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I wasn’t paying much attention to Pandora last night until I heard that old Bob Dylan tune, “Tangled up in Blue.” Oddly, I didn’t think of the ’70s or the disparately sad lyrics. No, not me . . . I thought about blue pollen. How weird is that? Those who have been reading this [...] A lot of press has surrounded a story that recently appeared in Food Safety News. The writer of the piece insisted that 76% of all supermarket honey is not honey at all. The reason? It contains no pollen. And it contains no pollen because it is processed by ultra-filtration. The article claims that ultra-filtration [...] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prPuLF43jp8″>video
I love this little video from diagonally across the country because it proves I’m not hallucinating–honey bees really do like cedar pollen. The video, shot by Paul in Florida, compares nicely with my photo from here in western Washington. Bee collecting Alaska cedar [...] Honey flow is one of those confusing terms, especially to new beekeepers. What is flowing during a honey flow is actually nectar. Technically, it should be called a nectar flow. A honey flow is simply a period of time when one or more species of nectar-producing flowers is in bloom and actively producing nectar. [...] An article in today’s Seattle Times reports that three King County residents were recently affected by foodborne toxins. Unfortunately, one came from a sample of local honey. According to the article a man became ill after eating a portion of honey he had purchased at a local farmer’s market. He reported vomiting and “intestinal [...] No, no. I meant they wear what they eat. Imagine going to the store for peanut butter and coming home slathered in the stuff. That’s what bees like to do. Pollination is enhanced by the pollen that sticks to the hairs of the bee’s body. This pollen adheres easily, and when the bee brushes [...] Entombed pollen is pollen that is stored in a honey bee hive and encapsulated under a layer of propolis. The phenomenon was first described in a paper by Dennis vanEngelsdorp et al and published in the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology (2009). In that paper, the authors described cells of stored pollen that were covered [...] After I wrote about floral fidelity and the purity of pollen baskets, I received this awesome photo by Chelsea at thehoneybeat.com. Look carefully and you will see the worker in the center of the photo has pollen baskets of two distinctly different colors. So how did this happen? I’ve tried to think this through, [...] Jeff Harris, a beekeeper in Newfoundland, took this photo of his hive entrance. It’s a little hard to see, but several of the bees are bringing in green pollen. I’ve never seen green pollen down here in Fahrenheitland, so I wanted to share it. Thanks, Jeff, for an astute observation . . . and [...] Flower fidelity makes honey bees special. While many pollinators flit from one plant species to another, honey bees doggedly pursue flowers of a certain species. So when the new day dawns, Sue and Marianne, Betsy and Josephine grab their flight plans and wing out the front door. Sue is visiting dandelions, Marianne and Betsy [...] |
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