July 2022
Here’s some bee-relevant information I have recently stumbled across, and I hope the reader will enjoy.
The UN Environment paper We are losing the ”Little things that run the World” has prompted the UK-based BugLife to coin the term insectinction to refer to the huge loss of insects in recent years – as much as 60% in the past 17 years! As we know, insects play a fundamental role in every part of nature so it’s critical that we maintain their populations.
This diagram emphasises the impact their loss can have on our food supplies – they’re already in trouble because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so we really don’t want this go get any worse. We’re all aware that in the past decade, the number of insects splattered on the front of the car has dramatically decreased, so that’s considered a good way to identify any further decrease or, indeed any recovery. See https://www.unep.org/resources/emerging-issues/we-are-losing-little-things-run-world for the report.
This diagram emphasises the impact their loss can have on our food supplies – they’re already in trouble because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so we really don’t want this go get any worse. We’re all aware that in the past decade, the number of insects splattered on the front of the car has dramatically decreased, so that’s considered a good way to identify any further decrease or, indeed any recovery. See https://www.unep.org/resources/emerging-issues/we-are-losing-little-things-run-world for the report.
BeeCraft magazine has a really interesting article this month on 15-year-old Seb Kimblin’s experiment on feeding bees. He fed them blue syrup followed by red syrup and finally yellow syrup, taking regular photos of the progression. The result was that he noted that the syrup was not spread across the brood combs as he had expected but stored in specific frames. However, the dyed syrup vanished from the frames, and he eventually found it in the supers of the stronger hive next door, indicating that robbing occurs constantly, and may not be noticeable. His warning should be noted: if you feed a weaker hive that’s close to a stronger hive, there’s a real danger that the stronger hive’s honey will be contaminated with syrup.
In the June issue of American Bee Journal there’s a report on the use of multiple oxalic treatments to address a high Varroa load in summer. The research results show that doing three treatments eight days apart or even seven treatments five days apart doesn’t appreciable reduce the mite levels. I know many people treat with Apibioxal in spring, using three applications a few days apart, so this news is a bit worrying, particularly if they don’t want to go down the route of using non-organic treatments.
I’ve seen (and definitely heard!) bumble bees perform buzz pollination a number of times, and I even managed to record it once. I was was always intrigued as to why this was necessary and the good folks in American Bee Journal (again) have obliged with a thorough explanation. Apparently, it’s because the flower’s pollen is encapsulated in porous anthers and the vibrations from the buzzing cause the pollen to be released through these pores. They suggest that the reason for the plant’s jealous guarding of the pollen is because they don’t want any insects that might waste it from accessing it – that obviously includes honeybees as well as flies and other bees.
In the June issue of American Bee Journal there’s a report on the use of multiple oxalic treatments to address a high Varroa load in summer. The research results show that doing three treatments eight days apart or even seven treatments five days apart doesn’t appreciable reduce the mite levels. I know many people treat with Apibioxal in spring, using three applications a few days apart, so this news is a bit worrying, particularly if they don’t want to go down the route of using non-organic treatments.
I’ve seen (and definitely heard!) bumble bees perform buzz pollination a number of times, and I even managed to record it once. I was was always intrigued as to why this was necessary and the good folks in American Bee Journal (again) have obliged with a thorough explanation. Apparently, it’s because the flower’s pollen is encapsulated in porous anthers and the vibrations from the buzzing cause the pollen to be released through these pores. They suggest that the reason for the plant’s jealous guarding of the pollen is because they don’t want any insects that might waste it from accessing it – that obviously includes honeybees as well as flies and other bees.
Over the years there has been much criticism of supermarkets and their apparent inability to stock Irish honey. The good news is that Aldi have taken the step to include honey from McBride’s Bees in their Grow program. We need to show Aldi that this is a good commercial decision by encouraging everyone to buy the honey. I’m impressed that Aldi have priced this at a level that means that the beekeeper’s costs are covered, something that many of us don’t do when we sell our own honey. Hopefully the fact that a discount supermarket is willing to do this will make the rest of realise that it really is OK to charge appropriately. Anyway, I’m delighted for Trevor McBride and hope that his success is replicated across our other supermarkets.
We’ve probably all been looking at drones and making sure that our queens can be mated successfully over the past few weeks. However, the company XHeli in the USA has created their own drone which is a drone, a drone drone, if you like.