In 2010, there was a report on CNN that linked cell phones to the deaths of honey bees. This report was widely laughed off by outsiders, but not so much by the bee industry. This was right about the time the industry started to experience larger losses every year, and beekeepers were looking for reasons.…
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Over the past year, there has been a lot of talk in the media and on blogs like ours regarding the plight of the honey bee. With recent government cutbacks on bee surveys, the honey bee has made its way into the political realm. This has introduced the honey bee to an entirely different audience.…
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Many people might say that if you found out you had a massive hive inside your walls, extermination would be warranted. Thankfully, Annette Wiley of Kilgore, TX was not even considering that as an option. Wiley has had a massive infestation of bees inside the walls of her home for years. She had contacted various…
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As if honey bees are not having enough problems these days! On Sunday, a local Florida beekeeper noticed that something was amiss with his hives. Horace Bell, who is arguably one of the largest beekeepers in the United States, found millions of dead bees when he checked his hives. Additionally, many of the bees that…
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All of a sudden, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has become the honey bee’s biggest advocate in Washington D.C. After appearing in Upstate New York last week, Schumer appears to have a new affection for the honey bee. The problem was brought to his attention during that appearance and Schumer vowed to help the state’s agriculture…
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South Dakota is regularly among the biggest contributors to the honey industry in the United States. It is also among the leaders in the pollination industry, so any untypical loss in honey bees is going to set the state back considerably. Due to the significant loss of hives over the last year, the entire country…
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For all the negative stories about the plight of honey bees right now, it is so refreshing when we see or hear about a story where even a few people are trying to make a difference. Such is the story of Will Hatchel, who has created a sort of “bee oasis” in the backyard of…
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Recently, the federal government decided to cut funding for what bee advocates consider to be a vital study on the honey bee population. Due to the problems with the colony collapse disorder as well as weather problems that have created more honey bee loss than usual over the winter, even missing a single year of…
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Education goes a long way to alleviate fear when it comes to honey bees. The fact of the matter is most people simply do not understand the normal behavior of a bee. In many cases, the normal and unaggressive actions of bees are considered a threat by those unfamiliar with them, and that is something…
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The honey bee community was just dealt another blow by the current administration. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has decided to lift the ban on sulfoxaflor. This is a chemical that had been banned back in 2015 but will once again be permitted to use in pesticides. This is happening even though the EPA itself…
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The decline of honey bee populations over this past winter is beginning to get the attention of scientists around the world, and that is not exactly a good thing. The reason so much attention is being paid to the subject is that these experts believe we may truly have a crisis on our hands that…
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Budget cuts to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will now further add to the plight of the honey bee here in the United States. On Saturday, it was announced that the USDA has “suspended data collection for its annual Honey Bee Colonies report.” Bee advocates are already hitting the panic button, as this is…
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Something beekeepers have feared for some time may finally be happening. New reports have revealed that the bumblebee community may now be facing the same virus problems that are decimating the honey bee community. If this is happening, two major pollinators are now facing significant danger and possible extinction in years to come. Sound the…
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You know how excited we get when the next generation is positively introduced into the world of honey bees. That being said, Thomas Jefferson High School in Pennsylvania will have something very new and interesting for its students. The high school just announced it will be adding a new apiary that will feature about 60,000…
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There may not be a single crop in existence that is more reliant on the honey bee than the almond. Without honey bees, almonds simply do not exist. Currently, honey bees serve as the sole pollinator for almond growers. However, the industry that relies on honey bees the most may be contributing to the slow…
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Over the last two years or so, the beekeeping movement had been getting considerable press about the plight of bees. Between pesticides, the varroa mite, and weather issues, beekeepers are seeing far more loss than they have ever seen. However, there is a silver lining in all of this in that more and more people…
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For most people, a room at the Indigo Hotel in Downtown Tulsa will cost about $125/night. Ownership, however, has made a concession for bees, and now has a quickly growing colony atop its roof. That’s right, no rooftop lounge or pool, just bees. It is actually the type of story we wish we hear far…
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The case for the honey bee got an unexpected boost this week when the USDA posted about research proving the importance of the honey bee to blueberry crops. The report started off with a bang, stating, “Getting an excellent rabbiteye blueberry harvest required helpful pollinators—particularly native southeastern blueberry bees—although growers can bring in managed honey…
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There is obviously a significant difference in setting in urban and suburban areas. However, nobody has really looked at how these settings differentiate for honey bees… until now. Juliana Rangel from Texas A&M University as well as several of her colleagues dug deep into this topic with their 2019 PLOS ONE study. Generally, honey bee…
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With all of the problems beekeepers are having in keeping their colonies alive, the last thing we needed to see was an accident killing tens of millions of bees. That was the exact scenario, however, as roughly 133 million bees were aboard a truck transporting the bees from California to North Dakota that crashed on…
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The international honey industry just got more bad news regarding the overall health of honey bee colonies around the world. According to a recent study by the University of Strathclyde, international honey bee colonies were down by 16 percent after the winter. Worldwide Decline in Honey Bees The study surveyed more than 25,000 beekeepers throughout…
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California is supposed to be the land where clean energy and nature are protected, but quite the opposite happened this week during a game. A swarm of bees decided to take up shop just outside the Padres dugout. The game was halted to deal with the situation. Unfortunately, the solution chosen by the Padres was…
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Thomas Seeley is arguably one of the most respected voices in the world on the behavior of bees. His new book, “The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild,” is already drawing wide acclaim. The good news for bee lovers is you do not have to have a master’s…
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In the Matanzas province of Cuba, there’s a penchant for old-fashioned agriculture, which means honey bees can forage and swarm without pesticides affecting their survivability, as they have been elsewhere throughout the world. It’s safe to say that life is pretty great for Cuba’s tiny pollinators, with one man, Rogelio Marcelo Fundora—a mechanical engineer and…
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According to a team of researchers from the University of California in San Diego, a pesticide that has been deemed safe for honey bees may actually endanger certain demographics of these bees, especially if it is used alongside other chemicals, such as fungicides. Sivanto, which was developed by the company Bayer CropScience AG, has been…
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With the new spring season comes rain, warmer weather, budding flowers, and, to the unfortunate chagrin of some, honey bees coming out in swarms. However, there’s no reason to be worried about these tiny insects, even when you find them flying around in one big swarm, according to a beekeeper from the English county of…
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After the Honey Bee Health Coalition partnered with them, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA) is releasing a new set of best management practices (BMPs) in order to protect honey bees and similar pollinators around and in cornfields. As a row crop, field corn, at over 90 million acres, covers more soil in this country…
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As a way of helping commercial and hobbyist beekeepers track the many environmental stressors honey bees experience, Penn State’s Pollinator Research Center and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, as well as several other collaborators, developed an app called Beescape, which can be used for monitoring environmental factors around hives, farms, and gardens where…
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While they’re largely known for producing honey in general as well as painful stings when they’re threatened, honey bees are starting to become known for a few other things as well—royal jelly, bee pollen, and the New Zealand-based Manuka honey. Before you find yourself missing out, you need to try these products and reap all…
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In recent years, beekeeping has grown into a popular hobby for many and into a cause for others. For beekeepers in the state of Texas, however, they may be pleased to discovery that, as January 1, 2012, a bill was turned into law that makes beekeepers eligible to receive an agricultural exemption on their property…
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Despite there being a beehive on the state seal of Utah, honey bees aren’t “Beehive State” natives, having arrived with Brigham Young and the rest of the Mormon settlers in the 1840s. Young even called this new region “Deseret,” which means “honey bee” in the Book of Mormon. Considerably less renown would be Utah’s prominent…
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According to a one-of-a-kind study, honey bees might be the key to helping cities monitor pollution and pinpointing the precise sources of pollutants like lead. This study, which was published via the journal Nature Sustainability, analyzed honey samples from urban hives stationed in six metro neighborhoods in Vancouver, Canada. The team of researchers behind the…
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At 81 years of age, Morgan Freeman is one of the most recognizable faces—and voices—in the acting industry as well as the world in general. He’s taken on so many different roles in his long career that it’s hard to remember them all, but it’s one of his newer, lesser-known roles that could be the…
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In the year 1981, the largest known bee in the world was believed to have gone extinct, and it wasn’t the first time this had occurred. The Wallace giant bee, which originated in the Indonesian rainforests, is roughly four times the size of a regular honey bee, with the females (males being half their size)…
DetailsWhen they start life, honey bees hatch and grow up inside their hive with roughly 40,000 other bees, and for their first three weeks of life, this dark, constantly buzzing home is all they know. After this crucial development period, they venture out of the nest in search of nectar and pollen—a moment of considerable…
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As it can be easy to surmise at this point, the rising loss of honey bee colonies throughout the U.S. and the world is the result of multiple stressors, such as pesticides, habitat loss, climate change, malnutrition, viruses, and parasites, coming together in fatal combinations. Because of the seriousness surrounding the decline of honey bees,…
DetailsIt turns out, according to research from York University, that the solution for creating more disease-resistant honey bees may lie in certain groups of genes that control hygienic behavior and enable hives to limit harmful bacteria from spreading as a result. In a hive, some worker honey bees can detect and subsequently remove dead or…
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The blooming of California’s almond groves occurs all at once, and with it comes an influx of beekeepers and their honey bee hives to pollinate the countless pale white flowers. For Bret Adee, a veteran beekeeper, he’s already hustling to get his bees ready for almond pollination before moving them to the orchards in California’s…
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For insects, honey bees are notoriously intelligent, boasting exceptional navigation skills, communication skills, and the unique ability among insects to comprehend abstract concepts. However, based on recent reports, they may have to add art connoisseur to their repertoire. As part of the Great Australian Bee Challenge from ABC Catalyst, honey bees have been shown to…
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As most hopefully know, honey bees are one of the most crucial pollinating species in the world, being responsible for roughly one-third of our food supply. However, increasing declines in bee colonies have placed an incredible strain on the U.S.’s agricultural pollination capabilities as well as our future food security. While many things are contributing…
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