Category Archives: Pollination

Bees Delivering Pesticides

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Ron Miksha

This sounds so bizarre. At first. Canadian researchers have found an odd way to potentially deliver benevolent viruses, fungi, and bacteria to greenhouse vegetables. Before some lucky bees are allowed to fly inside glasshouses to pollinate peppers and cukes, they … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecology, Pesticides, Pollination, Science, Strange, Odd Stuff | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Frightfully Slow

Posted on May 20, 2013 by Ron Miksha

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 →

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Rattled Flowers

Posted on April 25, 2013 by Ron Miksha

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 →

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A Multi-player Game

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Ron Miksha

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 →

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Almonds Need Bees

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Ron Miksha

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 →

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Math Bees

Posted on January 17, 2013 by Ron Miksha

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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