“Got one!” said the robber fly, carting off its prey. “Oh no!” cries the beekeeper as another worker bites the dust. As if honey bees and their keepers don’t have enough to worry about, we have scads of robber flies all over the continent from sea to sea. Although you may not be familiar with […] Read more
Imagine e-mailing someone you met once, three years earlier at a beekeeping seminar. In a short note you write, “Why don’t I come visit you? You can feed me, entertain me, and chauffeur me around until I decide to leave. Won’t that be fun?” Being an introverted recluse, this is unimaginable to me. The idea […] Read more
Thanks to everyone who participated in the diagnosis of Molly’s honey bee colony. Overall, I thought the answers were impressive—both thoughtful and nuanced. Many of you agreed with my own assessment of shot brood, but others mentioned issues I hadn’t even considered. It was a great learning experience for many, including myself. I emailed my […] Read more
Are you ready to determine what’s wrong with this colony? We’ll do this together, starting with a differential diagnosis. In case you’ve never watched medical dramas on television, I will explain. A differential diagnosis is a procedure that doctors use to help determine a disease or condition. It is used when the signs and symptoms […] Read more
Shaded woodland can be full of surprises. Tolmiea menziesii, also known as the piggy-back plant, is so attractive to pollinators that it lures them into the dark forest floor where bees are sometimes scarce. But certain bees, especially small native bumbles, go from flower to flower, swiftly collecting sacks of bright red-orange pollen that almost […] Read more
In order to prevent swarming and keep my bees at home, I did the logical thing. By the end of last week, I had split each of my hives into two parts. And because I wanted local queens, I made simple walkaway splits, assuring both halves had eggs and young larvae. I didn’t worry about […] Read more
No one knows exactly when some of the ancient hunting wasps stopped chasing their meals and opted for veggies. We simply don’t have detailed records of early transitional species. What we do know is that some descendants of the early Crabronidae family of wasps gave up meat in favor of pollen, eventually becoming bees. By […] Read more