The Wave: Bees Do It! Why Can't We?

According to LiveScience Staff Writer Clara Moskowitz, and a new scientific study, bees actually do the wave!

Apparently, giant honeybees are known to flip their bellies up en masse to create a giant wave called a shimmer, somewhat akin to humans rhythmically throwing their hands in the air in a wave at a football game.

I’m not what you’d call a football fan (though I do enjoy watching games), but the “wave" efforts I’ve witnessed lately—at both professional and college football games—are just not that impressive anymore.

That said, nothing is more pathetic than a wave attempt at an NHL game. Then again, hockey and its 18,000-odd fans probably shouldn’t be authorized to execute this maneuver. You need the sheer volume of fans that only a football (or European soccer) game can muster. (Besides, we hockey fans are too busy trying to get the waiter’s attention at the platinum lounge to engage properly.)

So the hot sports question is: Is the wave dying?

And, if bees can do the wave, how is it that a race of beings with our brain size can screw up such a simple trick?

Admittedly, some football fans are sporting an abdomen with the same proportionate size as a bumble bee’s, but that doesn’t quite explain the lackluster waves of the new millennium.

Could it be that—dare I say it—the tide has finally gone out on the wave? (Ouch!)

Have we, as sports fans, finally waved goodbye to this old tradition? (Ouch, ouch.)

Or have we simply gotten less intelligent than bees and forgotten how to do it?

(Nah...that’s crazy-talk. It’s just too simple...hmmm.)

It must be that we’re just to individual. We don’t share the collective consciousness that bees do. We argue over whom the quarterback should be, even though we all love our team.

All bees, for instance, agree that Tony Romo should be the quarterback for the Cowboys this year (and that he should date Jessica Simpson), but they also agree that if he blows many more first-round playoff games, they will sting him to death for the good of the team/hive.

Sports fans are not so definitive. Therefore, doing something as simple as the wave becomes infinitely more complicated for us.

“Should I rise now? Or will I spill my beer/nachos? Will I be the only one in my section to stand and end up looking like a wiener?”

So many things to consider...Then—whammo—the wave has passed your section. Hey, it’s understandable.

Still, as Moskowitz points out, the bees' wave isn't for recreation, but rather protection, a way to save their lives. Where as with us, the only life at stake here is that of the wave itself.