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

DECISION BY CANADIAN REGULATORY AGENCY MAINTAINS CANOLA FARMERS’ ACCESS TO SEED TREATMENTS FOR PEST CONTROL

pest-control-canola
Posted July 1, 2021

DECISION BY CANADIAN REGULATORY AGENCY MAINTAINS CANOLA FARMERS’ ACCESS TO SEED TREATMENTS FOR PEST CONTROL

Canadian Canola Growers Association & Canola Council of Canada media release Winnipeg, MB — March 31, 2021 — Earlier today, Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) released its final special review decision on clothianidin and thiamethoxam, two important seed treatments that farmers use to protect their emerging canola crops from early season pests. The final …

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Contents – July 2021

Posted July 1, 2021

Contents – July 2021

Summer Reads: Book reviews Carol Hrusovszky, Tina Sebestyen, Eugene Makovec – 717 Honey Fraud: Closing in on the Cheaters M.E.A. McNeil – 727 Monitoring Honey Bee Colony Activities with a Temperature Sensor Grid — Part 4 Frank Linton, Anna Stumme, Brett Padula, Gail Ifshin, Gregory Behrmann – 733 A Queen is Born Peter Borst – …

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July 2021 ABJ Cover

ABJ July 2021 Cover
Posted July 1, 2021

July 2021 ABJ Cover

Closer inspection reveals a queen just below the entrance to this swarm trap, joining her subjects on their march into what the itinerant colony believes to be its new home. Just to the left of the entrance we see several workers, Nasonov glands exposed, fanning the universal homing scent to their siblings. Chris Long took …

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The Classroom – June 2021

The Classroom - ABJ - Jamie Ellis
Posted June 1, 2021

The Classroom – June 2021

Q  Mysterious Leg Spine/Spur   On the mid-legs is the spine or spur. What is the consensus on its function? I guess it is referred to as a “wax spur” by many, thinking it is used to move wax flakes. I think I saw another reference to it being used to move pollen pellets. Do …

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Notes from the Lab – June 2021

beekeepers
Posted June 1, 2021

Notes from the Lab – June 2021

Everyone’s getting vaccinated … Do honey bees run vaccination programs, too? As I write this, 40% of people in the U.S. have received at least their first dose of the COVID vaccine and 26% are fully vaccinated. That corresponds to 133 million people receiving one dose and 86 million people being fully vaccinated. Wow, talk …

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Antique Miniature Hives Show the Development of American Hives Part 2

Antique Miniature Bee hive
Posted June 1, 2021

Antique Miniature Hives Show the Development of American Hives Part 2

In the previous article, we studied the rare Phelps hive from the early 1850s to learn about hive development. We saw the Phelps hive as a complete miniature hive, a full-size outer case, and even the book Phelps wrote. Mostly we will lose this exotic luxury of having both a complete hive and book by …

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Making Sense of the Crowd

tracking honey bees
Posted June 1, 2021

Making Sense of the Crowd

Automated tracking technologies allow researchers to monitor behaviors of all the honey bees in a hive simultaneously Companies are getting better and better at targeted advertising. Every day, sophisticated computer algorithms track our online activity and location data in an effort to feed us ads that are more likely to stick. Although nobody is actually …

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Invasion of the Honey Plants

Posted June 1, 2021

Invasion of the Honey Plants

It’s not surprising that beekeepers are often in favor of invasive plants that “normal people” find objectionable. After all, honey bees are themselves invasive. Once they landed in North America via the Jamestown colony, honey bees lost no time distributing themselves across the continent. They engulfed the wildlands in a fashion that defines invasive, thriving …

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Is It Time to Super

adding super to beehive
Posted June 1, 2021

Is It Time to Super

If you look up the word “supering” in a dictionary it gives definitions that definitely do not fit beekeeper supering. Beekeepers define a super as “any upper-story hive box placed over the brood chamber for purpose of storing surplus honey.” When you look up “honey super,” Wikipedia informs us, “A honey super is a part …

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Contents – June 2021

Posted June 1, 2021

Contents – June 2021

Take Our Reader Survey – 596 International Honey Market Report Ron Phipps – 597 Prized Honeys, Invasive Species and Biocontrols M.E.A. McNeil – 615 Apiary Inspectors of America: Continental Collaboration Since 1938 Mary Reed – 623 The Mind of the Honey Bee Peter L Borst – 637 The Harter Family Beekeepers: 120 Years of Honey …

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