The Beekeeper’s Companion Since 1861
American Bee Journal Volume 166 No. 10 October 2026 Cover Cover Callouts: Apis mellifera, weather girl - 1077, Winter hive ventilation - 1093, 1101, 1105, How does the colony respond to OA? - 1127 Cover shoes a frame of brood with a queen cell and several bees near the center of the frame.

Weather Prediction Technologies Improving the Care of Honey Bees

Maple Tree in Bloom
Posted March 1, 2017

Weather Prediction Technologies Improving the Care of Honey Bees

In late February, certainly by early March, the bees and I have become restless. We both feel it. Early Spring has finally arrived to the woods around the hives in Virginia, the eastern Piedmont region. Contemplating the first hive inspections of the season, the nagging worry would be: how well did my bees survive the …

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What Social Immunity can Teach us about Honey Bee Health Management

Propolis
Posted March 1, 2017

What Social Immunity can Teach us about Honey Bee Health Management

In my third installment in a mini-series on social immunity I want to give a summary of what this knowledge can teach us about practical honey bee health management. It’s useful to remind ourselves that agriculture, by definition, is the management of food plants and animals to achieve unnaturally high productivity. For example, a typical …

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Improving Our Bee Forage

Grass dominates our highway rights-of-way
Posted March 1, 2017

Improving Our Bee Forage

In this article is a proposal. I am not a proponent of big government. It is obvious the bigger the government intervention, the less efficient the country’s production. I am not referring to the United States, but any nation. You show me a communist or socialist country and the people there are inevitably poor. Compare …

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Antibiotics and the Beekeeper

American Foulbrood (AFB)
Posted March 1, 2017

Antibiotics and the Beekeeper

Before the advent of the Varroa bee mite (Varroa destructor), the biggest challenge to honey bee health was American foulbrood (AFB), caused by the rod-shaped spore-forming bacterium Paenibacillus larvae (formerly classified as Bacillus larvae and Paenibacillus larvae ssp larvae/pulvifaciens). It is the most widespread and destructive of the brood diseases, according to Wikipedia.com: “Larvae up …

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March 2017

Posted March 1, 2017

March 2017

Antibiotics and the Beekeeper—The FDA’s Veterinarian Feed Directive (VFD Malcolm T. Sanford…………………………………………………………………………259 The Varroa Problem—Part 6a—Bee Breeding for Dummies Randy Oliver………………………………………………………………………………….265 Darwinian Beekeeping: An Evolutionary Approach to Apiculture Tom Seeley……………………………………………………………………………………..277 The African Bee Story Peter Loring Borst…………………………………………………………………………….285 Hyenas in our Midst—The Small Hive Beetle Problem Charles Linder…………………………………………………………………………………291 A New Look at Splits Jerry Freeman………………………………………………………………………………….307 Package …

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March ABJ Cover

ABJ COVER MARCH 2017
Posted March 1, 2017

March ABJ Cover

Rachael E. Bonoan, Ph.D. Candidate in Biology, Tufts University in Medford, MA took this excellent close-up of honey comb cells being filled with pollen for spring brood rearing.  Rachael has also written a very interesting summary of her recent research paper on the subject of “Why Do Honey Bees Like Dirty Water?” Her article begins …

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Flowers Use Physics to Attract Pollinators

new-phytologist
Posted February 1, 2017

Flowers Use Physics to Attract Pollinators

A new review indicates that flowers may be able to manipulate the laws of physics, by playing with light, using mechanical tricks, and harnessing electrostatic forces to attract pollinators. The New Phytologist review describes the latest advances in our understanding of how plants use their flowers to ensure reproductive success. Flowers use light to attract …

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Honey Bee Memories: Another Piece of the Alzheimer’s Puzzle?

Posted February 1, 2017

Honey Bee Memories: Another Piece of the Alzheimer’s Puzzle?

Researchers show a molecular mechanism that regulates memory specificity over time, and point to how understanding memory in honey bees could help us combat degenerative brain diseases A breakdown of memory processes in humans can lead to conditions such as Alzheimer’s and dementia. By looking at the simpler brain of a honey bee, new research …

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Jazz is Music to His Ears, But So Are the Bees

Posted February 1, 2017

Jazz is Music to His Ears, But So Are the Bees

He’s been beekeeping and playing the clarinet for 69 years. Meet Norman Gary, a UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology who retired in 1994 after a 32-year academic career.  As an apiculturist and researcher, he authored scores of peer-reviewed publications, and most recently wrote a how-to-book, The Honey Bee Hobbyist: the Care and Keeping of …

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Letters to the Editor – February 2017

Posted February 1, 2017

Letters to the Editor – February 2017

Response to “Beekeeping Stakeholder” Article In an article published in this magazine’s December 2016 edition (“Beekeeping Stakeholder”), author Luke Goembel makes several inaccurate and potentially damaging statements regarding the Maryland Department of Agriculture and its Managed Pollinator Protection Plan (MP3). In the interest of promoting pollinator health—and collaboration amongst stakeholders—we felt it necessary to clear-up …

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