Honey Bee Suite

Dear Readers,

I have worked hard to develop a large readership and I appreciate every last one of you. But the resulting problem is this: at the moment I am so swamped with e-mails and comments that I can’t answer them all in one day.

My daughter says I need staff. My husband says [...]

I want to thank everyone who wrote e-mails and comments with ideas for combating this problem. Not only were they helpful (and entertaining!) but they made me realize I wasn’t crazy for being annoyed.

I have removed the remainder of this post until I consult with my attorney and decide how to proceed. In [...]

Dear Readers,

It has come to my attention that a website at http://www.beekeeperguide.com is publishing my daily posts, verbatim with photos, without permission and without any attribution to HoneyBeeSuite.com. The person responsible, Nick Winters, is selling a book and using my posts as a sales tool.

Although I often grant permission for the use [...]

The next morning the two swarms were right where I left them–one in the Leyland cypress and one in the red alder. I was annoyed because I had a noon meeting in Auburn and wouldn’t be able to watch them. When I left the house the day was sunny and clear, and I knew [...]

I’ve always heard that honey bees would collect pollen from skunk cabbage, but I’ve never actually seen them do it until yesterday. Skunk cabbage, Lysichiton americanum, is extremely attractive to flies, and the flowers I saw yesterday were loaded with flies as well as bees.

In Honey Plants of North America (1926), John H. [...]

Thanks to all of you who asked!

I graduated last Friday (June 11) with a Masters in Environmental Studies from The Evergreen State College. All my papers (except two in aquatic biology) were about bees, either wild or managed. In addition, my candidacy paper was titled “Native Pollinators and the Food Supply: Can Wild [...]