Bees are eating Lichfield Cathedral. It sounds like science fiction, but it is science fact…
The vandals are masonry bees, of which there are nearly 20 species in Britain. Who’d have thought it? Normally they do little harm, as readers have reported in the Telegraph letters page (July 26). But Lichfield cathedral is built of soft old sandstone, which crumbles like cheese. The bees take advantage of exfoliating stone, and where one lays her eggs, others are attracted. Their little mandibles can burrow a system of galleries, and the holes fill with water, which freezes in winter, splitting the stone, and providing yet more desirable residences for bees.
@ Telegraph
Bonus — worst poem ever!
Some say the world will end in birds,
Some say in bees.
From what I’ve seen of pigeon turds
I hold with those who favor birds.
Unless our doom provider
Is a gaping, great black hole
Opened by the Large Hadron Collider
To swallow all
Birds, bees, and poetizer.