Colony death by yellowjacket is common, but I’ve never heard as many yellowjacket stories as I have this year. People describe how colonies that seemed strong a month earlier are now gone, replaced by yellowjacket scavengers. Or they describe seeing yellowjackets freely entering the hive and seizing prey, undeterred by guards. What is going on? […] Read more
Athough I’m not a hundred percent sure, I believe we are blaming the wrong shrew for damage wrought on bee hives in Canada and northern parts of the United States. Both Fletcher Colpitts, Chief Apiary Inspector of New Brunswick, Canada, and the Bee Informed Partnership website are blaming the European pygmy shrew, Sorex minutus, for […] Read more
Too often, the answer to “What’s for dinner?” is honey bee. Generally, when we think of honey bee mortality, we think of pesticides, mites, Nosema, viruses, lack of forage, poor nutrition, and migratory stress. Indeed, these are serious factors, each capable of taking out an individual bee, a whole colony, or an entire apiary. Hives […] Read more
Two of these photos arrived this week with the same question, “What is eating my bees?” The top photo, taken by beekeeper Wayne Gillispie, came from northeastern Kentucky. The second, by beekeeper Roger Taylor, came from Gallatin, Tennessee. Each predator has a honey bee in its jaws. These creepy-looking bugs are in the family Asilidae […] Read more
Since we’ve been talking about wasps, I want to show you a couple of cool photos taken by Bill Reynolds of Minnesota. He writes: The yellowjacket hornets have been behaving themselves and doing a good job cleaning up the dead bees in front of the hives. Every once in awhile I will find a dead […] Read more
Although I can’t actually see the victim, I’m taking the photographer’s word on it: inside this marauding ball of bees is a bald-faced hornet, Dolichovespula maculata. Sometimes timing is everything, and I was just lining up a little pile of bald-faced bodies here in Washington when this photo arrived from Craig Scott in Delaware. Craig […] Read more
If you live in a place where autumn hoards of yellowjackets or bald-faced hornets enjoy baskets of honey bee tenders, now is a good time to do something about it. Colonies of social wasps do not overwinter in the northern climates. Instead, virgin queens mate in the fall and then go off by themselves to […] Read more