Bee-Blur(b): a song for World Bee Day

Monday 20th May 2019 is World Bee Day, and to celebrate, the Plant-Animal Interactions Research Group are launching this tribute to bumblebees (and Blur), much loved by members of the group… Please sing along to the tune of Blur’s Country House (Note we added an extra verse)…

 

And so the the story bee-gins
Mouse hole dweller, a pheromone smeller
Thought to herself whoah I’ve got a lot of honey
Feeeeeding my colony, undergrouuuund

I’m an egg-laying queen but I’m bored of the scene
I’m living life like a reproductive machine
Waaaaaanna get out and – fly arouuuuuuuund
It’s more her thing, a life on the wing!

She lives in a hole, a very cramped hole in the soiiiil
Watching baby bumbles hatch and the food she can snatch in the soiiiil
She wants to go above ground, smell flowers, fly around, above the soiiil
She’s gotta escape, into the landscape, above the soiiil

She’s out in the sun, foraging, having fun

Everything going brilli-unt

In touch with her own sense of libertyyyy

She’s checking out whitethorn, bumbling round blackthorn
Can’t stop cause it makes her feel wonderfully buzzed
Oh it’s a queen bee’s remedy

But hang on guys…. there’s pesticiiiiiiiiides!

NO!!!

She’s back in the hole, a very cramped hole in the soiiil…
There’s poison in her chest so she needs a lot of rest, in the soiiiil
She can’t drink eat lay, she’s wasting away, under the soiiil
She’s come to some harm on that bloody farm, above the soiiil

She’s got disease, it’s gory, and life’s a different story
Everything’s going wrong in the colony
Touched by their own mortality

They’re eating pollen, knocking back nectar
It’s laced with pesticides and second’ry metabolites
Oh it’s a apical parody
For the little bee
A new larvae, in the colony…

She lives in a hole, a very cramped hole in the soiiil
Laying eggs all the time, trying to stay alive, in the soiiil
Fighting hunger and disease, poisoning – poor bees! – in the soil
Oh, it’s insect hellscape, in agricultural landscapes, in the soil

Under the soiiiil (do do doooo)
Under the soiiiiiiiil (do do doooo)
Under the soiiiiiiiiiiiillll (do do DOOOOOO do DOOOOOOOOOOO)

Buzz, oh buzz off I am so sad, I don’t know why
Buzz, oh buzz off I am so sad, I don’t know why

(REFRAIN) She lives in a hole, a very cramped hole in the soiiil
Laying eggs all the time, trying to stay alive, in the soiiil
Fighting hunger and disease, poisoning – poor bees! – in the soil
Oh, insects are banned on agricultural land, above the soil

 

Words by Hannah Hamilton and (less so) Jane Stout.