Bee Wise

the honey bee is sad and cross
and wicked as a weasel
and when she perches on you boss
she leaves a little measle
    — Don Marquis, from certain maxims of archy



boss i think you have got your t s crossed wrong
on this one your garden variety
honey bee is a born optimist
even though she and her hundred or so thousand
sisters live like nuns they get sunshine and blossoms
galore and dance a mad dance of plenty

but your queen bees
have an imperious manner
and a fast and furious way with virginal pretenders
to their own estate but queens
mostly drowse and dream in realms of private fantasy
requiring pheromones but no brains

no the only bees
that get much fun at all are drones like rufus
a flash lothario i met once drunk as mephistopheles on
too much maraschino juice

he was a rollicky fellow whose tune
went bzz bzz bzz bbzzz bzz bz bzz bzz actually
it was about sex but this being ha ha a family newspaper
i could hardly report the true pinks and blushes of
rufus s bawdy if drunken arias

i must say he understands the ecstasy of expiring
in a pang of matrimony on the maiden flight of
a virgin queen pursued by a horde of her best
buzzing sex fiends

but i don't think he knows the tectonic details
or much cares
about what happens to drones when the frosts arrive hither
arch quoth he am i not a glorious fool
question mark

there can be only one hero but an
hundred failures in a chorus of unrequited fey moods
hum along and weep
in lascivious liqueurs a la maraschino
live large archy me lad
live large
rufus
well it s winter now so was
a philosophical bug
a lot like mehitabel dreaming romantic
truths without consequences

now that i ve set you wise to bees
would you mind leaving the lid off the honey jar
for a day or two question mark

        archy

War bees!!? OMG!

Why are "military scientists" studying honeybee die-offs? Do military scientists (!) and entomologists really have a clue to honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder, or just another hypothesis to be tested and perhaps added to the cauldron a-boil?

The good news is, yes, there does appear to be a cold-and-damp-loving virus/fungus combination that affects honeybee morbidity. That's an addendum to the body of developing knowledge all right — so far, so good. It's not a solution, of course, until beekeepers have strategies to save their bees — and the third of annual bee-pollinated world agriculture that goes with.

The weird news is, entomologists in Montana and military scientists in Maryland teamed up to make the discovery! Is Colony Collapse Disorder a weapon? If so, ours? Or theirs?

Wotthehell, though. If Dr. Strangelove wants to solve the Colony Collapse problem, more power to him, I guess.

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See also...

"Honeybees are Nature's rugged robots." - Los Alamos National Laboratory PR video

Honeybee drones revalued

Naturwissenschaften, Volume 97, Number 3 (March, 2010) has an interesting article about honeybee drones. For decades, if not centuries, the prevailing wisdom about drone bees was that they contribute nothing to the welfare of the hive, aside from mating with virgin queens — a bit of Industrial Revolution nonsense owing more to Calvinist fables about sloth and hedonism than to any actual observation of honeybees. Old ways die hard.

Any honest Darwinian will realize immediately that drone bees are the vectors which sift the honeybee genome through the green strictures of local ecology. Queens, who are themselves exposed but for less time (on a single mating flight) to the same harsh local ecology as the drones, gain the experience and genetic contribution of male bees, whether from their own or nearby hives, which have survived an entire golden summer in what John Calvin would have been very pleased with himself to call a fool's paradise. Nothing of the sort.

Nor are drowsy, buzzy summer days a worker's paradise. Worker bees are even more vulnerable to their local ecosystems than drones or queens but their experience doesn't count. There's a catch; workers do not share their genes. Mutable or not, mutated or not, worker bees have no stake in the genetic future of their hive. Even worse, their queens are sequestered and never see the sun unless mating or swarming. The hive's only direct contact with its local environment, in any way that would allow it to adapt to local conditions, is through its drones.^†

This explains why artificial insemination of honey bee queens grown in the deep South, from similarly-bred CSA* drones never exposed to, and completely inexperienced with, the harsh winters of Wisconsin, the fungal environs of New Jersey, the new Florida of climate change or the microfauna of Story County, Iowa, is such a pestilential notion.

Like robot war and nuclear arsenals, such grand leaps to the frontiers of the possible as artificial insemination, which only seems comic in honeybees until you realize that pollination services by fewer than 500 artificial clades of industrial honeybees create many billions of dollars in agricultural wealth annually, overlooks a devilish lot of nasty consequence — perhaps including CCD (colony collapse disorder). Not everything that can be done should be done. But studying drones (see the Naturwissenschaften article, above) is one of those things that need doing.

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^†Kind of a crude overstatement, really. Worker bees carry most bee pests into the hive, including residual broad-spectrum pesticides and herbicides, microfauna, bacteria, fungi, respiratory parasites, viruses, and whatnot. If these kill off the queen, or destroy the hive via CCD, e.g., then workers can create a certain limited genetic havoc in the local clade akin to decapitation. But I'd argue that pathology is a different case; since workers don't have sex lives^‡, they can't push forward an adaptive generation.

*Confederate States of America, i.e.

^‡Ignoring a peculiar South African honeybee, and those "primitive" bees, if any, that have never heard the rule. Mere parthenogenesis counts as hive pathology.

More bees...

Five Ways to Help Our Disappearing Bees is another green website with helpful ways to (hopefully) combat CCD.

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What's with Obama? Labor Day is TEN DAYS AWAY, but he's still giving his old primary election stump speech! It's embarassing. I declared for Joe Biden back in the January caucus, but I'd understand if Joe doesn't want to go down with Obama's toy boat.

This Space Intentionally Left Bank

Bee stroll

Took a slow stroll through the white clover at Noelridge Park this afternoon, counting bees.

I lost count, actually, but the totals were something like a dozen honeybees, seven or nine bumblebees, three or four hoverbees (one of them about 1/8"), a few yellow sulfurs and a little black-and-orange skipper, plus half a dozen accidental Japanese beetles (they weren't there for the clover, and they're everywhere this year).

This in a swath about thirty feet wide and two tenths of a mile long. More bees than I've seen this year, so far, yes. But nothing like when I was a kid. That kind of path on a warm sunny day like today would have been chock-a-block with buzz in the old days. The little blue butterflies the size of a dime are gone, too.

Kind of fun. I haven't a wasted a good slow, quiet hour like this in ages (no "walking for exercise," no agenda except counting bees.)

The trick to seeing which is to keep a weather eye on your feet because you're probably about to step on a bumblebee! If your clumsy feet are where they should be, look for wiggling clover blossoms about ten or fifteen feet off in a big circle. It's a bit comical sometimes. A bumblebee can bend a clover stem clear to ground, but she's usually on the other side of the blossom.

Dr. Who: "The bees have gone missing."

In Part one of the Dr. Who season finale this Friday, the only "odd thing that's happened lately," so far as one character can recall, is that all the bees have gone missing. Dr. Who seizes on the information and the Earth (and 27 other planets?) is (or might be) soon saved. I haven't been following the series, so I don't know what this is about — but the reference to honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder and the allusion to Douglas Adams' So Long and Thanks for All the Fish was kind of noteworthy.

Hello, Sailor!

Working bumblebees spread diseases to the native bumblebee population? Science News is reporting that commercial bees brought in to pollinate greenhouse crops like tomatoes have been escaping from "porous" greenhouses and sharing their parasite loads with native bees.

This story is so wrong on so many levels... Who's the worst offender? The sick bees, the migratory beekeepers who haul sick bumblebee hives from leaky greenhouse to leaky greenhouse, the sloppy greenhouse operators whose low-margin cornercutting lets fed-up bees slip the surly bonds of glass, or the buzzy fat drones who mooch around the local pollenwhackers and strum "Noboddy nose de trubbles I seed" on their tiny banjos?

Miscellaneous B-links

Bug Girl's Blog is worth checking out before you get into the rest of this miscellaneous stuff that's been accumulating in my bee bookmarks list.

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grikdog's Miscellaneous Bee Stuff (to date)

PLoS Biology - What's Killing American Honey Bees?

Tupelo Honey For Sale Online - Tupelo Honey from Wewahitchka Florida - Smiley Apiaries

Tupelo Honey for sale online directly from Wewahitchka, Florida

Amazon.com: A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply: Michael Schacker, Bill McKibben: Books

Amazon.com: A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply: Michael Schacker, Bill McKibben: Books

Amazon.com: "Bees"

A list of products including,

Betterbee's News Page, what we are doing to better serve you.

Betterbee's News Page, what we are doing to better serve you.

Beekeeping Journal Beekeeping Equipment & Supplies Beeswax Candles Apiculture Equipment

Dadant & Sons Inc. specializes as a Beekeeping Journal. Dadant & Sons Inc. offers Beekeeping Equipment & Supplies, Beeswax Candles, and Apiculture Equipment

Bee and Beekeeping Supplies Mann Lake Ltd

Bee and Beekeeping Supplies Mann Lake Ltd provides beekeeping supplies nationwide to hobby or commercial beekeepers, big or small. We manufacture and supply beekeeping hobby starter kits, protective clothing, beekeeping veils, high fructose corn syrup, beeswax foundation, hive frames (6 1/4

Indian Creek Nature Center

Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)

National Honey Board: Honey Industry

National Honey Board

Description and taste of honey varieties, flavor of honey including clover honey, wildflower honey, goldenrod honey, sunflower honey, buckwheat honey and orange blossom honey

Taste and description honey varieties including clover honey, wildflower honey, goldenrod honey, bamboo honey, buckwheat honey and orange blossom honey

Beekeeping/Comb Honey - Wikibooks, collection of open-content textbooks

Queen bee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Imker – Wikipedia

Beekeeper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sue Bee Honey >> About Honey >> FAQ's

To Bee or not to Bee

The "yellow" and the "brown" bees are two of the 25 subspecies that honeybees are divided into. The brown bee can be further divided into a number of genetically distinct varieties. Danish biologists are researching the genetic

Bee stings (good venom article)

Wasp, bee, ant and insect stings and bites cause allergic reactions that can be very dangerous - learn about precautions, treatment and the insects on this well resourced website.

honeybee venom SpringerLink

Apiculture (Beekeeping) and Social Insects | Iowa State Entomology Index of Internet Resources

A complete, annotated guide to insects and insect-related information on the internet.

8 oz. Star Thistle (5-Star) hexagonal glass Gift jar

Varietal, single floral source honey, light color, in 8 oz. glass jar

Bee Legends

There are many legends from many countries associated with bees - far too many to be covered in any detail. The Bible, particularly the Old Testament, is rich in quotations.

Honey Bee Research : Africanized Honey Bees

Miller's Honey contact page

Come visit Miller's Honey Company, thesweetest website onthe WWW, home to delicious honey and perfect gifts!

http://www.nrdc.org/wildlife/animals/bees.asp?gclid=CP2HkMz-kpQCFROI1QodzBuQtQ

ARS : Questions and Answers: Colony Collapse Disorder

Colony Collapse Disorder: A Complex Buzz

American Beekeeping Federation | Serving the Industry Since 1943

Bees and Beekeeping Forum - GardenWeb

This forum is for the discussion of bees and their roles as pollinators and honey producers.

Apiary Honighäuschen on the Drachenfels Mountain in the Siebengebirge National Park

Apiary Honighäuschen at the Drachenfels with information about beekeeping, honey and beeswax products, guided tours for visitors, solitary bees and hornets can be seen at our exhibition stand.

The Hive and the Honeybee Collection

BeeSource.com, Your Online Sourcebook for Beekeeping

BeeSource.com: all information, products and services for beekeeping

YouTube - Beemaster's Installing honeybees Method

Installing a package of honeybees, the beemaster "less Stress on the bees" method

Beemaster Home Page

Imkerei.de - Alles über Honig!

The monk and the honeybee

B. Weaver Apiaries

B. Weaver Apiaries

La ruche Dadant.

Ce qu'est la ruche Dadant, ses dimensions et sa hausse.

Cet insecte: l'abeille.

La vie de l'abeille est fascinante et ici quelques uns de ses secrets vous sont dévoilés. Vous serez conquis par son organisation, sa vie, ses moeurs et aussi simplement par cette infatigable travailleuse.

Die Honigbiene

Hier erfahren Sie einfach alles über das Reich der Bienen!

Neue Seite 2

Projekt Honigbiene, (c) Swen Buschfeld

Informationen über Organisation und Aufbau des Bienestaates. Mit Videosequenzen eines preisgekrönten Filmes über Honigbienen und -produktion.

Insektenbox: Honigbiene

Honigbiene, Bild und Angaben zur Lebensweise

Die Honigbiene - Ergebnisse einer Gruppenarbeit an einem hamburger Gymnasium

Länderinstitut für Bienenkunde - Biologie der Honigbiene

The Buzz Newsletter

U of M: Department of Entomology

Minnesota Hygienic Breeder Queens

Resources for Bee Breeding, Queen Rearing, Bee Research

05FallDwindleUpdate0107 (1).pdf (application/pdf Object)

Africanized Honey Bees: An Anthropologist's Perspective

Sting Shield Insect Veil - pocket size emergency-use protection against biting and stinging insects, including Africanized killer bees

BeeSource.com | POV | AHB | THE AFRICAN (BRAZILIAN) BEE PROBLEM

BeeSource.com | POV | AHB | Genetic Analysis of Commercial Honey Bees

Killer Bees - Africanized Honey Bees (DesertUSA)

Africanized bees acquired the name killer bees because they will viciously attack people and animals who unwittingly stray into their territory, often resulting in serious injury or death.

Honeybees and their Plight - DesertUSA

BeeHoo the beekeeping directory - Beekeeping - beekeeping suppliers, apiculture

Beehoo the beekeeping directory. More than 1000 beekeeping websites. All what you need about bees, beekeeping, suppliers,apitherapy, pollen , bee biology, hive products,apiculture in english and french.

UC Small Farm Program

Bee Culture - The Magazine Of American Beekeeping

Bee Culture, The Magazine Of American Beekeeping, is designed for beginning, sideline and commercial beekeepers who what the latest information on the science and art of keeping bees.

U of MN Bee Lab: Meet the Team

Cedar Rapids bee ordinance

Bee Alert Technology Inc.

NOVA Online | Tales from the Hive

NOVA Online presents Tales from the Hive

Honey Bee Research : Home

UGA Honey Bee Program

MAAREC - Mid-Atlantic Apiculture Research and Extension Consortium

The MAAREC - Mid-Atlantic Apiculture webpage is a regional effort to address
the pest management crisis facing the beekeeping industry in the Mid-Atlantic Region.

HAS • Heartland Apicultural Society • HAS

HAS, the Heartland Apicultural Society is an organization for beekeepers in America's Heartland. Annual conferences feature a variety of educational topics.

American Association of Professional Apiculturists

The University of California, Davis' Department of Entomology is world reknown for it's quality research and teaching. With additional facilities such as the Bohart Museum of Entomology, the Mosquito Research Center, the Center for Biosystematics and the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, the UC Davis Entomology Department is one of the most recognized Entomology departments in the world.

Insects and Entomology | Iowa State Entomology Index of Internet Resources

A complete, annotated guide to insects and insect-related information on the internet.

BeeBase

Gary's home page 3

Pictues index

Vida Apícola: La revista digital de apicultura

apicultura, varroa, cria de reinas, revista apicultura, sector apicola, mieles, abejas, colmenas, enjambres, abejas de españa, apicultura en españa, mortalidad apicola, instalacion colmenar, mieles de españa, cata miel, mundo abejas, mundo apicola, iniciarse apicultura, apis mellifera, enfermedades abejas, propolis, polen

NATURE: Alien Empire - Enter the Hive

An africanized bee selection technique for the Eastern Mexico beekeeping

bees & things - Skeps

The Mediaeval Custom of Skep Beekeeping

Eva Crane | Times Online Obituary

Obituary for Eva Crane from The Times and Sunday Times.
Eva Crane was a towering figure in the field of beekeeping, one of its most
knowledgeable practitioners and prolific historians, and a powerful champion
of bees as a scientific subject.

G7600 Beekeeping Tips for Beginners, MU Extension

MU Extension, University of Missouri

Library - Beekeeping Wiki

Bee Info

Beekeeping - Article - The Kenya-To-Bar-Hive (KTBH) as a better hive in the developing World

Midnite Bee-Beekeeper's: Books

Apiservices - The Beekeeping portal - Le Portail Apiculture - Apicultura - Imkerei

Apiservices - All information about beekeeping, bees and honey - Toutes informations pour l'apiculture, les abeilles et le miel

The Ranger's Blog - Post details: Slovenian bee houses - not as crazy as they look.

The Virtual Ranger's blog

BEEKEEPING ACTIVITIES IN SLOVENIA

Beekeeping in Slovenia

News : : The 'hum' of the New Zealand beekeeping industry...

The 'hum' of the New Zealand beekeeping industry...

Switzerland

Apis-UK July 2005

Apis-UK July 2005. Editorial; Beekeeping news; Bee press; Research News; Articles: Bees and Gravitomagnetism (Part 1 of 4 ) Ian Rumsey; Size doesn't matter Mike Oliver; Honey Bee Genetics Part 1; That's Business Chad Cryer; Recipe of the Month: Ensaimadas (Spanish sweet honey rolls); Suppressed Mite Reproduction (Smr) Fighting Varroa; Fact File: Pollen; Historical Note: Poem of the Month: The Bee by Emily Dickinson; Readers Letters: Natasha Fairbairn, Adam Triantis, Tunde Fimihan, Jerry Burbidge, Heinrich Gritsch, Chris Clarke; Diary of Events; Quote of the Month and more.

Bees for Development :: Effect of Apis mellifera on indigenous plant and animal species in Japan

 

Rivendale Apiculture

Honeybee rescue, Western Cape, Dean 0824908561. If you notice a lot of bee activity around, chances are they’re scout bees looking for a new home. Placing a lure hive onsite could stop them from choosing your home as their final destination.

§☆中国养蜂学会☆§

Observation and keeping of Japanese honeybees- new trials and the results

Japanese Honeybee

Bee Buzz Scares off African Elephants

Beehives—or even recordings of furious bees—may help African farmers defend their crops against marauding pachyderms, new research shows.

Bees Enlisted to Attack Crows in Tokyo

The birds and the bees are developing a new sort of relationship in Japan: scaring crows away from vulnerable seabirds' nesting site.

Bees' Buzzes Warn of Chemical Threats, Disease, Scientists Find

Honeybees change their buzz in the presence of toxins and diseases, scientists say, and a new "bee translator" could help humans pick up on the insects' alarm.

Mystery Bee Disappearances Sweeping U.S.

Without a trace, something is causing bees to vanish by the thousands. But a new task force hopes to finger the culprit and save the valuable crops that rely on the insects.

Bee Decline May Spell End of Some Fruits, Vegetables

Bees, via pollination, are responsible for 15 to 30 percent of the U.S. food supply. But in the last 50 years the domesticated honeybee population has halved, scientists say.

"Killer Bee" Touted as Economic Lifesaver in S. Africa

The African bee may be widely known as a "killer," but it's a life-saver for many people in South Africa. The government is touting beekeeping as a way to help poor families earn a living, and there are high hopes for marketing an alcoholic beverage made from honey.

Honeybee Genome Sheds Light on "Killer" History, Bee Secrets

New research may provide insights into the complex social structures, keen sense of smell, and complicated evolution of bees.

City Gardens May Drive Bee Diversity, Study Says

Urban gardeners planting choices may play an important role in bee diversity, according to a new study.

iQhilika, an African mead from Makana Meadery

A unique African mead

Aww, darn it

This is the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) municipal bee ordinance.

Hive Angel

Bee people are really interesting. Dr. Marla Spivak is the lady who developed the Minnesota Hygienic Breeder Queen. Follow the links, here, here, here, and here. High synergy in the north country!

One bee...

Actually, I've seen one bee this year, a little nondescript bumblebee that got trapped by the front screen door.

Bumblebees are easy, their heads are full of sunshine. It brushed my bare arm on the way out.

National Pollinator Week, June 22 - 28, 2008

I personally mourn for the bees we've lost in this country.

In fact, I'm rooting for the allegedly hyperaggressive "Africanized killer bees" because they seem like North America's last great hope to keep at least one prolific pollinator (and honey producer) going strong. Despite prejudicial hype, "killer" bees are simply the apiculturist's domesticated variety of choice in southern Africa, where they are preyed upon by the even weirder, wilder and parasitic Cape honeybee.

It's sad, but like the soaring, cathedral-like boughs of the existentially challenged American Elm, merely European honeybees have bought the farm. Maybe they all have.

My front lawn is full of clover — but no bees. I have a redbud tree in the front yard; every spring, it should be full of bees — but isn't. Even the little black or green native bees that sometimes come around have been missing from the turbulent seasons of 2008.

Opportunities for bees abound in this suburban neighborhood — honeysuckle is a weed in better hedges everywhere — but the feast is silent. The missing murmur of a million bees this summer is even more eldritch than Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

Maybe it's sunspots. We're in a solar minimum right now. Or maybe there are clues in literature or folklore about bees absconding from their hives... [Technical Note: This is a pause so pregnant, you might as well try here. I prefer not to quote Whittier directly, for fear of getting stuck in that Victorian Age stuff the old man imported from the famous treacle mines in Pudsey; prefer honey, myself. Natural provenance.]

In a less jocular vein, here's a more scholarly reference book, a discussion of CCD and the politics of its possible connection to Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV), a link to The Buzz, another link to the exotic Hawaiian Queen breeder site, plus a link to National Pollinator Week, June 22 - 28. Enjoy!

Further foraging (at Amazon.com) A Spring without Bees: How Colony Collapse Disorder Has Endangered Our Food Supply (Hardcover), by Michael Schacker. "...On the 100th anniversary of the birth of Rachel Carson, the world faces a new environmental disaster, from a chemical similar to DDT. This time the culprit appears to be IMD, or imidacloprid, a relatively new but widely used insecticide in the United States...." The author blames the Bush EPA for environment-hostile pesticide deregulation. Maybe so, at that. Alert consumers will recognize IMD as the latest active ingredient in flea and tick collars. 60 Minutes - What's Wrong With The Bees? (February 24, 2008) (DVD) Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honeybee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis (Hardcover), by Rowan Jacobsen. Bees Besieged (Paperback), by Bill Mares. A World Without Bees (Hardcover), by Alison Benjamin, Brian McCallum. "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."  — Albert Einstein Bad Beekeeping, by Ron Miksha. NOVA: Bees - Tales From the Hive (2000) The Bees of the World (Hardcover), by Charles D. Michener. [$$$ !] Beekeeping for Dummies (Paperback), by Howland Blackiston. The Backyard Beekeeper: An Absolute Beginner's Guide to Keeping Bees in Your Yard and Garden (Paperback), by Kim Flottum.