I know, I never said they were. I said they were worse than insects due to the fact they are a manifestation of hate.

http://cdn-www.cracked.com/articleim...sw7rxpdgnb.jpg

That could've been your pet salamander.

I don't like salamanders!

I love exotic pets. I want a ball python to call my own one day.
My family would always keep at least two pets. I think we once had six under one roof.
Here's all of them in order:

Paco - Shepherd/Collie Mix. Very well-behaved, smart, and friendly. Died of cancer.

Taxi - All white cat. Poisoned by our evil foreign neighbors who apparently think cats are the devil.

Gizmo - Siamese cat. Son of my grandmothers hell-spawn cat Sabrina. Lived for about 10 years before dying of feline diabetes.

Mao Mao - Black cat. Stray cat we took in as a kitten. The world's greatest cat hands down. Lovable, friendly, and very healthy. He went missing after we left him with a new owner before moving. Mom and I were devastated when we couldn't find him, but we take solace in the thought he's found a new family. He's about 12 now.

Buddy - Rescued Greyhound. Dumb and hyper. Was given away when we moved.

Baby Slick - Rescued Greyhound. Sweet and lovable. Lived a full life before we had her euthanized at 13 due to inoperable organ failure.

Fido - Dad's tortoise shell cat. Old, fat, and her meow sounds more like a frog croak. She has her moments of awesome, but generally embodies the infamous cat apathy.

Furball Jr. - Long-haired black cat. Son of Fido. Ran away when we moved to the city.

Froggy - A toad I found in a junkyard. He was missing a foot. I kept him in a terrarium for 10+ years, feeding him any bugs I could find. He died of old age, happy and well-fed.

Pico - Unknown mutt. Friendly, happy, but a bit of a schizo. We gave him away when we moved to a nice old man who takes good care of him. We visit him sometimes.

Joey - Ginger, long-haired cat. Whiny and skittish. We gave him to my cousin when we moved. As far as I know, he still lives with her.

Smudge - Mom's current dog, a "Chug" (chihuahua/pug mix). Mean to strangers, barks alot, hilariously rotund and out of shape.

Hermit Crabs - Over the years I've kept several nameless hermit crabs. A few of them have died. I currently have two, who seem to be in good health. Anyone who's kept hermit crabs knows that health is a crapshoot. One day they're fine, the next they're dead. These guys have held out for about 8 years so far.

Honeybee - Grey, striped cat with an orange diamond pattern on her forehead. Very sweet, but very needy and clingy. She lived with a doting old lady before we adopted her, so she was used to constant attention. We gave her to a family friend before moving.

Naww, I thought you kept an actual honey bee as a pet. Hah.

Just one? I cant imagine that would bode well.

I suppose not, two bees however, could start a family of there own, little beenut jr. and (in a bumble bees case) have fifty nine other little bundles of stinging joy.

Bees are soul-destroying sting tanks that fly.

No, you're thinking of wasps

I oughta neg rep you for that you well dressed bastard! I won't, but the principle is that I fell you deserve it Dixy! Yeh you deserve to feel bad!

I think I'm with Dix on this one. With bee hives in my yard I don't think I'll ever have the balls to go out my back door.

Balls of steel man, balls of steel. I love them so much though, so they don't bother me, also my garden is huge so they don't congregate beyond the orchard, quite a walk from my actual house.

Ugh, that isn't a salamander.

Thats a gecko. Hard to tell exactly what species when its fucking head is squashed like a berry.

A little late but

Not only are spiders not insects; millipedes and triopsies aren't either.

I assume you wear protective clothing, but can bees be tamed?

Bees can be tamed. With this...

http://www.searchamelia.com/wp-conte...10/02/raid.jpg

Perhaps not the most profitable way of doing so.

Right. Fight the cloud of insects with a cloud of poison. This makes sense.

I have a pair of cats, about 4 years old, named Cleo and Angel.

Cleo's a lanky, short-haired hyperactive little tortie who will give you the sweetest, most innocent look while she jumps on the counter and steals your lunch. Energetic, loves to play, but not to be held. She'll come up to you wile you're in the kitchen and start licking your legs, only to start chewing on them a moment later. She'll also pretend to get annoyed with you while you pet her just so she has an excuse to bat at you.

Angel is a little more laid back. She's Cleo's sister, but looks totally different; a long-haired, white, derpy little puffball who has taken a liking to cuddling up tightly against my left pectoral. When she was a kitten, she got really sick and I would cradle her against that very spot, so I guess that's kind of our thing now.

I raised them both from when their eyes opened and I love them more than words can express.

I used to treat our previous pets horribly. Those days are over. If I could go back and meet my younger self, I'd beat the living daylights out of myself, especially for tormenting my old dog Murray.

Murray was our dog- a border-collie mix with a golden coat. He was a good dog. Loyal, energetic, and he'd run away sometimes, but he meant well.

Looking back, it doesn't surprise me that he ran away as often as he did. I didn't realize when I was young how terrible some of the things I did to him were. I pushed him into the water a few times. He developed a phobia of water because of that. I dragged him along by his collar, I pulled at his tail, I actually bit him on the neck a few times. Hard.

He always flinched when I tried to pet him.

Like I said, if I could go back and meet the little shit I used to be, I'd cause a time paradox because I'd murder that fucker so quick...and take Murray.

And give him lots of dog treats, and treat him better than I ever did as a kid.

Murray passed away when he developed kidney problems. He always had problems throwing up, but they started to get worse, and... well, he passed on. That's the short and long of it- we watched Murray slowly worsen, and there came a time when euthanizing him was the most humane thing to do.

I'm finding it hard to fight back the tears as I type this.

We spread his ashes on an island beach called Boca Grande, where he loved to run. He'd chase seagulls all day if he could.

Sometimes it sucks being an atheist. I wish I could think he went to a better place.

I've had more pets, but I don't really have it in me to write any more. Poor, sweet Murray. I've learned a lot about how to take care of pets since we adopted Cleo and Angel. They've taught me a lot. I can't change the way I treated my pets as a kid, but I can make sure I never put another pet through that kind of treatment again.

two dogs, Shilo (the mother) and Midge (the pup), Midge isn't really a pup anymore, but he still acts like one. also four rats - Rufus, Mako, Orca and Mouse - that we found out the other day are all girls and not boys. once again, the meatheads at fucking Pets At Home didn't know what they were gabbling on about.

they're our rats, but Mako is definitely my rat. we get them out on the stairs and landing seeing as they can't get lost anywhere around there, my bedroom door being one of the doors on the landing. once, while they were out, i went into my room and shut the door behind me. Mako started jumping at my bedroom door like a little dog. she'd followed me up the stairs and was trying to get past the door. definitely mine, cute little thing.

I do wear an apiarist suit yes, and sometimes I wear washing up gloves, more to stop the feel of the bees running over my fingers than anything else, because I'm not so worried about being stung, more to the point that bees crawling around the inside of your clothes is psychologically quite worrying.

Bees cannot be 'tamed' their mentality does not allow for it however, they can be 'domesticated' in the sense that bees can bred to become calmer and have the ability to recognise faces, for example, if I took you to my apiary, they would be more worried of you than I because they are used to my visiting.

Wasps are parasitic harbingers of misery and depression. Some of them lay eggs on tarantulas and they hatch, and eat it's fucking brains.

Yum!

Pure wasps are far from parasitic, while I'm sure you wrote it because you like big words, they are a fully functioning colonial species and as such are reasonably self sufficient.

You mean common yellow jackets? Yes, they're not parasitic.

But they're invasive as fuck, getting in your face for no reason. I'll smash their fucking mandibles in.

Ehem...we don't get yellow jackets in the UK, that is a North American term...

I do hate wasps as well Dixy, they attack my bees.

Do you own them?

As in, thousands of little flies with venom-filled daggers for arseholes?

What's with the bees, STM? In a week, you've turned into some crazy bee guy.

I've kept bees for two years now and I am celebrating the fact that they survived the winter so remarkably when they nearly died out in February. Also Dixy, yes I own bees, 120,000 at the moment.

We should have a bee thread, then I could never look in it.

Like the drug thread.

So true.

And I'm sure all the bee discussion would remain neatly within that thread. Just like with the Anime thread, right?

Yes, I for one can't think of any anime discussion outside of an anime thread.

http://i54.tinypic.com/5pn2jc.jpg

"Inferno blow up, Waspinator must salvage. Waspinator blow up, nobody salvage! Why universe hate Waspinator?"

How often do you visit your bees? And more importantly how often are you stung?

STM gets off on Bees stinging his cock.

Such a classy lady you are, Strike Witch.

While reading this, it's interesting to see how some people seem not to know how important bees are. Love 'em or hate 'em, we need them to pollinate our food-producing plants, and to want to kill them means that you must love having a food shortage or love paying extortionate prices for your food. And this is why the declining bee population has people worried.

Hats off to STM - What he and other beekeepers are doing is incredibly important.

Of course I realise the importance of bees, that they are a necessary part most ecosystems in the world. Their significance, though, doesn't make getting stung by them any less painful.

Those little fuckers also give Elum a lot of shit.

Can you honestly tell me you didn't think the same thing as soon as the combination of this forum and bees came up?

Time to get the google zoophilia results up again!

You're right! I just Google searched this fine website and my favourite result was missing. :(