Happy Valentine's Day! St. Valentine was, according to wikipedia, the patron saint of "Affianced couples, against fainting, beekeepers, happy marriages, love, plague, [and] epilepsy". https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/curious-fact-of-the-week-saint-valentine

I'm gonna focus on #bees and #beekeeping, because bees are cool. 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🐝 🍯

I'll try to keep photos and details cw'd in this thread out of respect for apiphobic folks; please let me know if I mess up though!

They communicate and dance and can be trained to recognize individual human faces! https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/i-asked-leading-entomologists-whats-the-smartest-bug-in-the-world

Being social is really hard when you're a bug with only a million neurons, probably, but they communicate complex locations and build big structures and have legit insect societies

Bees' color vision range is different from ours--reds aren't as visible to them but they can see way further into ultraviolet range than we can. http://www.beeculture.com/bees-see-matters/

When a bee's looking for a flower they use their AMAZING EYES to see SUPER FAINT blue rings that direct them to flowers https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/10/the-secret-blue-halo-of-flowers/543228/

They also have compound eyes??? but that stuff gives me a headache

Bees use the HAIRS on their TONGUES to drink up nectar http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/inkfish/2015/01/13/bees-drink-with-expandable-mop-tongues/#.WoRAy5M-cci

Like all insects they have mouthparts (yes, that is the official general name for the bits that help with the nomnom and i will never be over it) and six legs and wings and all that shit. Sometimes they have hairy legs, just like me, but my hairs are for insulation and their hairs are for pollen-carrying