During its growth and development, a honey bee larva increases its weight approximately 1700 times. This amazing increase in body mass occurs in a period of just six days and is fueled by food prepared and delivered by the worker bees. The food—first royal jelly then a combination of pollen and nectar—is pooled in the […] Read more
Here’s my newest crazy project: I want to learn which native pollinators visit which native plants in my local forests. So far, I’ve spent a lot of hours trekking around and finding very little. Oh, there are plenty of flowers; I just don’t see many pollinators on them. Furthermore, I can find almost nothing about […] Read more
“New Zealand has experienced 45 earthquakes in the past 24 hours.” Frank gleefully clicks on an animated topographic map. “Little ones!” he assures me. It’s 10:30 pm on my first night in Wellington. We’ve been checking out local apiaries on Google Earth, and now Frank is tormenting me with tectonic activity. He traces a fault […] Read more
I try to remain vigilant for mason bee mites and I use recommended control measures for limiting their impact on the few mason bees I have. But earlier this year I saw my first really bad case of hairy-footed mites on the backs of two newly-emerged mason bees. The bees in question emerged not from […] Read more
You open your hive but you can’t find your queen. Worse, you see no young brood—no larvae, no eggs. Several things are possible: What should you do? At this point, you wonder what to do. You could buy a queen, but maybe you have a virgin queen or a newly mated queen and you just […] Read more
I have a few questions about my bee colony. The hive swarmed twice this year and has still grown to a good size colony, which means there was not a lot of space within the hive. We placed a second level on top a month ago but only a handful of bees walk over it. […] Read more