I learned about bee sex yesterday, and every male that ever there was should be thankful that they are not a bee.

Step 1: Drone flies upside down in the air behind the Queen (you're thinkin "ooh, flying upside down is cool!" but wait....)
Step 2: Drone's butt EXPLODES to extend the mating apparatus to the Queen (you can actually hear it if you're close).
Step 3: Drone is dragged upside down through the air by the Queen until the sperm is all transferred and then his junk falls off and he drops to the ground
Step 4: Drone dies.

Sounds like fun eh? I giggled like a nutjob at the nerd humour the writers threw in that chapter. Honestly, it must have been a poor old prof writing at like 3am for a deadline and the editors left it in cuz they thought it was cute or something. I love science!

I also had an intense conversation with my dad on bee genetics. It's all very confusing, because unfertilized eggs = drones and fertilized eggs = females (queen or worker). So the recombination of genes gets all tricksy because the females end up having twice as much genetic information as the males. CRAZEH!

I'm actually really enjoying the course now. I love genetics and reproduction especially. They are so trippity weird.

If any of you have the book "The God Who May Be" by Richard Kearney I would like to borrow it. I've been looking for it since I heard the guy talk on CBC radio. There is a man who knows how to communicate!! He was exceptional!

Ok bedtime for Becca, but remember folks: no matter how bad things get, they could be worse. You could be a bee.