Articles

While the importance of the male drone is often dismissed, we can definately state that drones are important for a colony’s reproductive success. The virgin queen receives sperm from more than a single individual leading to diverse patrilines – a critical contribution for colony-level function. A study of a group of German scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior at the University of Konstanz, Baden-Wuerttemberg with computer scientists from the Free Unive

There is a new pest in the US – the yellow-legged hornet Vespa velutina . It is a hawker.  Last month when I travelled to Georgia to assist with their Master Beekeeper training and speak at the Georgia fall statewide bee meeting, this new pest was the hot topic. New Discovery On August 9 a beekeeper near the port city of Savannah, GA reported 2 individuals of what he believed were wasps eating numbers of bees in front of his colony. Positive ID was confirmed  (Aug 15 th ) f

Do you have enough bee books?  Is there room for one more on your shelf? If yes, consider Raising Resilient Bees by Eric and Joy McEwen. (Chelsea Green Publishing. 2023. 254 pages). Eric and Joy McEwen live on a 35 acre farm in the remote Illinois River valley of SW Oregon close to the California border. Their isolation figures prominently in their new book “Raising Resilient Bees - Heritage techniques to mitigate mites, preserve locally adapted genetics and grow your own ap

Robber bees are foraging honey bees gone bad! Robbing bees take the fast track to riches – they  invade another colony to steal insufficiently protected stored honey reserves or sugar water being fed to a colony other than their own.  Robber bees aren’t trying to destroy another colony, rather they seek to save their own colony from starvation. Honey bees are compulsive hoarders.  Rare in natural nests, robbing is all too common in our modern apiaries when we site colonies of

Spring – the busiest bee season! Like the other four seasons (swarming, supering, harvesting, fall), spring  comes with varying activities for beekeepers depending on weather conditions and our beekeeping objectives.  Beekeeping is a continuous learning experience. In spring, bee colonies need to grow their colony population and rebuild their stocks of honey. Our “reluctant” March and April 2023 spring offered some lessons we might incorporate into spring beekeeping. Spring