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Bees and wasps share a long history. They started out on the same Cretaceous mean streets, but over millions of years they’ve each evolved into distinct forms. One continues to hunt with unmatched skill while the other has taken up the farming lifestyle.
When they clash, it becomes an all-out war for resources.
When colony collapse disorder, or CCD, first hit the news a few years back conspiracy theorists blamed a number of things for the phenomenon. Some theories (such as the idea that cell phone towers disorient bees) are less plausible than others. The most vitriolic debates here circled around the alleged harm caused by pesticides – [...]
I saw this interesting video on Treehugger today, and it inspired me to blog about beekeeping. Urban beekeeping is growing in popularity, and that’s a good thing because bee populations face threats from many vectors ranging from mites to viruses to pesticides. They’re incredibly important as agricultural pollinators, however, so beekeeping could not only prove to be a fascinating new hobby, it would also be helping maintain a vital player in the ecosystem.
A different way to think about food – risking your life for honey
by Marshall Brain | February 9, 2011
Sometimes we forget how easy we have it in the “developed world”. For us, food is trivial. Within three miles of my house (an hour’s walk) there are hundreds of places to obtain food. We forget that, for more than half the people on the planet (and for all humans not so long ago in [...]
Bumblebees in flight, tracked by radar, behave in fascinating ways
by Marshall Brain | September 29, 2010
Let’s say that you would like to understand how bumblebees live their lives. You have questions: How far do they fly from the hive to find food? How do they fly to the food (do they meander or fly straight)? How many stops do they make on a flight? And so on.
How are you going to answer questions like these? There is no way to follow a bumblebee – they fly too fast, often too high. What if you could mount a little antenna on a bumblebee that would make it visible to radar? That’s what they demonstrate in this video, and they make some really interesting discoveries about bumblebees in the process…
How to start your own bumblebee hive in your backyard
by Marshall Brain | September 29, 2010
Back in this post…
How to keep honey bees in your backyard
…we discussed the lack of pollinating insects in my backyard. One possible solution is honeybees. But another possibility is bumblebees…
We have talked about keeping chickens for eggs in your backyard:
How to keep chickens in your backyard and have fresh eggs every day
And worms:
How to start your own worm farm -or- how to compost your kitchen waste with worms
But what about honeybees? The reason this question came to mind is that I built a little garden in the Brain backyard, and I planted cantaloupes and pumpkins (plus some other stuff, but Trixie dug almost all of it up). Yes, I know it is ridiculously late in the season to be planting things like cantaloupe, given that frost will arrive in 3 or 4 weeks. But so what? The plants are still pretty, as you can see here…
Loss of Bees Could Mean Loss of Crops, Life for Humans
by Josh Clark | September 8, 2010
After having recorded a podcast on colony collapse disorder in January, I’ve felt a lot like I really have my finger on the pulse of the global bee population. My eyes are open.
Thanks to Xenophilia for posting a recent article in the Telegraph about the decline in pollination among bees over the past few years. Thanks to colony collapse disorder, a mysterious condition where entire bee populations abandon the hive and, researchers believe, go off to die.
An attack by the 5th-century Sri Lankan King Kasyapa I’s armed men would have been frightening. But so would one by Sri Lankan honeybees — their stingers three times the length of their European counterparts.
Attacks of the latter sort have become a bit of a problem at the Sigiriya rock fortress, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and one of Sri Lanka’s top tourist destinations.
Yesterday, I posted about some of my questions about “District 9,” including my inability to completely believe part of the film’s basic premise. Since then, some great discussion has gone on in the comments. Commenter Rueben pointed me to a great io9 interview with director Neill Blomkamp, which talks about the social structure of the aliens known as prawns. That interview brought up more questions than answers for me.
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