Re: Details are fuzzy

You forgot to mention that the police station is a hive of activity.

@"the bees as "very unique""

There's a lot of different types of bees. They could be some rare variation on a honey bee or some related type that are or are not affected in the same way honey bees are effected to various toxins etc..

We often think of just honey bees, but there's literally tens of thousands of different types of bees and some of them don't even look like a typical bee, some look like strange wasps & flies etc.. Some don't even live in hives, some are not even social pack like animals, some don't even sting. (Although I hope they stole some of the stronger stinging kinds that get pissed off at being moved around rapidly and then escape in their van). Anyway there's a lot of different types of bees.

(About a year ago I had the chance to speak to a couple of bee research scientists and they said estimates of the numbers of different types of bees are at least 20000 types and perhaps as many as up to 30000 different types of bees. Its a huge research area and a lot more complex than it would at first appear).

These thieving Narcissistic bastards who stole these research hives, are sick pathetic worthless rejects, that society doesn't need and that's the best way to treat them when locking them up for a long time, as it'll cut deepest into their otherwise arrogant personas.

Tens of thousands?

"They could be some rare variation on a honey bee or some related type that are or are not affected in the same way honey bees are effected to various toxins etc..

We often think of just honey bees, but there's literally tens of thousands of different types of bees and some of them don't even look like a typical bee, some look like strange wasps & flies etc.."

Steady on there - I think you are getting ahead of yourself. If they lived in hives (how else were they stolen - or sold on?) - they were pretty surely one of the breeds of honey bees - a.k.a. 7 species or 44 subspecies in the genus Apis. That is if we are really generous and include all sorts of honey bees from around the world - a lot of which are really unlikely to survive in the UK weather in the first place.

More likely they are one of the breeds (not species) of Apis Melifera - the European honey bee we all know and love (well, maybe just know).

Apis Melifera

@xj25vm: "More likely they are one of the breeds (not species) of Apis Melifera"

Well we can't be sure it was Apis Melifera (European honey bees) and "Connolly described the bees as "very unique"" which strongly suggests it wasn't Apis Melifera.

Plus it would make a lot of sense to test wider varieties of bees to see if any of them have genes that protect them, that are missing in European honey bees, which would allow them to find new ways to help the bees or even perhaps lead to the creation of new honey bees with greater protection.

Bees

Well - that's still a long way from "tens of thousands". Most non-Apis bees don't even live in colonies large enough to be worth the bother. The absolute majority of honey bees kept in colonies around the world (and that includes the ones outside Apis Melifera/European honey bee) are well within the 50 species mark and the Apis family.

Honey Bees under threat

For various reasons, the common honey bee is under great pressure - numbers have fallen drastically over most of the world - and without resident bees or a rent-a-hive ready-to-hand, it's hard to get your crops pollinated. For that reason alone, a few hives would be worth swiping.