Flies with a wicked thirst
Many predators kill honey bees but most of the incidental attackers have been upstaged by Varroa mites and CCD. For example, the second edition of Honey Bee Pests, Predators and Diseases edited by Morse and Nowogrodzki, devoted ten pages to various fly predators, but most recent texts on bee health ignore flies completely. Still, beekeepers […] Read more
The logistics of pollen
All bees have one thing in common: they use pollen and nectar to feed both themselves and their young. However, the best way to bring pollen and larvae together has been a subject of disagreement among bee species. As a result, bees have devised various ways to solve the age-old problem. When we think of […] Read more
Mite it bee the scutellum?
Last week, after I published the photo of a crab spider eating a honey bee, a reader wrote to say that the honey bee had a large Varroa mite on its thorax. What he was seeing is not a Varroa mite but a part of the thorax called the scutellum. The honey bee thorax has […] Read more
Beekeeping in Thailand: Chiang Mai
After six weeks in New Zealand, I traveled to Thailand to visit a second cousin. Tom has been living in Bangkok for the past twenty years, but he visits the U.S. from time to time, and we met once when I was a kid. We spoke on the phone in November. He almost remembered me. […] Read more
Danger in the borage
This photo by beekeeper Jeremy Gibbons shows a crab spider with one of his honey bees. I like it not only because it shows the capture, but because I think of borage as such a peaceful, bee-friendly plant. Since I never associate borage with violent death for bees, the image is full of contradiction. The […] Read more
Fit for a frog blog
I was photographing the crab spiders last week when, much to my surprise, this little frog settled on a leaf of the California lilac where I was working. Although this is not a frog blog, I couldn’t resist posting a picture. The little guy (or gal?) is a Northern Pacific tree frog, also known as […] Read more