28 September 2019

Bee-pollinated plants

Here's a fill-up-the-internet clickbait article, https://www.insider.com/foods-we-will-lose-if-bees-go-extinct

To save you the effort, the foods listed are: avocado, alfalfa, almonds, apples, anise, apricot, blackberries, blueberries, cacao, cantaloupe, cardamom, cashew, cherries, coffee, coriander, cucumber, grapefruit, kiwi, macadamia, mango, peaches, pears, pumpkins, raspberries, strawberries, tea, tomatoes, watermelon.

I'm pretty sure the list is incorrect. Take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_crop_plants_pollinated_by_bees

27 September 2019

Five hundred million bees found dead in Brazil

OK, another Pesticides Are Bad story: https://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/500-million-bees-found-dead-in-brazil/

Like the argument over global warming, even though much of the data may be inaccurate or presented in a biased manner, the basic premise could still be correct. At the junction of reason and emotion, choose your route.

Put another way, "I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that." [Dr Ben Goldacre]

24 September 2019

22 September 2019

It's hip to bee...

"Beekeeping has gone from humble to haute," says the article intro. 
ES magazine, 20 September, by Clara Strunck

21 September 2019

16 September 2019

Just came across Bee Culture, The Magazine of American Beekeeping. Totally. Awesome.


https://www.beeculture.com/


15 September 2019

Yield 2019

This year's weather was generally unkind to my bees - hot one day, cold and and wet the next. However, a warm end-of-summer worked out well, with an estimated 20kg honey yield/hive.

12 September 2019

Male honeybees blind the queen bee during sex by injecting her with toxins

A new study by researchers from the University of California, Riverdale, has revealed that male bees inject toxins during sex to temporarily blind the queen bee...

Image: BARBARA BAER-IMHOFF / UCR from https://www.mirror.co.uk/science/male-honeybees-blind-queen-bee-19942655

https://www.mirror.co.uk/science/male-honeybees-blind-queen-bee-19942655

10 September 2019

Asian hornet, Vespa velutina

Another UK sighting:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/asian-hornet-uk-sightings-in-2018

08 September 2019

Bananas for bees

A fascinating post from https://blythewoodbeecompany.com/put-down-that-banana-beekeeper/, describing how the chemicals in bananas match the main alarm pheromone in bees : isoamyl acetate.

 



07 September 2019

03 September 2019

Mead

Promise, large Promise, is the soul of an Advertisement.Samuel Johnson, 1759, in his own magazine called The Idler!

01 September 2019

How much does a jar of honey cost?

For the 227 g pots, £8.50 per lb, or (bizarrely) the 340 g pots
come to slightly more, at £9.03 per lb