Susan Holliday is an American hobby beekeeper living in Germany, who painted this lovely image last November of a honey bee and butterfly sharing a blossom. “I love painting the bees in various situations,” she says. “Thank heaven for English ivy plants at this time of year!“ Susan can be contacted at Susan@4holliday.de
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Q Bubble Butt? This year, I have found what I call “Bubble Butt.” See attached photo [Figure 1 – the boxed bee]. I have seen one or two bees with a gelatinous attachment hanging off their abdomens. I do not think it is Nosema. This has occurred in my own apiary as well as the College of …
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Once long ago, before the standard bee smoker became so iconic, smudge pots or other creative contraptions were supposed to waft smoke over irritable bees after opening the hive. More often the beekeeper disappeared within an eye-blinding cloud of smoke. Corncobs aplenty littered the old country farms of the 1800s. Many a beekeeper-farmer made use …
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My kids love building with Legos. So much that I built them a giant Lego table that takes up about a quarter of our living room. On that table, I get to watch their architectural talents revealed, or perhaps improved is a better word, from one day to the next. Each time I open up …
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Maybe this was all a big mistake. Each time I research bee tongues, I find a cursory review, perhaps two or three paragraphs making the structures sound plain and spartan. So I set out to learn more, an unfortunate choice. I should have known there was a reason everyone avoids the subject. If you look …
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Do you recall your first beginnings as a beekeeper? As we wind down the 2021 active bee season in much of the U.S. and complete fall activities, we have more of an opportunity to reflect on how and what we learned in beekeeping. The fall months are especially challenging with mites. Did your mentor, assuming …
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Surprising results from a pesticide and temperature stress field trial Everybody wants to lock eyes on a big, healthy queen when inspecting a hive — the kind that make you exclaim in admiration — but that isn’t always what we find. Some reports estimate that over 50% of queens are replaced within their first six …
Read MoreQueens Can Chew Out Corks I just read Tina Sebestyen’s article on caring for caged queens and it was very good. However, on the part about banking queens, I wish she had mentioned that bees can and will chew out corks. It doesn’t happen overnight but over a few days they can release the queen …
Read MoreThe New World Carniolan (NWC) breeding program, founded in 1982, is heading into its 40th generation. Modeled on the Page-Laidlaw Closed Population Breeding concept, the program was modified to establish and maintain a Carniolan population to provide quality queens to the industry. The NWC was initiated at Vaca Valley Apiaries in California by Susan Cobey …
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The Asian giant hornet can decimate entire hives of honeybees and deliver a painful sting to humans BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — Washington state agriculture workers have discovered their first Asian giant hornet nest of 2021. It was found Thursday morning north of Seattle near the Canadian border not far from where a resident saw a …
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