Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 22:54:50 -0400 From: "Dave Green, Eastern Pollinator Newsletter" Subject: Using bees as weapons Some folks have noticed that a portion of my life has been missing. The secret research I did during the Viet Nam War has now been declassified, and I am free to tell the story. The powers-that-be have decided there is no further possibility of use for my work. I grew up in a vegetable producing area, and had gotten a job with a cannery. Then they added a new line of frozen food, which used a new technology called flash-freezing to preserve the quality. From the maintainance department, I was moved into the setup team for this new system. We dropped green peas through a blast of superchilled air, and they were frozen like a rock when they hit bottom. When they thawed, they tasted as if they had never been frozen. The technology is now in general use. I had access to the process equipment in the off-season, and did a lot of experimentation, some of which the company still holds patents for. But one of my best discoveries was that you could flash-freeze bees, and they would revive when they thawed. The process was so quick that the ice crystals never broke the cell membranes. I recalled how a distant kin of mine was a beekeeper in Missouri, when the territory was feuding over whether to be a free or slave state. He was not in agreement with his neighbors, and one day they came to burn him out. He had prepared about 50 bee gums into a circle around his home. When the raiding party approached, he calmly waited until they were near, then fired.......at his own bee gums. They left him alone after that. I kicked around an idea with a couple friends, that we could design a gun that would fire these rock-hard bees with no injury to them, and have them revive as they were hurled through the warm air. What a great weapon that would be! One of these friends had contacts in high places (of which I was unaware), and I had a couple of officers at my door that evening. They took me to a lab (I didn't even know where it was), and gave me all the equipment I wanted. I was never allowed to discuss this, even with my Mom and Dad. We (I was given a team of assistants) designed a gun that would rapid-fire a couple hundred bees. If these were lobbed into a foxhole on a warm day, the bees would revive en route and the enemy (theoretically) would run screaming from the hiding spot, to be picked off by our snipers. It was beautiful, and I was so proud of our accomplishment. The first shipment of guns and ammo went in refrigerated containers. But lack of understanding and care by the personnel en route, combined with the steamy tropical heat, allowed the bees to warm up a bit. They were usually still frozen but often not hard, when they were used. There were a couple times when they worked in spectacular fashion, but most of the time, they turned to mush and jammed up the guns. My attempt to contribute to the war effort, I guess, was basically a failure. The only lasting evidence of the great experiment is the popular saying among the GI's: "Many are chilled, but few are frozen." Pollinator@aol.com Dave Green, PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC 29554 Practical Pollination Home Page Dave & Janice Green http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html