Category Archives: Pollination
Frightfully Slow
Canada’s spring has been frightfully slow this year. Snow was on the menu coast-to-coast-to-coast in April and early May. As seasoned beekeepers will admit, wintering bees at our latitude is not too hard until mid-March. In springtime, cold damp windy … Continue reading
Rattled Flowers
Charles Darwin was a famous geologist before he published his revolutionary evolutionary treatise. He was also a well-rounded naturalist. It was Charles Darwin who discovered that some bumblebee species gnaw into the side of deep-throated flowers, cheating their pollination obligation. … Continue reading
Posted in History, People, Pollination, Science
Tagged Charles Darwin, evolution, yellow rattle
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A Multi-player Game
How does one get 50 different bee-specialists to work together on a project? Sounds like herding cats, if you ask me. But that’s what agricultural engineer Lucas Garibaldi of Argentina’s National University of Río Negro is doing. The fifty researchers … Continue reading
Posted in Bee Biology, Ecology, Pollination
Tagged Argentina, bee species, Lucas Garibaldi
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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
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