I heart bumblebees! Part Two: Why the bumblebee is in decline....

Mar 14, 2009 by

I heart bumblebees! Part Two: Why the bumblebee is in decline.

So, why have the bumblebees been in decline? Many of the articles I found concerned the U.K., which doesn't mean that the decline isn't happening in the U.S., it's just that the U.K. has been a hotbed of recent bee research. An article titled "Decline of Bumblebees (Bombus) in the North American Midwest" states: "The nature and extent of bumble bee decline in North America is poorly understood due mainly to a lack of baseline and long term data." Clearly, there are reports of bee decline in the U.S. as well, and I think that the two phenomenons are closely related. So let's return to David Goulson's analysis. In the last blog, I wrote about bumblebee's unique characteristics, but let's point out some of the main ones that are contributing to their decline. Bumblebees...

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I heart bumblebees! Part One: Cool facts about Bumblebees....

Mar 11, 2009 by

I heart bumblebees! Part One: Cool facts about Bumblebees.

So, I was speaking with a colleague the other day who just happens to have a family history in beekeeping. Her father (if I'm correct) is a third generation beekeeper and also an etymologist. Anyway, we were talking about her family's bee business when she mentioned that over 5 species of bumblebees had disappeared in the U.K. recently. 5 species? That surprised me, so of course--since I teach research writing and I'm into bees--I had to go and research the fact. I found two articles that talked about this phenomenon. One was titled "To Be or Not to Bee..." by Marianna H. Horn and Peter G. Kevan and another (not so subtly named) was called "The Demise of the Bumblebee in Britain," by David Goulson. Both articles had some enlightening things to say about...

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Top Bar Hives in Kenya

Mar 9, 2009 by

Top Bar Hives in Kenya

So, when I took beekeeping classes last year, I studied what's known as the top bar hive, not the traditional Langstroth hive (see the colorful bee boxes in the post below). Top bar hives are much easier to build than the Langstroth hive, which makes it perfect for using in developing countries. Some would even argue that it's more ecological for the bees since they build their own comb entirely, without the wax mold that comes with the Langstroth. We'll save that discussion for another post. For now, check out this fantastic video to learn more about the top bar hive! Next on I Heart Bees--we'll look at Top Bar Hives in more depth, for those interested in this alternative method of beekeeping. I'll talk about why they're considered more ecological and include a...

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Top Ten Bee Facts Video

Mar 9, 2009 by

Top Ten Bee Facts Video

Well, the video won't let me embed it into my blog, but I will include the link here on the top ten facts about bees. Here's the list (but still check out the video!) 1. Bees visit over 2 million flowers to make 1/2 kilo of honey (1.10 lbs). 2. For one jar of honey, bees will fly over 90,000 kilometers--55,923 miles. 3. A honey bee flies over 8km per hour (4.97). 4. The average worker bee will only make 1/2 a teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime. 5. It would only take two tablespoons of honey to fuel a bee's flight around the world. (I hear this statistic a lot, but the fact is, a bee's wings wouldn't likely last long enough to fly around the world...but hey, it puts things in...

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CCD or not CCD? That is the question....

Mar 7, 2009 by

CCD or not CCD? That is the question.

So...got some news. Not sure what to think about it. Basically it states that scientists have not been able to come up with any hard facts about why so many friggin' bees are dying, all the same way. Apparently, according to an article in the BBC news, "many experts now believe that the term [CCD] is misleading and there is no single, new ailment killing the bees." So--that means, according to the article--that CCD may not actually exist. Here's a little chunk out of the article: Conducting experiments at an isolated almond orchard in the Central Valley area of California, Frank Eischen, of the US Department of Agriculture, said it was "probably true" that there was no new single disease. "We've seen these kinds of symptoms before, during the seventies, during the nineties, and...

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Help Protect Honey Bees from a Toxic Pesticide...

Mar 7, 2009 by

Help Protect Honey Bees from a Toxic Pesticide

Hey all! Sorry I've been a little lax in blogging. I've been teaching more than full-time, and working to finish my novel. Anyway, here's a great opportunity to help save the bees. One of the more nefarious pesticides for honey bees is one called imidacloprid (IMD), a toxin created by Bayer Corp. What IMD reportedly does is make the bees drunk, essentially, and inhibit their navigational systems so they can't find their way home. This letter encourages the EPA to reexamine the research on IMD, and make sure to ban its use when it has proven harmful to honey bees. Please click here and send a letter to the Office of Pesticides Programs at the EPA and spread the word! Thanks! Here's the...

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An article I published recently on bees...

Feb 16, 2009 by

An article I published recently on bees

Well, this seems like the appropriate place to link to the article I wrote. Here's an excerpt: IS THE HONEYMOON OVER? There's something particularly sweet about the first time you fall in love, especially when you're falling in love with honeybees. I remember when I first laid eyes on a buzzing, crawling hive box frame of apis mellifera, commonly known as the European or Western honeybee. I was living in the Philippines on a Fulbright grant in spring 2007, and decided to visit a small resort, the Bohol Bee Farm, located on the southern island of Bohol. Vicky Wallace, the Filipina owner and an avid beekeeper, created her sanctuary over the past 10 years. She dedicated her resort, a small farm plus a collection of hexagonal buildings nestled around an organic restaurant, to teaching...

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Yupbees: Young, Urban, Beekeeping Professionals...

Dec 14, 2008 by

Yupbees: Young, Urban, Beekeeping Professionals

Maybe I'll be the first to coin it, because I'm all about this new movement. That's right: Yupbees. (The fact that this isn't coming up as a misspelled word in my spell check only confirms that this word will join the many greats in our lexicon.) So, there's a great article about urban beekeeping in Germany. The country, like many others, is experiencing a severe loss in its bee population. While most people typically associate bees with beautiful hillsides of lavender and apple trees, bees need to be a part of every landscape, including our urban jungles. What's interesting is that older beekeepers are trying to make beekeeping exciting and accessible to young beekeepers in the cities. They're offering classes and mentorships to help raise awareness and interest for young beekeepers, from school children...

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More love for Haagen Dazs

Dec 14, 2008 by

More love for Haagen Dazs

Let's give it up a bit more for Haagen Dazs. They have this cool website where you can make your own bee that looks like you. (Yes, that's what I look like. Seriously.) Anyway, you can email a bee image to a friend and then it takes you to their website where you can get education on the bee decline and the role bees play in our ecosystem. It's fun. It's free. It's educational. Now go eat some...

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Haagen Daaz: Saving the Bees One Flower at a Time...

Dec 14, 2008 by

Haagen Daaz: Saving the Bees One Flower at a Time

Haagen Dazs rocks. Not only do they have this crazy cute website (complete with chirping birds and flying bees!) designed to help educate about bee decline and fund raise for bee research, they also have just announced a $125,000 donation to the University of Davis' department of Entomology to launch a nation-wide contest to design a half-acre bee garden for our beloved pollinators. I'm not sure how to express how excited I am about this without a bevy of exclamation points. But, since I can't contain myself, here I go: WOOHOO!! GO HAAGEN DAZS and UC DAVIS!!!!!!!! Phew. I feel so much better now that I got that out. I'm kind of against the use of frequent exclamation points, but sometimes it must be done. (Haagen Dazs, by the way, also proves that you...

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The Simpsons do Bees!

Dec 10, 2008 by

The Simpsons do Bees!

It's official. Bees are now part of pop culture. Even Lisa Simpson has her eye on the disappearing bee population. The episode is wittily titled: "The Burns and the Bees," and--though I won't vouch for the bee science in the show--it's nice to see the bee awareness spreading into pop media. The plot? Basically, Mr. Burns decides to build a sports complex in the one place where the declining bee population is thriving, and ends up getting stung financially as a result. It's cute--not The Simpsons that I knew and loved years ago, but still worth seeing. I'm glad a more mainstream audience will be exposed--even if only in a small way--to this very important issue. You can watch the full episode of The Simpsons here. As a vegetarian (though not so strict anymore)...

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Smokers of the World, Unite!

Nov 30, 2008 by

Smokers of the World, Unite!

No--I'm not talking about cigarette smokers; I'm talking about bee smokers. You can see me with a smoker in my profile picture--it looks like a tea kettle with a mini-accordion on the back, and is used to blow smoke into the bee hive to calm bees. But what I really wanted to talk about is a protest in Britain a few weeks ago. Apparently 300 beekeepers joined together with their smokers in full effect, dressed in their Sunday best (starch-white bee suits) to protest the dramatic loss of bee hives in the U.K. We're talking 2 million bees in ONE year. Wow. The beekeepers are angry that the government hasn't put enough money towards bee research. It's understandable why they haven't: Beekeepers don't have the same kind of sway that energy and science lobbyists...

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