For many civilizations, honey has been essential throughout history. Even today, honey is still sought after as a sweetener and as a beauty aid. While not a country many think of when they think of honey, the United Arab Emirates has organized its first honey festival where local beekeepers will showcase many varieties of natural…
Details
Farmers in the Kyauk Htet Village in Myanmar began noticing the wild bees living around them. “In the past, we only ate bee larvae and destroyed the natural bees’ nests in the forest to take out the honey, but after we attended a training course, we realized bees are beneficial insects,” said Zaw Myo Thein,…
Details
While many countries have been struggling to maintain their honey industry, Romania has increased its honey production enough to become the European Union’s largest producer. In 2015, Romania produced almost 40,000 tons of honey and 20,000 in 2014, with the second and third largest EU producers being Spain and Hungary, who brought in 32,200 and…
Details
During summer, honeybees are often looked at as pests. However, being a crucial part of agriculture and food supplies, honeybees are miraculous in and of themselves. Considering how important they are as pollinators, here are few things to know about honeybees that may surprise you. No Hibernation Instead of migrating or hibernating through winter months,…
Details
A recent study by a global agrochemical company, which concluded there was only a low risk to honeybees from the widely used popular pesticides neonicotinoids, has been called “misleading” in new research published by statisticians from Scotland’s University of St. Andrews. Neonicotinoids, also called neonics, may be implicated in honeybee losses and that of other…
Details
Honeybees have been serving as pollinators for millennia, and today they support a multi-billion dollar agriculture industry. However, honeybee health has never been more precarious. Misuse of pesticides, pests within the hive, and climate change are among the threats they face. Most honeybee populations in the U.S. and Europe are showing signs of stress—that is,…
Details
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) acknowledged that three of the nation’s most popular neonicotinoid pesticides pose risks to commercial honeybees. However, in a recent second decision, the agency refused to restrict the use of any deadly pesticides despite evidence of their harm to pollinators. The EPA analysis indicated that honeybees can be harmed by…
Details
A chemical that has widely been considered safe and used on various crops has been discovered to make honeybees susceptible to a deadly virus, as per researchers at Penn State and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “In the lab, we found that the commonly used organosilicone adjuvant, Sylgard 309, negatively impacts the health of honeybee…
Details
Aarey Milk Colony at Goregaon is home to one of the few Mumbai bee farms. Over 20 years ago, Johnson Jacob came to Mumbai from Tamil Nadu, one of the 29 states in India, to harvest bee colonies, hoping to produce honey as a hobby there as well. Today, Jacob is a 52-year-old beekeeper and…
Details
Pennsylvania honeybees are experiencing trouble as hives begin to deplete. “Statewide, we are holding our own, but we have to replace our bees frequently,” said Charlie Vorisek, president of the Pennsylvania State Beekeepers Association (PSBA) from 2012 to 2016. “We probably bring in over $1 million worth of honeybees from the south every spring to…
Details
The manager and two beekeepers of Fort York National Historic Site are facing a major loss after vandals stole their honey and destroyed several of their hives. Someone broke into three of seven hives to steal honeycombs before running off with the honey. The exposure to the winter cold left at least 46,000 bees dead.…
Details
Our favorite pollinators are helping a ministry teach hard work through the practice of beekeeping. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, at John 3:16 missionary, Beeloved Trading teaches individuals how to become beekeepers, with the mission occasionally using beekeeping to parallel biblical teachings. The products harvested, like their honey, are used to help support the mission and hopefully…
Details
A Guide to Bee Stings For someone who is not allergic to bee stings, it’s common to experience itching, redness, and swelling around the sting site, with it hurting for a few hours before subsiding. However, if someone is having an allergic reaction, he or she can have a more serious reaction by feeling faint…
Details
“We are 20 meters under Paris, and absolutely nothing comes to trouble us and my barrels. So, it’s the perfect place to grow mead,” says Audric de Campeau about a spot below the metro. De Campeau is an apiarist who uses his own honey to make mead or honey wine as it is sometimes called.…
Details
A small honey making business is making it easier for women in Yakawlang, Afghanistan to make money of their own and gain a sense of pride. In the central province of Bamiyan, beekeeping has provided rural women with the opportunity to become entrepreneurs. So far, four beekeeping cooperatives have been set up in recent years…
Details
Cornell University researchers have recorded the first ever footage of varroa mites jumping onto honeybees from flowers, as per a study published in the journal PLOS ONE. Varroa mites are known to threaten honeybees and are often found in a hive’s larvae or pupae. The footage shows a varroa mite hopping onto a honeybee from…
Details
With the honey industry growing faster than could have been expected, some smaller, local honey makers are finding themselves in need of new ways to compete against other businesses. In light of this necessity, Old Blue Raw Honey, a homegrown honey business in Philomath, Oregon, has opened a tasting room in their new honey processing…
Details
While the global decline of honeybees in general has caught most headlines, Asian honeybees seem to have vanished in the city of Townsville, Australia since their last nest was destroyed in November. Most of the hives were destroyed after forager bees were found carrying the varroa jacobsoni, a relative of the destructive varroa mites. The…
Details
The Cincinnati, Ohio Zoo and Botanical Garden is considering selling honey made by their own honeybees. Staff and volunteers have kept honeybees on the zoo’s Bowyre Farm for two years, with the nonprofit zoo having at least 24 hives and over one million bees, as per Mark Fisher, the vice president of facilities, planning, and…
Details
Back in August 2016, city council chambers in Valparaiso, Indiana were busy with several residents stating their case for allowing beehives into backyards and within city limits since, as it stood at that point, beekeepers and potential honey makers could not legally tend to bees in Valparaiso in small backyards. One potential beekeeper included local…
Details
Hopefully, you enjoyed your holiday meal this year because many of the crops that are dependent on pollinators, such as almonds, apples, berries, and pumpkins, will be facing a price increase as the bee population continues to rapidly decrease. According to the National Academy of Sciences, between the years 2008-13, wild bee populations decreased 23…
Details
As an alternative to harmful pesticides, there’s an organic farming technique that uses insects to fight off other insects that destroy crops. Marshal Hinsley, a farm owner in Texas, stopped using insecticides and planted wildflowers and shrubs to attract critters that could eat the harmful insects instead. “I credit the spiders are probably taking care…
Details
There has been an increase in the number of premature deaths amongst honeybees. Robert Danka, the research leader at the USDA Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics, and Physiology Laboratory in Baton Rouge, says “beekeepers are working harder just to keep the numbers up.” In the past, it was believed that beekeepers would lose 10-15 percent of…
DetailsDementia, a chronic disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury, is marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning, and it and other similar conditions are constantly under study to further research into possible treatments or even cures. As per the interest scientists have in studying this condition, some out…
Details
In honeybee colonies, thousands of worker bees are born. Young worker bees care for the brood (larvae and pupae), and then serve as guard bees and later as foragers in the crucial stage of honey production. And foraging is a major step in the honeybee lifespan as it speeds up aging due to the increased…
Details
Cold winters can cause honeybees to die out just as much as other factors like parasites and diseases. Recently, a group of researchers at Washington State University (WSU) have made it their mission to help bees combat their harsh winters. Like other animals that hibernate, honeybees winterize until spring. They often huddle together for warmth…
Details
Sticky handed thieves tried to steal honey from a research hive—only to discover it was empty. New Zealand’s Plant and Food Research is currently looking for its missing hive, which was one of 30 involved in a study to help produce healthier honeybees. The institution believes the offenders were trying to take a Manuka honey…
Details
Reece Adamson comes from a long line of beekeepers—five generations to be exact. Adamson runs Wildpure Ltd in Central Otago, New Zealand with his wife Louise where they produce organic thyme and clover honey as a family. Growing up around the practice, beekeeping seemed inevitable for Reece. After working in Canada for a season, Adamson…
Details
For those who may not have the time to decorate a Christmas tree this season, organizations like New York’s Heart in the Catskills Humane Society have the right idea about spreading holiday cheer. Tree artists in the Delhi, New York area have helped to show their support by contributing decorated trees to the Delhi animal shelter.…
Details
Honeybee broods, the hive’s larvae and pupae, have great potential as a food source in the future. In many countries, such as Mexico, Thailand, and Australia, bee brood is eaten as a delicacy. According to those who have tried this unusual food source, the dish has a nutty flavor and a crunchy texture. Often, honeybee…
Details
One thing you can positively say about honeybees is that you don’t want to mess with them or threaten their hive. After attacking a single bee, a large fishing spider was overpowered by a horde of bees in defense of their colony. There’s footage depicting the spider getting attacked after killing one of the worker…
Details
Filmmaker Renan Ozturk traveled into the Nepalese jungle to follow a group of climbers who harvest honey while hanging from cliffs 300 feet off the ground and “being attack by bees.” Ozturk is an expedition climber, landscape artist, and also a described “adventure filmmaker.” A member of the North Face athlete team, Ozturk travels around…
Details
A federal court rejected a lawsuit regarding pesticides in seed coatings, causing a setback for beekeepers around the U.S. Beekeepers and consumer groups issued a lawsuit against the U.S Environmental Protection Agency to regulate insecticide coatings on crop seeds since many experts believe that the pesticides in the coatings are a key element in the…
Details
Following a fairly devastating recent earthquake in New Zealand, there have been damaged beehives and bee losses among the casualties on the island. The difficulty of reaching the isolated bee hives, in addition to damages and losses, are just some of the challenges facing New Zealand’s Upper South Island beekeepers. “Like other primary producers, it’s…
Details
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has come across a direct link between honeybee health and bacteria. A team of scientists and their collaborators studied the effects of each bee’s diet and the bacteria that can be found inside their digestive system. A honeybee’s diet consists of two things: nectar and honey. Both are…
Details
Best Bees aims for a social purpose that encourages saving honeybee populations. Approximately half of the U.S.’s bee colonies were lost in 2015 and 2016. Millions of hives are collapsing, with many suspecting the cause to be related to colony collapse disorder, the phenomena where a colony’s worker bees suddenly vanish, severely crippling or even…
Details
Honeybees are known to form their hives in more secluded, closed off spaces. This is why the roof of the opera house Palais Garnier seems to be one place that fits their liking, and the opera house is now a producer of its own honey. Recently, a few bees have moved into the Paris opera…
Details
Honeybees have a way of adapting to get through the winter—in fact, they can change their colony and their own physiology to withstand the colder weather. The honeybees that can make it through winter are more likely to get a head start on spring. During early spring, they’re able to meet pollination needs before smaller,…
Details
Brooklyn’s Green Wood Cemetery serves as the resting place for at least 560,000 people including composer Leonard Bernstein, editor Horace Greeley, actor Frank Morgan, and the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, who was known to be a good friend to Andy Warhol. In addition to the thousands of dearly departed who now call Green Wood Cemetery their…
Details
There have been new discoveries regarding deformed wing virus (DWV), a threat to honeybee colonies in most parts of the world. DWV is typically associated with varroa mites, which are another threat to bees that can spread the virus within a colony. The mites are small blood sucking parasites known to infect adult bees through…
Details
