When it’s hard to get along with other people, we should take a lesson from Animal Kingdom.
Especially an act of kindness by a group of ants that no one can explain.
It looks like the ants are throwing a funeral for a bumblebee.
The video shows a bumble bee sitting on some gravel with pinkish-purple flower petals all around it.
Then you see some petals coming closer and closer to the bee.
Then you realize that the flower petals are being carried to the dead bee by ants.
This video was taken outside of my work by the garden. There was a dead bumblebee and the ants were bringing flower petals to lay around him. It looked like some sort of bee funeral,
Nicole Webinger wrote on Facebook.
Webinger, who works in Stillwater, Minnesota, was shocked by the show.
The rest of the internet was shocked too.
Her video ended up going viral.
It doesn’t seem to be the first time some ants have held a funeral for a bee.
I have put Twitter back on my phone specifically to show you these circular arrangements of petals i found around multiple dead bees. if you are a scientist who knows what the hell is going on here, please tell me! pic.twitter.com/h3D8u89WxG
— sophie klahr (@sophieklahr) August 28, 2022
Sophia Klahr posted some photos to Twitter that showed yellow flower petals arranged in circles around a few dead bees.
I have put Twitter back on my phone specifically to show you these circular arrangements of petals i found around multiple dead bees. If you are a scientist who knows what the hell is going on here, please tell me!
she wrote in her post.
IFL Science says that the bees aren’t getting a “dignified send-off” from the ants.
Ants live in complex colonies and use a variety of pheromones to communicate. This can be for a walking trail, to alert other ants of danger, or even just to let them know they’ve died and everyone else should probably watch out for dying, too,
IFL Science writes.
“It figures, then, that they’d be sensitive to the chemical signaling of other animals.”
In the case of these dead bees, it’s not known why they died – but their corpses are likely sending the ants some kind of message, and so it’s possible their floristry is a response to this.
The bees could also be a meal for the ants.
It’s possible that the ants are trying to hide their food by putting flower petals over them.
The arrangement would therefore be less of a funerary practice and more like hiding takeout leftovers as a UFO (unidentified foiled object) in your dorm fridge to stop prying roommates from eating them.
Another idea is that the bees sent out a message telling the ants to clean up.
Ants like to clean, and they use necrophoresis to get rid of dead insects.
As an adaptation that lessens the spread of pathogens, necrophoresis sees the ants gather their smelly dead and carry them away to a dedicated tomb. Some colonies even have specialized undertaker ants for the job.
The bees could be doing the same job as the ants. Covering the body would keep it from drawing attention to itself.
Still, we think it’s funeral for ants.
See the funeral video down below.
