Legacy of Robbin Thorp: Franklin’s Bumble Bee Proposed as Endangered Species

Posted October 1, 2019

Legacy of Robbin Thorp: Franklin’s Bumble Bee Proposed as Endangered Species

DAVIS–The late Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and a global authority on bees, worked tirelessly to try to include Franklin’s bumble bee (Bombus franklini) as an endangered species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). In fact, he and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation petitioned the …

Posted October 1, 2019

CREATE POLLINATOR HARMONY FOR WATERMELONS

Denise Attaway, College of Agriculture, Forestry and Life Sciences; Public Service and Agriculture CHARLESTON – A Clemson University graduate student has found adding a little color to watermelon fields can attract pollinators which can help improve quality and increase yields of one of South Carolina’s most important vegetable crops. Miriam “Mimi” Jenkins of Tampa, Florida, …

Posted October 1, 2019

Letters to the Editor – October 2019

DEAD QUEEN RESUSCITATED? On June 26, as my assistant Tom Facey and I were checking out a hive with a new queen, I found the young lady on a frame and picked her up to mark her. I put the green dot on her thorax, and was going to release her, when I noticed that …

Posted October 1, 2019

Using Naturally Built Queen Cells Part 1: General Biology and Cutting them from the Comb

Naturally-built, well-constructed queen cells from good bee breeding stock can be a source of new queens in a beekeeping operation. To use these queen cells, beekeepers should know to how judge good queen cells from poor ones, how to cut queen cells from combs, how to transport queen cells between apiaries, and how to reattach …

Posted October 1, 2019

Crowded apiaries may not be bad for the health of your bees

Whether we acknowledge it or not, all beekeepers are farmers who are responsible for keeping domestic animals (our bees) healthy and productive. If you have a couple colonies in your backyard, you may simply enjoy watching your bees and stealing a couple gallons of honey every now and then. If you’re a commercial beekeeper, you’re …

Posted October 1, 2019

The Story of Incomplete Pollination

If you ask a woman whether she is pregnant, she generally answers “yes” or “no.” Very seldom do you hear other versions, such as “more or less,” “partially,” or “somewhat.” She either is or she isn’t — go or no-go — and the reality is easy to comprehend. In plants, however, the situation is very …

Posted October 1, 2019

Why We Shouldn’t Fear 5G

Adoption of 5G cell phone networks will lead to more cell towers, but there’s no good reason to expect it to harm honey bees The next generation of cell phone connectivity — the 5G network — has been launched. Most countries are projected to adopt the technology by 2020, and we should expect download speeds …

Posted October 1, 2019

The Queenless Conundrum

Here is a common scenario … you open your colony expecting to see your new queen getting started after a split or supersedure, and you see … nothing; no eggs, no larvae, no hope. All of the capped brood has emerged, and the frames are bare except for the bees walking around on them. The …

Posted October 1, 2019

Contents October 2019

Suspended Bear Fence for the Hobbyist Joseph A May – 1113 Honey Bees Never Cease to Amaze: Buttress Combs Al Avitabile – 1121 Nosema — Monitoring and Disinfection – Part 5 of a Series Randy Oliver – 1135 Preparing Your Bees for Winter Travis Owen – 1139 The Sunflower State Is Abuzz: Tourists flock to …

Posted October 1, 2019

October 2019 ABJ Cover

Everyone this way, please! Large group photography can be a challenge. There’s always one person looking the other way, someone else has their eyes closed, and when you’re finished you’re told one of the cousins had already gone home. Cheryl Burkhead took our cover photo while researching her article on sunflower tourism in Kansas. We …

Legacy of Robbin Thorp: Franklin’s Bumble Bee Proposed as Endangered Species

Posted October 1, 2019