Dave Green wrote:
 
>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!
 
>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."
 
Hmmmm... and not even April Fool's day.  Well, I hope I'm not in danger of
blowing my cover by revealing that such bee-bee guns (Apistols) are still
the standard issue side-arm for us agents in Special Hymenopterations ;-)
(and have been ever since they first appeared in the first chapter or so
of Ray Bradbury's _Martian Chronicles_ (check your local library)... nothing
new under the sun, I suppose)
 
On a less frivolous note, the Tiv of Nigeria, during traditional
intertribal warfare, kept bees in special horns also containing powdered
poisons.  Thus dusted to increase the efficacy of their own venom the bees
would be released in the heat of battle to attack the Tiv's enemies (it is
not, however, recorded why the bees do not succumb to the poison themselves
nor how the bees distinguish between the Tiv and their foes.
 
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