Bee poop and what to do about it

The following posts relate to bee feces. If it’s not what you’re looking for, the Index can help you find something more specific.

• Waste management: even the bees do it
  I shivered in the evening wind as a full moon ripped through the horizon like the morning sun. It looked white hot, but no warmth followed it into the sky. Huddled in my sleeping bag, I made a mental inventory of the desert sounds. As a youngster, I always thought the desert would be quiet at ...
• How the inverse square law governs the distribution of bee poop
  Science and math govern everything, even the location of the next glob of honey bee poop. Well, sort of.
• Bee poop on flowers: the best in sanitary practices?
  Sunshine made an unexpected appearance, so I got my camera and went looking for . . . well, I really didn’t know. Just something. The trees were heavy with blossoms, the bees were soaring, and it seemed like an all-around good day for photos. What I found was completely unexpected. I started photographing a honey bee ...
• Yellow rain: but whose bees did it?
  Although it is late fall here in the northern hemisphere, it is late spring in New Zealand. Down there the honey bees are rocketing from nest to nectar and back again, feeding their young and leaving telltale yellow splotches everywhere. Earlier this week I received a fascinating e-mail from a man on the northern end of ...
• Honey bee dysentery and water
  Dysentery in honey bees is one of those unfortunate terms that results in nothing but confusion and misconception. It’s right up there with the word “organic” to describe food grown without manmade fertilizers and pesticides. If you apply the traditional meaning of organic—which, with a few exceptions, refers to chemical compounds containing carbon—then the large ...
• Nosema and dysentery are not the same
  Yesterday I read the following statement on the blog of a well-known beekeeper. “First I looked at the hive entrances which had signs of nosema the last time I visited. The hive looked just the same – no new nosema on the side of the hive.” Whoa! There are at least two things wrong with this ...
• Honey bees collect Alaska cedar pollen
  Yesterday, when I saw hundreds of honey bees in the Alaska cedar hedge (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis) in front of my house, I thought they must be collecting propolis. But on closer inspection, it was obvious they were collecting pollen. Their corbiculae were full of pollen the exact color of the pollen-bearing strobili that adorned the tips ...
• Readers: How do you remove bee poop stains from laundry?
  Dear Readers, An innkeeper in South Africa has a problem and maybe you can help. There, they hang the laundry outside to dry, but his inn is adjacent to a field with 100 hives. He can’t get the yellow/orange stains out of the laundry and wants to know if there is a way to do it. ...
• Mischievous proliferous: the scoop on bee poop
  Okay, Mischievous proliferous is not an official name for anything, but it’s the name given to honey bees by my husband. It is loosely translated as “many troublemakers.” The problem he sees with honey bees in not the stinging or the intimidating flybys, but the prolific drops of feces that cover just about everything for ...
• Sticky yellow bee droppings are an excellent thing
  Yes, they can be irritating, but sticky yellow bee droppings are a sign of colony health.