Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Friday, March 14, 2014
March SWARM...Who Knew?
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| Swarm Hunter! |
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| The swarm after the swarm...the ones we didn't catch until Sunday. |
Last Saturday we had an early swarm. Fortunately we were home and Dave was willing to get up in a tree to do the dirty work. While it seems like work to him, it's nothing but fun for me. I love a good swarm and all the excitement that comes with thousands of bees in the yard trying to find a suitable place to set up a temporary place to hang out. Once we caught the swarm we set them up in another box so we are back up to two hives and that's a good thing!  |
| When we opened the hive that remained there were plenty of bees left behind and an over abundance of brood. The queen had been working hard but from the looks of it ran out of space to lay eggs. |
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| The swarm is dumped from a large sugar lined bucket at the base of a new hive on a white sheet. For some reason that white sheet makes them march right up and into the hive. Who knew??? |
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| Two queen cups side by side in the old hive. That's a good indication that the bees were preparing for the swarm so the bees left behind would have a new queen to keep the hive running smoothly. |
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
Facts, Facts, and more Facts about Bees
www.buzzfeed.com
They can sense the electric fields of flowers.
Dominic Clarke / Via sciencemag.org
Electroreception helps bees figure out which flowers have already been raided for their nectar, so they can target the ones that have plenty left. Oh and did you also know flowers have electric fields?!
2. They withstand forces 30 times greater than gravity as they shake flowers to get pollen out.
Via randar.com
3. They can sniff out landmines.
MikeLane45/MikeLane45
Researchers in Croatia trained a team of honey bees to sniff out landmines by making them associate the smell of TNT with sugar (poor bees). Their super sniffing power means they can detect odours from up to 4.5km away.
4. And they’ve been known to work as “biodetectives”, keeping tabs on pollution at German airports.
Olha_Afanasieva/Olha_Afanasieva
Honey made from bees that patroll Düsseldorf International Airport, as well as 7 others, is used to test for things like hydrocarbons and heavy metals in the air.
5. They could FLY OVER MOUNT EVEREST if they wanted to.
Rdevany / Via en.wikipedia.org
In a paper in Biology Letters, scientists worked out that alpine honey bees can sustain hovering flight at elevations in excess of 9000m – higher than Mount Everest. That’s above and beyond what they need to do for standard foraging, raising questions about why exactly they can do it.
6. They can carry almost half their own weight in pollen.
Muhammad Mahdi Karim / micro2macro.net
With great determination.
7. They take advantage of the laws of physics to make their honeycomb hexagonal.
Sean.hoyland / Via en.wikipedia.org
Honeycomb starts out circular, and then surface tension moulds the cells into a hexagonal shape without the bees putting in any more hard work themselves.
8. Magnets are their kryptonite.
Via reddit.com
By attaching small pieces of steel to bees and waving magnets over them three times a minute, scientists wanting to study the effects of sleep deprivation on bees were able to keep them awake all night. Not getting enough kip prevented the bees from properly doing their “waggle dance” to show other bees where the best flowers were. :(
9. Their brains work faster than a computer on some maths problems.
heckepics/heckepics
When bumblebees encounter a number of flowers they appear to solve the “Travelling Salesman Problem” for that specific set of circumstances, working out the quickest route between all the different flowers.
10. Honeybees can recognise and distinguish between human faces.
indigolotos/indigolotos
Scientists trained bees to pick out a photo of a particular face by giving them a sucrose reward. Once the reward was taken away they still got it right nearly 90% of the time – even though they only have 0.01% of the neurons that humans do.
12. They can taste with their feet.
Mmaxmax/Mmaxmax
And also their mouths and antennae. When scientists dabbed honeybees’ feet with solutions containing sucrose, salt and bitter tastes, salt was what got them going the most.
13. They are merciless towards their enemies.
Mark Greco / Via link.springer.com
Stingless bees in Australia mummify alive any beetles that break into their hives. Yikes.
14. And they save us from starvation EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Spring Time Wishes
Spring is right around the corner and the bees are as excited as I am for warmer weather. Despite the chill in the air this winter they have been diligent about getting out on the warmest days and foraging for pollen. Not sure of the source but they have found plenty. I have fed them a few times this winter just in case but they seem to be healthy and strong and still have honey in the hive. 
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| A sunny day in February...bees out of the hive on a feeder I removed that day. |
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