Holiday Dining Along the Danube

Posted December 1, 2015

Holiday Dining Along the Danube

The winding, picturesque Danube River begins its journey from its headwaters in the Black Forest at Donaueschingen, Germany as two little streams merge to become Europe’s second longest river. The Danube slices through mountains, forests, farmlands, vineyards and floodplains, touching countless villages, cities and the countries of Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, …

Posted December 1, 2015

DECEMBER 2015 Cover

Bill and Mary Weaver write about the Honl commercial beekeeping business operating out of Minnesota and Texas in this issue beginning on page 1323. The business prides itself on operating as a family-run operation.

Posted December 1, 2015

Beekeeping for Profit

Most of the people I know who keep honey bees do it to make money. Many started out looking for something to do, an activity that would benefit the the garden, help the environment, and provide them with a needed activity. But somewhere along the way they found out that they could make money from …

Posted November 1, 2015

Study Shows Africanized Bees Continue to Spread in California

University of California – San Diego A study conducted by biologists at UC San Diego has found that the Africanized honey bee is continuing to expand its range northward since its introduction into Southern California in 1994. The study, published in this week’s edition of the journal PLoS ONE, found that more than 60 percent …

Posted November 1, 2015

Evans Appointed as New Lab Director

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Jay Evans as the Research Leader of the Bee Research Laboratory (BRL) in the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center. Dr. Evans joined ARS as a Research Entomologist in 1998. During the ensuing years his research focused on threats to honey bee health, from bacteria to mites, and …

Posted November 1, 2015

U.S Honey Crops and Markets – November 2015

UNITED STATES Honey crops in the Midwest, Northeast and Mideast ended up being a lot better than many had forecast earlier in the season. This optimistic late season honey crop assessment has come from a number of sources and will help make up for some of the short crops in California, the Southeast and the …

Posted November 1, 2015

Letters to the Editor – November 2015

More Research Needed on Herbicide Effects on Bees I would very much like to see more research on the effect of herbicides on honey bee brood development. Currently there is next to none, so far as I can tell. True, most herbicides are considered to be relatively safe to use around ADULT honey bees. But …

Posted November 1, 2015

Winter Thermoregulation in the Honey Bee Superorganism

With last month’s column we reached a significant milestone in our evolutionary history of the honey bee – the point at which queens and workers have diverged in form and function to the point that each can no longer perform the functions of the other. The queen can’t survive without the workers and the workers …

Posted November 1, 2015

Hydrophyllaceae – The Waterleaf Family1

The Waterleaf family consists of about 20 genera and 275 species, but these numbers vary a bit with the reference consulted.[2 & 19] In part, this is probably because some species are placed in different families by different authors. The family is common to most of the world except Australia and its members are largely annual …

Posted November 1, 2015

Swarms

You do not have to be around honey bee colonies very long before you encounter one of their most complicated group behaviors – the swarm. Beekeepers usually do not like to see a colony swarm. After all, it means that their colony split in half usually right before or during the major nectar flow of …

Holiday Dining Along the Danube

Posted December 1, 2015