Archives for 2020

Human democracy appears to be in trouble.  That’s the message of the October 2018 issue of The Atlantic magazine.  Careful readers will notice that the Atlantic’s treatment of this subject is somewhat different than noted here.  The word “human” is missing.  This “anthropocentric” concept is worth examining further.   The Rights of Nature by Jeremy […]

September 24, 2018 Dear Subscribers: As part of the presentations in Hampton, Virginia, Dr. Tom Rinderer, retired from the USDA Baton Rouge Bee Laboratory, took a deep dive into how Russian (Primorsky) honey bees tolerate Varroa.  He ticked off a significant number of “mechanisms” promoting resistance to the mite that research has teased out over […]

Did you know that beekeeping is becoming part of a therapeutic solution to post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)?  According to its wikipedia page, Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that can develop after a person is exposed to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, or other threats on a […]

                                          Dear Subscribers,  The rains continue here in North Central Florida. We are now into June,  when showers come regularly in the p.m., and are concerned that whatever  nectar might have been left to forage for in May got washed away in the  daily deluge of that record rainfall  month.  The temperature is more […]

Dear Subscribers: It’s Memorial Day.  I have created a Patreon post in the digest for this special occasion.  My new partner is full of “innovative” ideas concerning the long hive he built, in which we installed two colonies of bees side by side, separated by a divider board.  It is interesting to see how his […]

“So since today is Memorial Day, this blog post is dedicated to the idea of sacrifice. The sacrifice our troops make for the good of our society, and the sacrifice each bee makes for the good of their colony. For those who don’t know, Memorial Day is celebrated on the last Monday in May. The […]

Dear Subscribers, I’m back in the honey bee business with another partner.  We are “experimenting” with some “additional  beekeeping strategies,” which include ideas from two beekeeping traditions becoming more prominent in this country.  The first is the top-bar design and the second is that associated the horizontal (or long) hive often used in Europe, perhaps […]

Neonicotinoids are back in the news.  Risks to bees are pretty much confirmed according to one report: “Most uses of neonicotinoid pesticides represent a risk to wild bees and honeybees, according to assessments published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) . The Authority has updated its risk assessments of three neonicotinoids – clothianidin, imidacloprid […]

Dr. Medhat Nasr, Alberta Provincial Apiculturist has helped produce a winner of a computer application:  Alberta has a vibrant beekeeping industry. It houses 283 000 honey bee colonies, representing approximately 43% of the bees in Canada. Alberta’s beekeeping industry contributes $75 million a year to the agricultural economy. This revenue is produced from honey sales, pollination […]

                                                                Dear Subscribers: I have just returned from the University of Florida’s Bee College.  The staff under direction of Dr. Jamie Ellis crammed a lot of  information about keeping honey bees into a short time period.  We found  out that this was in fact the 25th edition of this event, which now  rotates between middle […]