Dream #34
— January 14, 2026 at 5:30 am
Limerick
There once was a bee from Lapland so keen
Who built coins bi-metallic and clean
But Panucci's left foot
Kicked the tithe barn's old loot
While Podge scared the playground obscene
Who built coins bi-metallic and clean
But Panucci's left foot
Kicked the tithe barn's old loot
While Podge scared the playground obscene
Haiku
Mount Hermon battle—
A mining bee pollinates
The matte painter's dream
A mining bee pollinates
The matte painter's dream
What If
What if the strategic elevation advantages that made Mount Hermon militarily significant in 1973 could be applied to understanding the territorial behavior of Andrena lapponica mining bees, where individual nest sites function as contested high ground in a microscale geography of resource competition?
Feasibility Assessment
Based on my search of the relevant research literature, I can now assess this speculative hypothesis about applying military strategic concepts from Mount Hermon in 1973 to understanding territorial behavior in Andrena lapponica mining bees.
**Assessment:**
This hypothesis faces significant conceptual and empirical challenges. All Andrena are ground nesting, solitary bees that do not form colonies like honey bees, making the military "contested high ground" analogy problematic from the outset. While Andrena nest close by one another, sometimes forming collective populations numbering in the tens of thousands and often nest in aggregations, sometimes with the nest entrances exceedingly close together, current research indicates these aggregations are driven by habitat preferences rather than territorial competition.
The existing literature shows that ground cover features, soil texture, and soil temperature are major habitat characteristics influencing nest site selection, with steeper slopes and surrounding flower cover positively related to nest numbers. However, there's no evidence of individual nest sites functioning as "contested high ground" or strategic elevation advantages being important to these bees. Reproductive success was not affected by distance to other colonies but by availability and characteristics of nesting resources.
**Key obstacles include:** The fundamental mismatch between solitary bee behavior and military territorial concepts, lack of evidence for elevation-based competition in Andrena species, and the current understanding that nesting site selection is primarily driven by physical habitat characteristics rather than strategic positioning. Required breakthroughs would need to demonstrate actual territorial competition between individual females over specific nest sites based on topographical advantages - something not supported by current behavioral ecology research on mining bees.
**PLAUSIBILITY rating: [Physically Implausible]**
The hypothesis conflates human military strategy with insect behavior in ways that contradict established understanding of solitary bee ecology and nesting behavior.
**Assessment:**
This hypothesis faces significant conceptual and empirical challenges. All Andrena are ground nesting, solitary bees that do not form colonies like honey bees, making the military "contested high ground" analogy problematic from the outset. While Andrena nest close by one another, sometimes forming collective populations numbering in the tens of thousands and often nest in aggregations, sometimes with the nest entrances exceedingly close together, current research indicates these aggregations are driven by habitat preferences rather than territorial competition.
The existing literature shows that ground cover features, soil texture, and soil temperature are major habitat characteristics influencing nest site selection, with steeper slopes and surrounding flower cover positively related to nest numbers. However, there's no evidence of individual nest sites functioning as "contested high ground" or strategic elevation advantages being important to these bees. Reproductive success was not affected by distance to other colonies but by availability and characteristics of nesting resources.
**Key obstacles include:** The fundamental mismatch between solitary bee behavior and military territorial concepts, lack of evidence for elevation-based competition in Andrena species, and the current understanding that nesting site selection is primarily driven by physical habitat characteristics rather than strategic positioning. Required breakthroughs would need to demonstrate actual territorial competition between individual females over specific nest sites based on topographical advantages - something not supported by current behavioral ecology research on mining bees.
**PLAUSIBILITY rating: [Physically Implausible]**
The hypothesis conflates human military strategy with insect behavior in ways that contradict established understanding of solitary bee ecology and nesting behavior.
Sources:
ANDRENA MINING BEES
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Andrena - Wikipedia
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Andrenid Bees (Miner Bees) | Missouri Department of Conservation
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Pollinator Partnership Spotlight Pollinator Profile: Mining Bees (Andrena sp.)
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MIning Bees: Genus Andrena | The Great Sunflower Project
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Andrena: The Mining Bees Keeping Backyard Bees
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Mining Bees on the Wing | BYGL
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Mining Bees - The Genus: 'Andrena' And Species Within ...
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Family Andrenidae - Miner, Fairy, Allied Panurgine, and Oxaeine Bees - BugGuide.Net
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Collection: Andrena (mining bees)
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(PDF) Spatial nesting patterns in a Neotropical stingless bee community: do bees compete for food?
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(PDF) Role of nesting resources in organising diverse bee communities in a Mediterranean landscape
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Beneath the buzz: Quantifying nest locations and densities of ground‐nesting wild bees (Hymenoptera: Anthophila) - Hellerich - 2025 - Methods in Ecology and Evolution - Wiley Online Library
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Wasps and Bees: Coexisting in a Complex Social Hierarchy - Beekeeper Corner
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Competition between honey bees and wild bees and the role of nesting resources in a nature reserve | Request PDF
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Environmental factors influencing ground-nesting bee communities in an urban landscape: implications for conservation | Urban Ecosystems
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Altitude acts as an environmental filter on phylogenetic composition, traits and diversity in bee communities | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
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Ground-nesting bees prefer bare ground areas on calcareous grasslands - ScienceDirect
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Role of nesting resources in organising diverse bee communities in a Mediterranean landscape - Potts - 2005 - Ecological Entomology - Wiley Online Library
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Competition between honey bees and wild bees and the role of nesting resources in a nature reserve | Journal of Insect Conservation