Did you ever look at the blades of a fan and notice how the leading edges gather crud from the air? It’s gross, and whenever I see it, I imagine breathing all that stuff. It turns out that honey bees also have a problem with dirty air. A new paper appeared earlier this month in […] Read more
Over the past year, Randy Oliver has published several informative articles in the American Bee Journal about the relationship between nosema disease and honey bee dysentery. If you haven’t read these pieces, you should. His message is simple: there is no evidence to support the theory that nosema disease causes dysentery. I’m dismayed, however, that […] Read more
After mosquito spraying in his neighborhood, Jim Metrailer of Little Rock, Arkansas, discovered a pile of dead bees. He wondered if his bees got into the spray itself or if they ate poisoned nectar. He also wondered if his bees had succumbed for another reason entirely. Many choices The answer to the first question is […] Read more
In the sunny and tranquil village of Islamorada in the Florida Keys, beekeeper Jamie Hulet was caught off guard by a spray of pesticide. She writes: “We had a mosquito plane fly overhead this morning around 0700 and the chemicals they released killed thousands of bees. I have four Langstroth hives and all of them […] Read more
“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
Silence is a powerful thing. I was on my way to the compost bin when I noticed an enormous mound of dead bees in front of my strongest hive. No buzz issued from the landing board. No industrious thrum from above. The absence of sound shattered the morning. I was dumbstruck. When I opened that […] Read more
Alfred Hitchcock would have loved the small hive beetle, Aethina tumida. If he had only known, he might have scrapped his movie The Birds in favor of The Beetles. Small hive beetles lead a horror story life, fraught with mystery, intrigue, and destruction. The beetles, aided by their partner in crime—a symbiotic yeast—produce slime, mimic […] Read more