My brief foray into Hymenoptera
I'm staying at this old hotel (really old, I mean, it's Barton Fink old). There's a convention of the "National Honey Association" staying here, and I've been kinda interested in poking my head in to see the hardware. Apparently, it's mostly hive hardware, and chemicals for beekeeping.

Anyway, this morning I went down to the restaurant for their continental breakfast, and I was more or less seated with a bunch of beekeepers. Now, at 31, I'm probably the youngest person in the room by about 15-20 years. I'm dressed mostly in black, with a "Microprose" T-Shirt on. Of course, nobody in the room knows what Microprose is, so I think they are relating it to some type of bee chemical (Micropores?)

I think I was the subject of much speculation before one of the old men asks me, "So, what do you think of it so far?" I knew he was talking about the convention. I knew he had mistaken me for either a presenter or a beekeeper. The intelligent, mature thing to do would be for me to set him straight, and tell him that I had nothing to do with it.

I said, "Well, it's good stuff, but so far it won't work for my projects." In the back of my mind, my superego is giving my ego a sharp slap on the back of the head. One of the old man's eyebrows inches upward and he asks, "Really. Can I ask what you're working on?"

Now I realize that several people are watching. They think I'm a young upstart in the world of beekeeping. They think I have some new chemical or process that's cutting edge. Well, at least it's not too late to set the record straight.

"It's still in the early development stages, but we're working on a system for providing spider silk from our hives." Inside my mouth, I'm biting my lower lip.

"Really? Now how do you go about that?"

By now, I've given myself over to the lie, and the sci-fi writer in me starts coming out, "Well, you may have heard this past year about a genetically-engineered goat that secretes milk which can be processed into spider silk. My company's contention is that, what with insects arachnids being so much closer to insects than mammals, bees make a more direct route to spider silk. Genetically modified bees can be used to fill a hive with spider silk rather than honey."

Suddenly, it's like one of those E.F. Hutton commercials. Everybody's looking at me with the same slack-jawed acceptance of one who is currently out of their depth.

I'm well into my stride now, so I just plunge on, "As you know, spider silk is one of the strongest flexible materials made in nature. One of the most famous uses for spider silk is a bulletproof vest that weighs less than a tenth of a Kevlar vest." I pause for a moment and make sure that I'm nearly ready to leave, "One of the funny things about this project, the bees refused to produce spider silk exclusively. Despite genetic engineering, they fill one out of every three cells in the hive with honey. For the moment, we're just extracting the honey and storing it. Who knows, it may be considered a novelty item later. 'Honey made by spiders' or something like that." I smile at everyone, get up and leave.

I still don't know why I do that.


beekeeper, funny
- posted by BrandG @ 7:10 AM