From the Guardian: Bee study lifts lid on hive habits. Experiments on the division of labour in honeybee hives have revealed why some bees do the waggle dance while others nurse their queens. The roles require drastically different behaviours, with nurses feeding the larvae and performing royal grooming duties, and foragers navigating great distances and [...]
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Sheila Haniszewska sent this question along for us: Does anyone know how the bees are doing on Gabriola? I have a large California lilac which is usually buzzing with hundreds of bees this time of year. I should have seen many yesterday, in the sun. None. Just a solitary white butterfly. I have a friend [...]
Filed in Gabriola Island,insects 6 Comments so far
I know you can’t resist a story that includes painting dots on bees. For science! From Smithsonian Magazine: The Secret Life of Bees.
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Helping pollinators seems like a good idea, so some of us keep bees, and some of us have misadventures with mason bees. We’ve read about how cattle might help bees, we’ve bought Gabriola honey, and have become a bit obsessed with bees and pollination in recent years. We read bee news. But this, this is [...]
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I spotted a beehive at the Gabriola Commons last week, and was surprised to see these official-looking labels on the hive. Wow, I thought, these beekeepers are a serious lot! But it’s more than that. Did you know that BC has a Bee Act? It has all kinds of rules. Beekeeping is clearly a lot [...]
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An article at The Atlantic talks about a study showing that grazing lands provide critical habitats for wild bees and other pollinators. The research was led by Berkeley environmental sciences professor Dr. Claire Kremen, among the world’s foremost pollinator authorities. The team evaluated the role of wild pollinators, concluding that they are essential to our [...]
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Next time you’re at Folklife Village, walk past the Gabriola Coast Realty office and notice the bush outside the window. (Pieris japonica, as far as I can tell.) The thing is alive with bees, and they’re very non-stingy calm and pretty bees, too. Are they from a Gabriola hive? Or…? Well, who knows, but you [...]
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If you’re a beekeeper or honey lover, you might recall that I blogged about bees in trouble last March. Well. Here’s an interesting twist on that story from FastCompany.com: Wik-Bee Leaks: EPA Document Shows It Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees. The world honey bee population has plunged in recent years, worrying beekeepers and [...]
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Did you know that Gabriola’s holly trees – well, some of them, anyway – have flowers at this time of year? I hadn’t a clue, and am feeling a bit sheepish about that now. (Although it is hard to know what’s up with the holly trees, because I pass one that always seems to have [...]
Filed in insects,invasive plants,trails 7 Comments so far
You know I’m interested in bees, beekeeping, and honey, and that I have a soft spot for history. So this news fascinated me: World’s Oldest Beehive Discovered in Scottish Chapel. Located in the medieval Scottish Rosslyn Chapel, which dates back to 1446, two ancient hives have been found, skillfully carved in the stone work under [...]
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From the Nanaimo Daily News: Beekeepers ponder new reality of lifted quarantine. Vancouver Island beekeepers will meet in Nanaimo later this month to chart a direction for the industry after the province lifted a quarantine limiting the importation of bees to the Island. On May 1, the province lifted a quarantine that protected Island bee [...]
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From ScienceNews.org: Bees face ‘unprecedented’ pesticide exposures at home and afield. For years the news has been the same: Honey bees are being hammered by some mysterious environmental plague that has a name — colony collapse disorder — but no established cause. A two-year study now provides evidence indicting one likely group of suspects: pesticides. [...]
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Are Gabriola bees in trouble? The Vancouver Sun reports that 90 per cent of bee colonies have been wiped out on Vancouver Island. Since Gabriola is so close to Vancouver Island, it’s hard to imagine that our bees have fared much better. If bees don’t polinate your veggies and flowers, and if bees don’t pollinate [...]
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This is amazing. Somebody put a bell jar over some bees, and the bees proceeded to build a hive inside the jar. See their construction project, step by step, through the glass. (Update: link removed as photos are no longer available.) Birdchick.com has photos and a video of another bees in a bell jar project. [...]
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