The Beekeeper’s Companion Since 1861
American Bee Journal Volume 166 No. 2 February 2026 Cover Callouts: The Tremble Dance: A Hidden Language - 153, honey bees search for sodium - 193, iNaturlaist on the Apiary -147

ARS Research Leads to Better Understanding of Bee Health

Altering the microbes in a very young honey bee’s gut can have longterm consequences throughout the bee’s life.
Posted October 1, 2016

ARS Research Leads to Better Understanding of Bee Health

Bacteria in the gut of young honey bees may provide clues about the impact parasites have on bee health. That and other experimental findings were published by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Because young honey bees don’t have gut bacteria, entomologist Jay …

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Researchers Identify How Queen Bees Repress Workers’ Fertility

Posted October 1, 2016

Researchers Identify How Queen Bees Repress Workers’ Fertility

Researchers from New Zealand’s University of Otago have discovered the molecular mechanism by which queen honey bees carefully control worker bees’ fertility. It has long been known that worker bees have a very limited ability to reproduce in a hive with a queen and brood present, but in their absence, a third of them will …

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U.S. Honey Crops and Markets – October 2016

US Crops and Honey Markets
Posted October 1, 2016

U.S. Honey Crops and Markets – October 2016

UNITED STATES Honey crops will be up in the Midwest, according to many of our reporters this season. The big honey-producing states of North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota (which account for over 30% of our total U.S. honey crop) had rain and warm weather at the right times, so many beekeepers felt their crops …

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The Classroom – October 2016

Posted October 1, 2016

The Classroom – October 2016

Don’t Do This SO appreciate your column and all the information and advice you provide! It’s the first article I read in the ABJ! I discovered the hard way that the plastic honey bears are not made the way they used to be! I had two jars that had crystallized. Not wanting to risk of …

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Letters to the Editor – October 2016

Posted October 1, 2016

Letters to the Editor – October 2016

Honey Bees Forage on Alfalfa It was a really lovely day; I was supposed to be helping Stephen super up his bees he keeps on a neighboring farm. I was a little disappointed that the bees seemed to be surrounded by nothing but corn, which at that moment, was very tall. The bees in this …

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Examining the Reasons for Colony Losses

Posted October 1, 2016

Examining the Reasons for Colony Losses

Honey bees are the only creatures that do not kill any other living thing to complete their life cycle. They do not even harm plants let alone kill or injure any other animals in their day to day activity of making a living. They will inject venom into any creature that attacks their home, including …

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Introduction to Genus Lupinus

Posted October 1, 2016

Introduction to Genus Lupinus

The Controversy Over Nectar Production Historically there has been considerable controversy over the nectar production of lupines. This may at least be in part because some may produce nectar and others may not, or they may produce only very small amounts of nectar. It may also result from variations in observational technique used to provide …

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Winter Clusters Seen with Colors of Heat

honey bee biology - hive
Posted October 1, 2016

Winter Clusters Seen with Colors of Heat

Winter is coming. The bitter-cold time for bees brings an intriguing sight, a rainbow beauty within the hive, but there’s a hitch. One needs to see heat in the dark hive, and to detect its subtle variations, from frozen to cool to warm and so on to more intense temperatures, even to hot. That requires …

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Body Size in the Superorganism

swarm of honeybees
Posted October 1, 2016

Body Size in the Superorganism

I knew Bergmann’s rule before I’d even heard of it. And I bet most of my readers do too. My epiphany came on one of my trips back home to Indiana after I had moved to Louisiana to go to school at LSU. It was my first trip back to Indiana during summer-time, the previous …

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Bomb VS Bond

installing a package of bees
Posted October 1, 2016

Bomb VS Bond

“That dichotomous choice is exactly the problem – it’s not dichotomous. ‘Treatment’  is assumed to mean using synthetic acaricides. We need to use the words ‘control’ or ‘mitigation’. The opposite is not doing anything.” David Tarpy The mite. Beekeepers don’t need to specify which of the 48,200 known mite species, even though there are 86 …

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