Posts Tagged: ‘honeybees’
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…
Podcast Goodness: Vanishing Honeybees and Doomsday Vaults
by Charles W. Bryant | January 22, 2010
Greetings, good people of planet Earth. I would say “take me to your leader” but I’d worry about who that might be. Please say it isn’t Josh. This week on the Stuff You Should Know podcast program Herr Clark and I discussed something very earthy and something very much out of this world. Tuesday’s show [...]
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