Tag Archives: honey bees

Keeping the Bees: Netflix

It’s great to know a lot about bees, although it sometimes comes between you and a good time. I enjoyed Keeping the Bees, a Turkish-language drama (2019; 93minutes), but some bee-science was forgotten in the lab and the jars of … Continue reading

Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Culture, or lack thereof, Movies | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

April 7: Day in the bees

April 7. Our backyard hives are collecting real pollen! Last week, I showed you some fake pollen coming into the colonies. Nothing beats the real stuff. Although desperate honey bees will carry worthless sawdust as a pollen supplement, nothing inspires … Continue reading

Posted in Bee Biology, Beekeeping, Ecology, Native Bees, Personal | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

What does that extra apiary cost you?

With fuel prices going scary high, I thought that a few comments on bee yards away from the home fortress might be timely. My father, an early migratory beekeeper, had about 800 hives and trucked them into apple pollination in … Continue reading

Posted in Bee Yards, Beekeeping, Personal | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Early Pollen?

A couple of days ago, on March 22, we had sunlight and heat. Honey bees were gathering pollen. I don’t remember such a rush of pre-season pollen in this area. It’s a lot earlier than expected. I figured their goodies … Continue reading

Posted in Bee Biology, Honey Plants | Tagged , , , , , | 14 Comments

The Story of my Life (in less than two hours)

I had a wonderful interview with Sylvia and Luca from Vitamina Bee, an Italian videography/website. We touched on everything from veganism to bee-on-bee competition, the history of beekeeping, my Master’s research, and my early life on a farm with nine … Continue reading

Posted in Beekeeping, Books, Commercial Beekeeping, Ecology, History, Personal | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

If it looks like a bee, it’s a wasp

A few of us got together last night for coffee to discuss something about the United Beekeepers of Alberta. After that, one of the folks mentioned that she was preparing to meet a group in a couple of weeks to … Continue reading

Posted in Culture, or lack thereof, Outreach | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

World Bee Day: May 20, 2018

Time to party like it’s 1734 all over again!  May 20th should be a big date on the beekeeper’s social calendar. It’s World Bee Day.  Why did I mention 1734? That’s the year Anton Janša was born. He was baptized … Continue reading

Posted in Culture, or lack thereof, History, Outreach, Save the Bees | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Man Who Discovered that Bees Can Think

You probably know that Karl von Frisch figured out how honey bees use their waggle-dance to communicate. He won the Nobel Prize for that and for other studies of bee behaviour. I think it was well-deserved and his experiments withstood … Continue reading

Posted in Bee Biology, Culture, or lack thereof, History, People, Science | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments

May 20: World Bee Day

May 20 is World Bee Day. Seems an appropriate day to celebrate the bee. (So was yesterday; tomorrow would be good, too.)  It’s spring north of the equator. I don’t want to neglect our friends south of Earth’s belt, but … Continue reading

Posted in Culture, or lack thereof, History, Outreach, Save the Bees | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Spelling Bees with Uncommon Names

I’m not a grammarian, I don’t have the most hugest vocabulary, and I have been known to produce some pretty bad spells of whetther – but even I appreciate the right word, used and spelt correctly. Without rules, confusion reigns … Continue reading

Posted in Bee Biology, Culture, or lack thereof | Tagged , , , | 8 Comments