Category Archives: Science

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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Wild Bees

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Ron Miksha

This sounds like an interesting job. You may have heard that there are about 40,000 species of bees in the world. Most are solitary, some live loosely with familiar neighbours, and a very small number, like the honey bee, are … Continue reading →

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Expressing Genes

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Ron Miksha

What the heck is Gene Expression? Researchers working at the University of Illinois are tricking honey bees in order to learn about something called Gene Expression. As if the poor bugs don’t have enough to worry about, scientists are fooling … 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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Out with the Tongue

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Ron Miksha

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 →

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Wired for Adventure

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Ron Miksha

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 →

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Melting

Posted on October 10, 2012 by Ron Miksha

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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