Author Archives: Ron Miksha
Almonds Need Bees
Almonds need bees. And beekeepers need almonds – to pay their bills. In California – which produces about 80 percent of the world’s almonds – hundreds of thousands of acres stretch from Red Bluff to Bakersfield. Each acre ideally has … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping, Ecology, Pollination
Tagged almond pollination, California, Eric Mussen
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Math Bees
Lining up the Hives. The University of Essex (England) Mathematics Department has teamed up with a software designer to create an app that may help beekeepers and orchard owners maximize pollination in orchards. The venture, code named “Project Beeswax” even … Continue reading
Out with the Tongue
2012 was not all about colony collapses and neonicotinoidal imidacloprid pesticides. There was some lighter news. In December, we learned that honey bees were being trained to stick their tongues out. Some top-notch scientists at Bielefeld University in Germany are … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Biology, Science, Strange, Odd Stuff
Tagged bee tongues, Bielefeld University, training bees
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What’s happening to the bees?
It seems that the strange syndrome beekeepers call “Colony Collapse Disorder” was not so bad this year. CCD has been blamed for poor wintering in recent years – in Canada, losses had averaged over 20% for the past decade. Manitoba … Continue reading
Bayer’s Headache
The past year saw Bayer (your headache company) in the news quite a bit. A very serious study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health linked Bayer’s pesticide imidacloprid to Colony Collapse Disorder and published the findings in June’s … Continue reading
Wired for Adventure
From the UK this year, scientists published in Biology Letters that bees frequently mess up their waggle-tail dance if they are describing nectar sources that require the bees to dance horizontally across the frame. Much better for them to dance … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Biology, Science
Tagged Gene Robinson, University of Illinois, waggle dance
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Ireland’s Native Black Bees
Good news: the indigenous black honey bee is making a come-back. The native honey bee was deemed extinct in some parts of Ireland, but in 2012, researchers found it in various pockets in Ireland and throughout the British Isles – … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping, Genetics, Travels
Tagged Apis mellifera mellifera, black bees, Galtee Queen Breeding, Ireland, Senator Bill Graham, South Carolina
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M&M Honey
In France, bees started producing some colourful honey – blue and green, actually. Seems they gained unauthorized access to a biofuel ‘plant’ which was firmly rooted in the green concept of converting left-over candy pigments from a nearby Mars factory’s … Continue reading
Turning it over
This year’s blog didn’t describe my own beekeeping very much. I wrote a little about other beekeepers. And I wrote a lot on thoughts and ideas I’ve had with bees in mind. But not much on the wholesome good fun … Continue reading
Posted in Beekeeping, Commercial Beekeeping
Tagged Alberta, Pennsylvania, Saskatchewan, Summit Gardens
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Melting
Are we melting? When I was a kid, I learned that the world was heading back to another ice age. The argument was reasonable enough. Evidence in charts, graphs, and photos showed that the 1970s were the tail-end of a … Continue reading
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