These Dive-Bombing, Deck-Destroying Bees Can Outsmart Us All

I love spring, the season of rebirth. Every day the leaves grow bigger, new flowers burst into bloom, and the yellow buzzing cotton balls known as carpenter bees dive-bomb me nonstop on my back deck. One might presume this would be quite the annoyance, and in the past, I’d have heartily agreed. Until the day I met Dandelion two years ago and fell in love.

It was late March in Virginia, where the whether changes from day to day like a wardrobe. The daffodils had already sprung up, but the crisp 40-degree winds of winter still kissed my cheeks. Hunched over almost lifelessly on my front porch one morning was a fuzzy yellow and black ball, a carpenter bee who’d crawled out to greet the sun and been stunned by the plunging overnight temperatures. He’d lost the energy to fly, and without his wings, he’d never be able to travel to his next meal.

I scooped up the creature, and he buzzed in my hands. I quickly filled an oversized Tupperware with a damp paper towel, some blades of grass, a few dandelions, and a capful of organic sugar water. I coaxed this new friend to the dish, where he immediately began sucking up the liquid with his long proboscis, resembling a miniscule winged elephant of sorts.

Dandelion, as I immediately christened him, spent about a week with me. Each morning I’d replace his supply of flowers and sugar water, and he’d lap up the beverage and spend the day sipping from the array of flowers like a wine tasting at a vineyard. He’d hang out in my lap buzzing sporadically, yet still unable to muster enough strength to take flight. While he was in my care, I read up on these fascinating insects, learning pretty early on not to fear Dandelion or others of his kind: despite their overt aggression and stalker-like behavior (anyone else been followed around your yard by a zealous bee, hovering inches from your face and staring menacingly yet adorably into your soul?), male carpenter bees can’t actually sting.

While males are out strutting their stuff, female carpenter bees, I learned, live with their sisters in sorority fashion, caring for one another and taking on specific roles within a social hierarchy to keep the nest running smoothly. And while they can sting, they only do so under dire circumstances.

Since that spring, I’ve spent hours watching carpenter bees diligently deconstruct the wooden boards in my deck, as, true to their name, they burrow into wood to nest. Listening closely, I can hear their soft scratching sounds like tiny saws. Instead of agonizing over how much putty I’ll need to fill these precisely carved tunnels, I remind myself that I’m a mere visitor here, in their home. And my deck is host to an extraordinary, unbreakable sisterhood.

If you’re still unconvinced of the magic I see in bees, consider this: researchers at Queen Mary University of London taught a group of bees in 2017 to move a ball to a certain position to access sugar water. The bees easily mastered this task, unsurprisingly. Then, when new bees were introduced to the experiment and observed their peers completing the task and being rewarded, they, too, learned to do it. But their intelligence didn’t stop there—the new bees invented more efficient ways to get their sugar fix, like picking balls that were situated closer to the target. They innovated.

These results support an earlier study that discovered that bees could learn new tasks with increasing complexity for food, and they could subsequently somehow communicate their discoveries to their friends.

Perhaps, most remarkable, however, is how bees’ social adaptation skills can measure up to, or even actually trump, our own. Bees have long been observed to perform a “waggle dance” to show other bees abundant food sources. But when a find is unappetizing, the bees do a smaller dance, or don’t dance at all. Other bees respond appropriately in either case and will even leave more crowded feeding spots for a higher quality opportunity, avoiding “maladaptive herding,” a phenomenon in which blindly following the masses results in the spread of misinformation (2020 conspiracy theories, anyone?).

To test this capability in humans, researchers devised an experiment in which participants had to choose among three slot machines, trying to win as much money as possible, while being allowed to observe other participants. The results:

“[A] challenging task elicited greater conformity and the copying increased with group size. This suggests that unlike bees, when large groups are confronted with tough challenges, collective decision-making becomes inflexible, and maladaptive herding behaviour is prominent. … [W]e should be more aware of the risk of maladaptive herding when these conditions – large group size and a difficult problem – prevail. We should take account of not just the most popular opinion, but also other minority opinions.”

Imagine where we’d be if more of us humans detected and strayed from harmful ideologies, platforms, and demagogues. Imagine if we were as discerning and skilled participants as bees are in our own democracy.

Back to that spring two years ago. One morning I came downstairs to find Dandelion zipping around his enclosure, and I knew his time had come. I picked a balmy 70-degree day and released him soaring back into the wild. His departure saddened me, but I knew it was his job to go out and pollinate the world. After all, bees are responsible for pollinating 90 percent of our food, and without them, in a reality that could be right around the corner, we’d lose half the groceries we take for granted today. I can’t imagine a bee-less world, but we’re catapulting toward it every day with our pesticides, pollution, and habitat destruction.

In the U.S., for instance, between 1947 and 2008, the honeybee population plunged from 6 million to 2.4 million, or about 60 percent. This is largely attributable to our pesticide use on massive scale. According to Greenpeace, scientists have discovered over 150 different pesticides within granules of pollen, and major corporations like Bayer and DuPont “shrug their shoulders at the systemic complexity, as if the mystery were too complicated. They advocate no change in pesticide policy. After all, selling poisons to the world’s farmers is profitable.”

Do your part to protect our pollinators. Maintain a bee-friendly yard with no pesticides. Leave the dandelions in your yard, as they are emerging bees’ first spring snack. Purchase organic produce when you can, and work to secure better access for others, especially those in food apartheids. Support an American ban on neonicotinoids, a particularly deadly class of pesticides that’s already banned in the European Union and which may be responsible for the deaths of up to up to a third of U.S. beehives. Be on the lookout for stunned bees like Dandelion in early spring, and leave out shallow bowls of water (filled with rocks) for them and other insects.

Despite their (endearing) dive-bombing and deck-destroying proclivities, bees give us life—so let’s preserve theirs.

The Story of a Little June Bug and the Woman Who Saved Him

This is a story about a little green bug—and the woman who saved his life.

In the summer of 2018, Sherrie Carter had offered up her beautiful beach home on Buckroe Beach in Hampton, Virginia, as she frequently did, to a group of volunteers from the local VegFest for a pool party. That evening, as we laughed and said our goodbyes in the front parking lot, my eye caught a glinting green beetle struggling in a spider web—the predator with her menacing fangs just inches away, preparing to descend on her new meal.

I couldn’t take it, the horror of this feast. I swept in and scooped the little beetle out of harm’s way and gently set him down in the bushes, hoping the spider would find a new victim to sustain herself when I wasn’t there to witness it. I know—we shouldn’t interrupt nature, good, bad, or ugly—but that’s who I am. The suffering overcomes me.

Later that night, the beetle had somehow managed to climb all the way up onto Sherrie’s second-floor deck and was waiting for her with a broken wing, unable to fly. Of course, within moments, the beetle was in a Tupperware with a capful of water and some fruit in Sherrie’s kitchen, because that’s who Sherrie was: she couldn’t ever turn her back on a problem, or on someone in need.

Sherrie quickly updated me with a barrage of pictures, showing the little June bug—whom we immediately and fittingly named June after the daunting, fearless protagonist of our shared favorite show The Handmaid’s Tale—in his new little home. Climbing branches, devouring blueberries, nestling among leaves. Deprived of his wings from the damage of the spider’s web, he could not survive outdoors ever again. Alongside her four felines, he would be Sherrie’s forever companion.

Pretty soon, June Bug got an upgrade: a full aquarium from the pet store. For the entire summer, Sherrie documented his progress, frequently sharing photos with me about how proud she was of the little bug who somehow climbed an entire story after losing his flight. His perseverance, his will to live, all encapsulated in such a tiny body. To most, he was just an annoying June bug, swarming in the light of our porches on warm summer nights. But behind his dazzling emerald shell, Sherrie saw so much more. To Sherrie, he was brave, determined, a survivor. He was a voracious eater whose favorite food was blueberries. He was an individual. To Sherrie, every little being was remarkable, worthy, important.

I promised her I’d write a story about little June on my blog, where I share true and remarkable animal stories with the world, but between life and moving and chores and my potbellied pig who enjoys biting holes in my drywall for fun, I never did.

And as the sweltering summer gave way to the September breeze, June Bug, as nature had always intended, finally left this Earth. Sherrie kept his little shelled body, his exoskeleton, on her condo mantle in remembrance. She shed tears. I did too.

On January 2, 2021, after an illness, Sherrie joined him, leaving me and all of those who knew her with more tears and a giant hole in our hearts. That month, as I opened her computer and begin the arduous process of digging through her files trying to make sense of what I had lost, I found a gold mine: an entire folder dedicated to June Bug, with dozens upon dozens of photographs. It was time to write.

To understand Sherrie’s remarkable relationship with such an insect, you only had to know Sherrie for a moment. I knew her for almost 13 years. As I was winding down my college career and simultaneously discovering the horrors we inflict upon the beings with whom we share our world—from dismal factory farms to barren zoo cages and bathtub-sized pools confining magnificent orcas—I plunged into the world of activism, aching for a better world. It was then, through the newly hatched advocacy group Richmond Friends of Animals, that Sherrie and I joined forces.

We attended dozens and dozens of demonstrations together over the years and plotted alongside other group members how we could overthrow the evil powers-that-be, or at least put the wicked proprietors of Alan Furs out of business. Sherrie, several other activists, and I soon became penpals of sort, emailing and texting day in and day out about our trials and tribulations of life between our monthly protests and vegan potlucks. I learned of Sherrie’s incredible heartbreaks one after another—her mother, her brother, her father, her cat Boogie (who chased balls like a puppy and suspended himself from the back door window to watch the comings and goings), her dog Jack (whom she’d plucked from a filthy hoarder disguised as a rescue operation and whisked off to the vet to have an enormous abscess removed). Yet Sherrie persevered, just like June Bug. She showed up with a smile on her face, refusing to let the ache swallow her whole.

In 2010, Sherrie was named one of Allen and Allen’s 100 Hometown Heroes for her work in animal rescue and advocacy and was presented her award at the local baseball stadium. She made no fanfare of it—that’s who she was. She was always bailing out shelter dogs from high-kill areas like Rome, Georgia, funneling funding to their medical care and even helping transport them to safety. On her computer, I’d later find files and files of folders and spreadsheets documenting the hundreds of donations and animals she’d saved.

One day last fall, I got a flood of texts from Sherrie. She’d liberated two lobsters from the grocery store because she couldn’t bear to watch them alone in that tank, awaiting their fate of being boiled alive (disclaimer: please don’t repeat this; though Sherrie’s heart was pure, her money was, of course, just going to fund their replacements in that tank). The previous year, I had conducted a lobster rescue of the great Lawrence von Croydon and released him into the Atlantic, and Sherrie wanted to do the same. Of course, being Sherrie, she leapt into action. I walked her through how to release the two crustaceans safely, all while she filled my phone with expletives about how cruelly they had been wrapped up like produce. Sherrie was nothing if not passionate about her compassion.

Like that clawed pair, so many of us owe our lives to Sherrie.

About six years ago, Sherrie started calling me her daughter. We, of course, had our own families—me with my parents in Hawaii and her with her grown step-kids—but both of us were physically distanced from our families. After both of our divorces, we were two women on our own, forging our uncertain paths forward. That shared purpose, that surrogate familial bond, meant the world to me. Sherrie was the person I called late at night as I cried lonely tears. She was the one who doled out financial advice and reminded me that I could carry on despite my doubts and insecurities. Honestly, I can’t imagine where I’d be today had I not had her by my side through several years of hardship. She was always there, without fail, for me, and for countless others—even when it took a ginormous toll on herself.

I think back about the burden she carried for me, and others, who needed her. I wish now more than anything we could all tell her how much it meant, and tell her it’s okay to rest easy now. But I know it was what she felt compelled to do with her life—to help, to serve—just like she helped June Bug.

In her final months, Sherrie and her four cats took to the road in her new RV, and she told me often that she was living her dream, like pioneer woman in Barbie dreamhouse. After years of giving and serving, Sherrie found her path, a way to nurture her own soul the way she nurtured countless others’ who crossed her path.

Managing her estate has been straining, draining, impossible. It is the futile attempt at wrapping up a life unfinished with a neat little bow. It is the water over a gas-fueled flame, a fire that yearns to keep breathing warmth into everything it touches.

So when I cry, when I want to shut down, I pull out the postcard I found in her RV, which features two prancing puppies alongside the text: “If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time, not tomorrow or next year… Today should always be our most wonderful day.” -Thomas Dreier

Sherrie will continue breathing life into us all for years to come, to help us make each day the most wonderful day.

These Cockatiels Found Their Paradise

It took a lot of courage to let them go. But it was easy to set them free. And if I ever doubt that it was the right thing to do, I just whisper to myself these words of the late, great Maya Angelou: “The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still, and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.”

Her words, a metaphoric reflection on oppression, remind me that we all seek it–that elusive freedom–and few truly attain it. Yet, as Ms. Angelou once said, “The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.”

*

I was about 12 years old when a pair of cockatiels fell into my home. They’d been used as some sort of children’s educational act, but once their mysticism had faded, they had been relegated to a cage and left to their own devices.

So he, a gregarious grey and white bird with a permanent smirk deceptively etched into his feathered face, had taken to grooming her… And grooming her… And grooming her. Endlessly–until she, once a sleek white-feathered maiden, had morphed into more of a turkey, bald-headed but still irresistibly adorable.

They were soul mates, serenading one another under the sunrise every morning and huddling together for bed under the moonlight.

Then, suddenly, she was gone. Teflon, we concluded–the coating on the pan that cooked our pancakes every morning. A stray whiff of the fumes must have killed her. We hadn’t known it was poison. We were devastated.

He was devastated. He sang for her, day in and day out. A sad, shrill, eternal song–an empty song.

We had to do something, so we did what seemed logical: We drove to the pet store, and we bought another: a lone female, who had already been discarded once and returned to the store. Grey, fiery, full of sass–she was mean and miserable.

Had we known then that almost a third of wild parrot species are classified as threatened because of habitat destruction and capture for the pet trade, according to the Animal Welfare Institute, perhaps we would have done it differently. Had we known that breeders often mass-produce birds in filthy, crowded conditions much like puppy mills, perhaps we would have done it differently. Had we realized that these birds are never truly domesticated and will always be wild animals–born to fly free–yes, we just might have done it differently.

From day one, she hissed. She wanted very little to do with us. But he was a different story.

His eyes shone once more, and his song became bright again. Slowly but surely, her walls crumbled. She began to nestle up to him. And over the years, they became completely inseparable, each shining a light into the darkness that had overtaken both of their souls in the aftermath of abandonment.

But he proved that some habits die hard, as he didn’t delay in grooming her in the same way as her predecessor, replacing her shiny grey plumage with a bare pink skull.

I went to college, and I came home. And then I left again, flying off into the adult world. But they stayed. And upon my return, I always was greeted by his sweet song and that silly smile and reminded of her elegant aloofness.

The day came when it was time for my parents to make their ultimate move: to the Big Island of Hawaii. En route, tragedy struck when their beloved cockatoo, Lilah, passed away after a series of unforgivable oversights by the airline, airports, and transport company that resulted in him being denied water and food for hours on end. The guilt and loss for my family were crushing and raw. And in those moments, it was quite clear that Willie and Lucy, the bonded cockatiel pair, were not destined to follow my parents to paradise.

Back in Virginia, my wife and I had temporarily taken in the duo, alongside our menagerie of dogs, rabbits, fish, and a potbellied pig. But flight was limited in their small room, and for them, life had to be about much more than fleeting moments of flapping back and forth between the ceiling fan and their cage.

“A free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wing in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky,” wrote Maya Angelou.

We had known about the nearby Project Perry, also referred to as the Central Virginia Parrot Sanctuary and supported by game show host Bob Barker, for a while. With a mission to “provide exceptional natural environments for [its] residents where they can enjoy the enrichment of flight and the togetherness of flock with excellent care provided by a dedicated team of staff and volunteers,” the sanctuary is working to tackle the massive, growing problem of unwanted captive wild birds–often rejected for being too loud, too unruly, too disruptive–essentially, too wild.

Fortunately, Willie and Lucy were accepted into the sanctuary’s selective “Lifetime of Care” program, in which they could live out the rest of their days in a beautiful aviary with dozens of companion cockatiels and parakeets and surrounded by lush greenery. And while they would not be leaving my family in spirit–we’d continue to provide financial support for their care and be able to visit whenever we liked–their physical absence still pained me.

I wept in the silence after their songs had stopped.

Yes, it took strength to leave them there, but from the moment they climbed out of the carrier and took off in flight, I knew it was where they belonged–the closest habitat to their native Australia they’d ever reach.

I continued to visit when I could, and in the months of intermission, regular text updates and photos from sanctuary founder Matt Smith never failed to light up long, dreary days and weeks. Despite all the new fish in the sea, Willie and Lucy remained a bonded pair, never venturing far from one another.

On my visits, I noticed that they stopped flying down to greet me. They often sat together, perched near the roof of the aviary, surveying their surroundings. But still, he sang that familiar song, and through it I heard peace.

It stung, but I realized they didn’t need me–and that recognition was the biggest gift I could have given them. They were free, and they thrived.

Very recently, Matt solemnly notified me that Lucy had passed away peacefully in his hands, warm and comfortable–loved. By my estimates, she would have been more than 20 years old. I sighed, and then I wept–but inside I knew: this was the perfect ending to her story.

Then I began to worry for Willie. Would that desperate song emerge once more, with sorrowful cries into the night?

But my fears were quelled when my phone buzzed and a 10-second video appeared. In it, Willie and another bird, like two schoolkids on the playground, pecked happily together at the seeds around their feet.

“Maybe he’s on a millet-eating date,” read Matt’s accompanying text.

I just laughed, and I knew then that in that aviary, Willie’s soul had finally been set free. In there, he could heal, and he could truly live.

You can help: Exotic birds need you. Head on over to Project Perry’s page to learn how you can support the sanctuary’s life-saving work!

Monarch Caterpillars - The Every Animal Project

Why Are Millions of These Caterpillars So Hungry?

(By Laura Lee Cascada / Photos by Alysoun Mahoney)

These caterpillars sure are hungry. And they’ve struck gold, munching their way through an all-you-can-eat milkweed buffet. But many others aren’t so lucky.

On a beautiful plot of land in Virginia, these two were seen plumping themselves up, preparing to blossom into the striking orange-and-black butterflies we know as monarchs. And after emerging in adult form, they, along with tens of millions of others, are likely embarking on a long flight down to Mexico this month. Monarchs, the only species of butterfly that completes a round-trip migration like birds do, use air currents and thermals to navigate the arduous journey. In Mexico, among forests of oyamel fir trees, they will spend winter, conserving their energy for the long migration–often thousands of miles–back home to the eastern United States in early spring so that they can lay their eggs.

If they can lay their eggs.

This summer, the Chicago Tribune reported that monarch butterfly populations were continuing to spiral downward, as they have for the last 20 years. And Karen Oberhauser, co-chair of Monarch Joint Venture and a University of Minnesota professor, noted that this year’s monarch numbers seemed to be only half those of last year. But why?

Monarch Caterpillars - The Every Animal ProjectThere simply isn’t enough milkweed to go around. Milkweed provides crucial nutrition for growing larvae–caterpillars–and it’s the only plant on which female monarchs can lay their eggs. Without it, monarchs are doomed.

Since the mid-1990s, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the use of herbicide-tolerant soy and corn crops has grown so much that they now comprise nearly 90 percent of all agricultural area. With the increase in such crops comes greater herbicide use by farmers, in turn decimating milkweed plants that had taken root between endless rows of cornstalks.

So it’s no surprise that area of the winter safe haven occupied by monarchs has been shrinking since the mid-1990s, as well–once at 45 acres, and in 2014, not even 3 acres, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

But a growing movement of monarch enthusiasts is working hard to buck this trend, creating vital milkweed habitat for the vibrant butterflies. In 2013, as part of this national effort, Virginia resident Alysoun Mahoney–whose home has provided refuge over the years for dogs, cats, and even her three rescued horses–started planting milkweed around her property. The monarchs immediately took advantage of the open-house invitation and moved right in.

This year, Alysoun reported seeing a female monarch each day for 10 consecutive days in August on a single cluster of milkweed plants right outside her kitchen window. Later in the month, there were dozens of eggs and even some caterpillars. By September, there were dozens of caterpillars, who then demolished the leaves on those plants. Alas, a food shortage seemed inevitable.

Monarch Butterfly - The Every Animal ProjectAlysoun notes that generally, she prefers to “provide appropriate habitat and then let Mother Nature take over from there.” But this time, she “couldn’t help but tinker with Mother Nature just a tiny bit.” She quickly cut some milkweed stalks from a nearby field and watched as the caterpillars took over their new food supply within a matter of hours.

So Alysoun continued looking after them for several days, replenishing their milkweed meals as needed until they entered the pupal stage, just days or weeks away from metamorphosing into full-fledged monarch butterflies.

Now, with Mexico on the horizon, we bid these–and millions of other–young monarchs bon voyage and farewell, and hope that when they return, they’ll be met with fields abounding with milkweed. You can help these majestic butterflies complete their journey and bring the next generation of monarchs into the world by planting milkweed in your own community.*

*If you have companion animals, please use caution in selecting locations to plant your milkweed, as it can be quite toxic if ingested.