{"id":22311,"date":"2017-01-21T11:34:17","date_gmt":"2017-01-21T15:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=22311"},"modified":"2017-01-21T11:38:51","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T15:38:51","slug":"enormous-bees-controversy-erupts-over-the-skies-of-poughkeepsie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2017\/01\/21\/enormous-bees-controversy-erupts-over-the-skies-of-poughkeepsie\/","title":{"rendered":"Enormous Bees, Controversy Erupts Over the Skies of Poughkeepsie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Killer Bee Invasion is a satirical series written by David A Banks and Britney Summit-Gil that\u00a0explores the way news media\u00a0outlets cover major events. (Read Part 1<\/a>)<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Poughkeepsie \u2013 A rift has opened up approximately 80 miles north of New York City, the Times<\/em> has learned. According to reports from the Poughkeepsie Journal <\/em><\/a>and eyewitnesses in the area, a disturbance described by some as a \u201cshimmer\u201d formed, followed by a deep black spot in the northern sky. It is from this black spot that the bees, which are estimated to be between 10 to 12 feet long, have emerged.<\/p>\n

Previous reports claimed that the bees were \u201cten to twelve feet in height, including black, shining stingers around two feet long.\u201d New observations by National Guard officers now indicate that the bees are ten to twelve feet in height from head to thorax, with their massive gleaming stingers adding an additional two feet to their overall length.<\/p>\n

Lieutenant Colonel Stephen P. Grianno of the United States Air Force leads the squadron dispatched to the rift. \u201cAs of right now we are working with intelligence agencies and reaching out to exobiologists for help in ascertaining the threat these bee-like creatures pose to Americans,\u201d he said over the phone.<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cRight now we are taking a wait and see approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

As of 4:00PM Saturday the death toll is estimated to be 200, but local officials suspect more deaths have occurred. One city official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, stated that \u201cmany more, perhaps thousands\u201d of people have been killed by the bee creatures.<\/p>\n

The city official added, \u201cI mean just look at the things. Who knows if they leave anything behind once they sting you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exobiologists are concerned that humans may be unintentionally taunting the other-worldly visitors by wearing bright colors and standing in what Dr. Emmerson Schafenham calls a, \u201cflower-like stance, with a slight swaying as if you are a delicate pistil growing out of a strong stem.\u201d A pistil is the central structure of the flower that receives pollen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese bees may come from a place where flowers are mammal-like creatures that must be caught and injected, unlike the more passive process that terrestrial bees use to pollenate plants.\u201d He alternatively suggested that stingers may be used as a means of communication or greeting in the bees\u2019 native culture. \u201cWe know little about their social structure, and these stingers may have a variety of uses beyond killing.\u201d Mr. Schafenham also added, \u201cThere\u2019s no playbook for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other researchers are more confident in their assessment of the creatures, some going so far as to name and classify the creatures. University of Wisconsin biologist Dr. Carol Frasche and her team has already begun a naming convention: \u201cWe are suggesting a parallel phylogeny wherein anything that comes through the rift be appended with an alt-<\/em> prefix to designate what we believe are their alternative universe origins.\u201d<\/p>\n

The scientific name for the giant honey bee is apis dorsata <\/em>and so Ms. Frasche and her team have taken to naming the aliens alt-apis. <\/em>They stop short, however, of being more specific. \u201cWe have not observed honey-producing behavior so we cannot classify them as dorsata<\/em> which is reserved for honey-producing species of the genus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alt-apis <\/em>may quickly become the preferred nomenclature as behavioral scientists such as Dr. Karl Masctrich of the University of Chicago note that calling these creatures \u201cgiant killer bees\u201d may be a self-fulfilling prophesy. \u201cBy approaching them as natural-born killers we may be ignoring their ability to communicate and even empathize.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to add, \u201cWe really need to understand alt-apis<\/em> before we rush to judgement. What has transpired so far may be nothing more than a very bad first impression. We have to understand the hardships these creatures went through and why they felt the need to rip a hole in space-time and invade our planet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lt. Colonel Grianno seems to agree, \u201cI took an oath to protect this nation from enemies foreign and domestic but first we have to be sure they are an enemy. Right now all we can say for certain is that they seem angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Killer Bee Invasion is a satirical series written by David A Banks and Britney Summit-Gil that\u00a0explores the way news media\u00a0outlets cover major events. (Read Part 1) Poughkeepsie \u2013 A rift has opened up approximately 80 miles north of New York City, the Times has learned. According to reports from the Poughkeepsie Journal and eyewitnesses in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1512,"featured_media":22075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[43107],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-killer-bee-invasion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/files\/2017\/01\/AfricanizedBee.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1512"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22315,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22311\/revisions\/22315"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}