Lady’s.
If their honey-making and pollination prowess weren’t enough, there’s a new reason to appreciate honeybees: They’re world-class surfers.
Beyond pollinating flowers, worker bees — which are all females — are given the job of searching for water to cool their hives. But if they fall into ponds, their wings get wet and can’t be used to fly. A team of researchers at the California Institute of Technology found that when bees drop into bodies of water, they can use their wings to generate ripples and glide toward land — like surfers who create and then ride their own waves.
Gnarly, right?
“When they fall in the water, they have to find a way to get to shore as a matter of survival,” said Chris Roh, a Caltech research engineer and lead author of the study, published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “It’s a ‘to bee or not to bee’ situation.”
On the piece goes, detailing this and that and it is very interesting but I became distracted by the guffaws and “yeah rights” emanating from Hawaii, being blown on gentle trade winds to Lemoore, California then rushing straight into my ears.
“Create their own waves and ride them?” the voice bellows. “I’ve been doing that for years.”
And what sort of backhanded compliment do you think Kelly Slater, the greatest of all-time, will deliver to the honeybee? How will he both diminish their accomplishments while shifting the spotlight to his own?
Will he get “caught” during his HBO 24/7 episode making a cup of chamomile tea, stirring in stevia instead of honey while declaring, “Studies show honey is super bad for you…” as the camera zooms in for a tight shot?
More as the story develops.
for chas: If you want to know who controls you, look at who you are not allowed to criticize.
Voltaire
I say drug test them and then oppress their opinions.
Well I’m a king bee
Buzzing around your hive
Well I’m a king bee, baby
Buzzing around your hive
Yeah I can make honey baby
Let me come inside
The Bee tterly Effect
When a bee flaps it’s wings in NZ it can create waves in Mexico
I once paddled a drowning bee back to shore and walked up the sand to put it onto a flower. Then paddled back out. I’m kinda stupid like that. I missed a couple of good sets and the bee probably died anyway.
I have a feeling you will be sitting at your local break on a two foot day when a beehemoth ten foot barrel will come your way. Never stop caring.
The Buddha of Surfurbia .
I too would make puns
But all this bee silliness
Is so bee-neath me
Best animals:
1. Cow
2. Honeybee
3. Everything else is tied
They are the Switzerland of the animal world.
is that based in order of taste?
The Romphalompherompumus is the best animal, but rarely seen.
Even my kids know that.
Chas… 5/9th’s of BG’s latest stories.. really… please go whallop scalezy off the splendor soapbox and narrate me something to hear about surfers and cocaine or something…
podcasts are fun and free and all…. but Audiobooks aye, you could be fucking the pig with coins there brraahhh
This comment thread bee in danger of beeing ravaged by a buzzy bicko …
bicko’s bee-ch grit.
You don’t have to buzz
To love Beeech Grit!
Sorry BEEtelguese ,was just trying to escape the unbearable lightness of BEEing ….
As a lifelong fly fisherman who spent years watching my fake bees, mosquitos etc Getting wacked by trout in the high Sierras . I have always felt pretty similar in my black wetsuit surfing north of the golden gate .
Bee for Bait .
I think Chas would appreciate me putting a little shark into the story. Bait brothers for life. Go BEES!
They’re small wave specialists… they struggle once it hits half a foot and at four foot they’re as good as gone.
Bee grade ( Bee on the QS )
and..they do it without the help of a Svengali.
Bee autonomous .
Thank you for not putting this piece in video form. You just saved me 9 minutes.
Bee thankful .
How come the shark in this story is yellow and looks like a bee?
We want answers.
While we’re at it, shouldn’t a Great White Shark be more descriptively named as to what they tend to do to people and be named Grate Whites Shark?
Or,
Why don’t tiger sharks act like a damn cat when they’re so damn determined to look like one?
Bee grateful .
Bee Sceptical
Wanabee shark
Sounds like a sustainable wave generation option to me. Is this the secret tech that Webber has been working on??
he has been with in a bee’s dick of releasing his vision for some time now.
I hear it’s un-bee-lievable.
Bee open .
Bee have .
Bee ware .
Oh bee quiet, Bicko.
“Dig a little deeper. The worldwide collapse of bee populations in no way supported by my own observations. Look at the Laniakea Bee Tourist traffic. Do your research. Not saying it’s a conspiracy, but, GMO…”
Bee in denial .
“Bees make waves to surf when they fall in water. Firstly, stupid bees haha. No, really, it’s pretty cool. They are already able to fly, and now we learn that they surf…. greedy bastards! Haha I can appreciate that. Game recognize game. I’ve been talking to pilots about learning to fly… Sully, you know Sully, he was the one who actually told me about this article. Funny that he is famous for crash landing a plane after the government used fighter jets to shoot geese carcasses into the engines. He was part of it… anyway, bees have made their own waves and surfed, probably for millions of years, yet, I don’t see a barrel. Typhoon Lagoon at best, I’d say… every surfer lives for the barrel, like we have at Surf Ranch. Maybe they’ll get there in the future, but their long development time, I don’t know. HAHA.”
Bee wax .
“Bees underpin ecosystems around the world, which is cool, you know, but you could also say that I underpin the global surf ecosystem too. I pollinate it all. But I don’t know, they’re in population decline, which sucks. I guess that’s for them to sort out though, I probably shouldn’t get involved, even though my buddy Jerry Seinfeld asked me to star in the sequel to his bee movie to help raise awareness of the situation, maybe I will, I don’t know, there’s a swell about to hit Fiji. Did you know in 1986 Monsanto injected bee venom into school kids in Flint, and now Flint has the highest rate of autism in rural Michigan? I don’t know.”
Worked with a guy from Peru who was told growing up that bee venom was a cure for joint pain. He fell off a ladder and then had his friend sting him with a bee and went into anaphylactic shock. Ended up with a two thousand dollar ER bill.
Bee for Ben Aipa Stinger
I hope you won the Australian spelling bee.
Ben always looked a little swollen
I won’t bee telling him ….
No doubt, wanna surf bowls
I won’t be taking part in this simple-minded pun competition. It’s beneath me.
Hahahahana
Bee Jackie Moon “ Semi Pro “ in Flint Michigan …..
Ok James Beekeeperton
“She wants to be an astronaut one day, I don’t think she can do it.”
Micheal Moore?
Lol nailed it
Judging from occasionally finding a bee carcass in my backyard jacuzzi, I’d say that bee-ing a VAL is bad for one’s health.
Bee comfortable
Bee a martyr
Chas–as you see Rob Machado dropping his kids off sans bike helmets, does he ever admit to you “I wish I was this big a prick to Kelly back in the mid-90s as you are today, Chas,” and high five you?
Bee nice .