For those who live in Southwest Florida, it’s likely you know about the region’s algae problem, and it turns out more than just the wildlife in the Gulf are being affected by it. According to local bee experts, honey bees are experiencing problems in areas with blue-green and red tide algae. Keith Councell, the vice…
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For beekeepers, smoke is one of their secret weapons for keeping bee stings to a minimum and has been for thousands of years, with some 2,500-year-old ancient Egyptian artwork depicting the practice. Despite how long smoke has been used to calm honey bees, however, it’s still unknown why it occurs—though some new research that was…
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As the weather gets closer and closer to winter, honey bees around the world will soon have to settle in with the stores they have until spring starts blooming with all the nectar they can find. With that fact clear to most beekeepers, the introduction of a new negative, potentially harmful factor could have potentially…
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While many colleges try attracting prospective applicants through twisting ivy and picture-perfect, manicured lawns, others are starting to adapt their campus’s landscaping practices in order to attract butterflies, honey bees, and other pollinators. Bee Campus USA, which is a branch of Bee City USA, began back in 2015 in order to encourage the shift we’re…
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As many have likely heard, U.S. honey bees have been declining at an unprecedented rate for the last ten years, with a recent USDA report stating honey production was down almost ten percent in 2017 when compared to 2016. With beekeepers reporting 40 percent colony losses on average, it’s going to take large-scale changes as…
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For anybody who thinks there are way more yellow jackets around this summer than normal, it’s because there are. The stinging pests, frequent disturbers of barbeques everywhere, are rearing their ugly heads in terms of numbers, and, unfortunately, we’re not the only ones who are suffering as a result—honey bees, crucial pollinators already on the…
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It’s not unusual to hear about swarms of honey bees showing up in strange, very public places—one actually planted itself on a museum sign dedicated to the memory of Muhammad Ali last year, a sign ironically adorned with his famous catchphrase: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” In Greenville, South Carolina, its Village…
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While honeybees mostly make their precious honey stores via floral nectar, sometimes they take a page out of our book and have a few sweet snacks, even hitting up sugary foods that humans leave out. The honeybee’s flexibility when it comes to foraging from non-floral food sources is a handy trick for whenever beekeepers have…
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Despite domesticated beehives having a global population between 80 and 100 million, each of which contain 10,000-60,000 individual bees, their numbers are dropping quickly, with beekeepers reporting 40 percent losses each year and several bumblebee species even going on the endangered species list. Given bees pollinate roughly a third of the world’s food crop and…
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In the past few years, rooftop beehives have become a common site in cities throughout the U.S. and other countries, providing businesses with additional income, publicity, and, more importantly, a place for urban bees to find refuge in densely-populated areas where bee swarms aren’t exactly welcome. While harvesting honey is a main draw for rooftop…
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Give or take a decade ago, U.S. beekeepers began noticing they were losing hives at alarmingly high rates. It was so sudden and surprising to many, and it kicked off the phenomenon that came to be called colony collapse disorder, which is still an issue to this very day with one notable difference—the level of…
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Thanks to the hard work of honeybees, roughly one fifth of the foods we enjoy are made possible, and behind each hive — at least those that are “domesticated” — is a scientist or beekeeper helping its thousands of residents thrive. For the hives on the campus at the University of Florida, they’re part of…
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Despite all the focus that’s been placed on honeybees in the last few years, specifically how their populations have declined significantly, there are still those out there who see them and other bee species as pests and a nuisance. In Johnson County, Kentucky, one man, Jason Conley, has made it his mission to protect bees…
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While it may not sound especially complicated, the concept of zero—nothing, nada, zilch—is a deceptively complicated idea, with the very first placeholder for zero dating back to roughly 300 BCE but not appearing in Western Europe before the 1100s AD. Children typically can’t wrap their minds around the idea until they’re in preschool, which makes…
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Unsurprisingly, honeybees are named for the delicious syrup they make it droves—honey—but they are important for so much more, thanks to the pollination they partake in every time they visit plants and flowers for the purpose of creating their honey stores. That makes the tiny insects pretty crucial for the culinary world, as they are…
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Considering how much New Zealand’s honey industry has expanded in the last few decades, it’s not surprising to hear that some of the country’s college student are doing what they can to help save honeybees and their declining populations. Four students with Paeroa College—Ariihia Morehu, Timoti Wiperi, Hamish Buchanan, and Jeramiah Coffey—have begun developing a smartphone app that will…
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As many know, honeybees and other bee species are essential parts of our ecosystems in addition to being a crucial part of many world economies, including our own here in the United States. However, with colony collapse disorder (CCD) and various other factors, particularly pesticide overuse, diseases, and parasites, rearing their ugly heads, there has…
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In downtown Seattle, specifically at a facility called The Sanctuary Seattle, enough hives to hold 20,000 honeybees are being installed, with the future occupants coming all the way across the sea in Hawaii. Once they arrive, the Hawaiian-raised Carniolan bees will be used for urban beekeeping, housed on the grounds of the oldest church in…
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Researchers with Washington State University (WSU) may have found a way help save honeybees by introducing micro-particles into the insects’ digestive systems, and from there the particles would absorb the damaging toxins often in pesticides. WSU bioengineering project manager Waled Suliman has stated that the material his team has developed only attracts specific compounds within…
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Suddenly, the theft of bees has become a very real problem for beekeepers here in the United States. The raw honey craze here in the states has the undesirables trying to take a short cut to a new business by stealing other people’s hives. The latest theft occurred in Lula, GA. It would appear the…
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Something very exciting was revealed in a recent edition of SustainableBrands.com. A Canadian firm is working on a new technique that will use bumblebees to protect bees naturally. The firm, Bee Vectoring Technology, has created an all-natural alternative to crop dusting with pesticides and harmful chemicals. The process is fairly simple. A tray is placed…
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In the past few weeks, the Cincinnati, Ohio Zoo, with help from a company called Morgan’s Canoe, rescued a honey bee colony consisting of at least 50,000 bees from a garage. However, what makes this common event so remarkable is the fact that this beehive is suspected of being at least 25 years old. The…
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You know we love bees, but this is the time of the year when they are most active and bee safety is of major concern. That means it is also the time of the year when people are most likely to be stung. The time bees have to “take care of business” is very limited…
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It seems as though every day we are finding out something new that is threatening the honey bee population. Finally, we get some good news for a measure being taken to actually protect the bee. The European Union is reportedly banning the use of neonicotinoids on crops by farmers. The list of endangered species of…
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Within the war-torn country of Afghanistan, honey is treated as a renown cure-all. However, for some inside those borders, the profitable commodity also creates incredible opportunities for working and owning private businesses, even for young women. One example is 19-year-old Frozan, who three years prior received a loan, purchased two bee hives, and was educated…
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With many scientists on the hunt for anything that could help save ailing pollinators, such as honeybees and similar bee species, researchers with Washington State University may have come up with another viable solution, specifically a material that might help curtail the effects of extensive pesticide exposure by removing such toxins from bees’ systems. According…
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Though honeybees are our go-to source for honey and pollination, there are other bees out there that pollinate plants and the crops we use for food. Interestingly, unlike honeybees, most of the over 4,000 species of bees on the North American continent don’t live in colonies. Actually, most native bee species are solitary—nesting in cavities,…
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To treat her muscle pains, a 55-year-old woman from Spain sought live honeybee sting acupuncture, which is a therapy that involves strategically-placed stings from bees. After attending sessions every month of a two-year period, the woman’s last visit resulted in her going into anaphylactic shock. As per a case study that was published recently, the…
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Along the various ports around Tasmania, Australia’s island state, which lies about 150 miles south of the mainland, there are sentinels watching the shores and providing an early warning system for possible invaders. These sentinels are European honeybees, and the potential invaders are pest bees and bee pests, specifically the deadly varroa mite (also called…
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Since the wider public became aware of colony collapse disorder (CCD) in 2006, various endeavors have taken place to not only discover the source of CCD and other bee-related issues, but to further educate others regarding how honeybee populations can be preserved and protected. This is crucial given the bees’ vital role in pollinating three…
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As many have learned already, honeybees all over the world and here in the United States have had a rough go of it in terms of pollination and population losses, which is believed to have been caused in large part by pesticides, pathogens, varroa mites, colony collapse disorder (CCD), habitat loss, and an assortment of…
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Out amid the rainforests of Malaysia, “honey hunters” are currently braving the significantly high heights of tualang trees and using smoking torches to draw out thousands of honeybees from their treetop hives, allowing the hunters the chance to gather very rare honey. These hunters, who come from nearby villages, head into the jungle’s most remote…
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Up until very recently, when Manhattan Beach in California had a bee problem, they called Susan Rudnicki. She is an urban beekeeper who NEVER sees a reason to hurt the honeybees. Even during massive infestations. She always found a way to get the bees out safely. That is all about to change, as the city…
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As you have heard us say more than a few times in recent months, honeybees are in the fight of their lives right now. They will take any help they can get, especially when it comes to pesticides that are harming the honeybee population. Quebec is the latest to jump in to help the pollinator,…
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Spring is in the air, and so are honeybees, as nature starts to come back to life with trees starting to turn green and flowers beginning to bloom. It is only a matter of time until the honeybee starts to get to work making that liquid gold we all love so much. With so many…
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The honeybee population is under attack around the country and we are finally starting to see the emergence of advocacy groups coming to their defense. The latest is the U.S. Public Interest Research Group that is jumping into action to have pesticides banned. A new report on KTAR News stated the group is now lobbying…
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The beekeeping industry has been keeping an eye on the bee colony collapse dilemma, but that has mostly been associated with pesticides until very recently. Now, we are starting to see higher temperatures than normal starting to take a toll. Beekeepers in Turkey are the latest to report higher temperatures creating some rather challenging conditions…
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Something that came to light during yesterday’s post about the introduction of alien bees into an environment in Arab states got me to wondering if this is a problem other areas of the world are experiencing. It did not take long to find out it is actually becoming a problem throughout the world. A study…
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If you think the threat to honeybees is something that is only happening in the United States, you would be sadly mistaken. Bees all around the world are finding themselves in danger, but people are coming together in an effort to help them. While many professionals in the industry are trying to figure out what…
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Why are honeybees aggressive? What makes them more likely to sting than other bees? According to a team of researchers from Australia and France (their research paper is titled “Proceedings of the Royal Society B”), honeybees are more inclined to attack due to a neurological mechanism. In other words, there are chemicals firing in the…
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