December 2023
The UK’s Royal Mint has just released a new complete set of coins, the first of King Charles’ reign, all of which depict plants and animals, a bit reminiscent of our own pre-decimal coins. Apparently, these coins reflect the king’s interest in conservation and the natural world, with the new pound coin adorned with a couple of bumble bees. I look forward to picking one up on my next trip up North.
At last, a bit of good news around Asian Hornets. An article in the journal Communications Biology, entitled "Quantifying the impact of an invasive hornet on Bombus terrestris colonies" explains that bumble bees have a remarkably effective defence against Asian Hornets. They simply drop to the ground which makes the hornet lose its grip, or it has time to deploy its sting making the hornet back off. It isn’t all sunshine though: the bumble bee colonies had reduced growth rates in areas with the hornets, indicating that they had a negative impact even though the attacks at the colony entrance almost always failed.
A new book, “Bee Conspiracy” by David Boito, has an unusual storyline. Apparently, there are fears of a food shortage due to honey bee deaths, but in a world where most people are talking about saving the bees, the detectives investigate a sociopath whipping up mass hysteria to try to profit from wiping out bees. Perhaps something to consider for a Christmas stocking, although the book seems to have more of a Halloween theme.
A recent paper in Plos One, “Honey bees (Apis mellifera) modify plant-pollinator network structure, but do not alter wild species’ interactions” by Sydney H. Worthy, John H. Acorn, and Carol M. Frost addresses recent concerns about whether honey bees out-compete wild bees. It appears that their results “suggest that honey bees did not alter wild pollinator foraging patterns in this system, even in a year that was drier than the 20-year average.” This is, of course, good news, although their work looked at rural environments, so the situation for urban bees may be different.
A thief in Pennsylvania may have gotten a lot more than he bargained for when he stole a shop vacuum from Don Shump’s truck. Don is the owner of the Pennsylvania Bee Co. which also does removals not only of bees, but anything that flies and stings. He had just completed the removal of a Vespa crabro colony (what the Americans refer to as “European Hornets”) which cannot really be described as particularly friendly, and they were probably in more of an even more vengeful mood after being vacuumed up. In a Facebook post warning the thief about the contents of the vacuum, Don added the caustic tongue-in-cheek comment “I anxiously await your unboxing video”.
While beekeepers here have pretty much given up on Bayvarol because of Varroa’s resistance to its active ingredient, Flumethrin, this acaricide is still in use in many places across the world. New research from the Honeybee Research Institute in Jiangxi, China, in the journal Science of the Total Environment, “The adverse impact on lifespan, immunity, and forage behaviour of worker after exposure to flumethrin” has shown that cumulative treatments can harm the bees, shortening their lifespan, weakening their immunity, and harming their foraging ability. Yet another good reason not to use that particular treatment!
Over the past few years, Tipperary Crystal has diversified its offerings to include jewellery and homewares and more. Now they have quite a number of bee-related items, ranging from cereal bowls and egg cups, to oven gloves, to earrings and pendants, quite a swarm of bees. I imagine these might suit as Christmas gifts for the difficult to please beekeeper.