Loss of wild flowers across Britain matches pollinator decline
The first ever Britain-wide assessment of the value of wild flowers as food for pollinators shows that decreasing floral resources mirror the decline of pollinating insects, providing new evidence to support the link between plant and pollinator decline.
In recent years, there have been considerable concerns over threats to wild bees and other insect pollinators which are vital to the success of important food crops and wild flowers.
Amongst the many pressures facing pollinators, a key factor is likely to be decreasing floral resources in Britain.
The study, published in Nature combines vegetation survey data recorded over the last 80 years with modern day measurements of nectar to provide the most comprehensive assessment ever published.
If you have a honeybee buzzing around you, obviously never swat at them. But there are 3 other things that no one mentions:
Pitch of buzzing: if it’s a low, calming buzz, the bee is either curious or tired. The colour of your clothes or your scent has gotten her curious. Allow the bee to buzz around you, so she can understand you are not a flower! Also, she may be tired from a long, honey and pollen- laden flight, and just needs to rest. Let her! She’s tired and just needs a minute to recoup. Honeybees are drawn to top-facing surfaces, so shoulders and heads are common places for them to land. You can also carefully, calmly redirect their path from hair and loose clothing, as they will get tangled up in them. If, however, the buzzing is higher pitched (sounds like an RC car), she is irritated. Calmlymove away.
Speed and pattern of flight: If the honeybee’s flight pattern around you is swift, with plenty of sudden direction changes, she is quitevexed with you. Do not swat, keep your hands by your sides, and move away from the bee. Honeybees that are agitated will follow for about 6 meters (about 20ft) before considering leaving. If the bee gets tangled in loose clothing or long hair, calmly part it, and let the bee free, without touching her. If her flight pattern is long, lazy circles, she is, again, merely curious about your presence. Ignore the bee, as best as you can.
Vibrations:Honeybees are sensitive to vibrations in the air, which includes your heartbeat and voice. The faster your heart rate or the more you scream/yell, the more agitated the bee will get. The faster the vibrations, the more the bee will attack. They become agitated because, for lack of a better phrase, it throws off their groove. Yes, sometimes it can be scary having a bee buzzing near you, but keeping your heart rate as normal as possible and being as quiet as you can, will have the bee on her way in no time.
TL;DR:Low and slow, the honeybee is curious. High and fast, the honeybee is furious.
Many moons ago, when I was a wee tot, I would help my dad at his apiary. Being the angsty child I was, I really didn’t enjoy it all that much. Hot, humid summer days spent in a full-body suit and elbow-length gloves didn’t particularily make for a fun time. But, dad was old-fashioned, and I enjoyed home-cooked food, so, well, there I was, helping.
As much as I didn’t enjoy it at the time, there were a lot of important lessons learned through those arduous summers, but none other than the one day, when we were gathering honey-laden frames. The honey bees were getting increasingly aggressive, which, in turn, increased my frustration. Lifting frame after frame from the hive, I had killed a not-so-small number of worker bees. At first dad had glared at me, but as I continued to squish those poor insects in my frustration-fuelled haze, he came over, and put his hand on my shoulder and said, simply, “take care of your bees, and your bees will take care of you.”
It wasn’t until many, MANY years later that I realized the importance of that statement. It took on so many meanings, as I matured (well, my wife would argue my level of maturity…), and grew older. The flowers the bees gathered from were nothing special, but there was something about the flavour and delicacy of the honey that left many people gushing over it. My dad would smile, and nod his head, everytime someone complimented the honey. We had repeat customers who would buy only from him, and he smiled. He loved those bees, and the honey showed that love.
Take care of your bees, and they’ll take care of you.
Hey there friend, Have you ever wondered what your old pal Doctor Buggs has been researching for his thesis? What’s that? You say you only have 3 minutes? Well have I got the video for you!
After winning the regional rounds, I’m representing the good ‘ole US of A in an International science competition in which we are judged on the impact of our thesis research and how well we’re able to explain it in just 3 minutes. Part of the of it involves a popular vote. Mine is called “The Curious Case of the Bee Mite’s Bite”. I hope you’ll give it a watch and make your way over to this page to vote!
“You are beautiful like a honey bee.. you nested in my heart and filled me up with the sweetest honey. You just buzzed right over, smiled with the sunrise, and sent shivers down my spine.. I say honey bee, cause honey bee so sweet that she is like nature’s sugar to me.”
You fill me with the sweetest buzz and hum of beauty when you are near - eUë
Researchers have discovered that neonicotinoid seed treatments are driving a dramatic increase in insecticide toxicity in U.S. agricultural landscapes, despite evidence that these treatments have little to no benefit in many crops.
During the past 20 years, insecticides applied to U.S. agricultural landscapes have become significantly more toxic — over 120-fold in some midwestern states — to honey bees when ingested, according to a team of researchers, who identified rising neonicotinoid seed treatments in corn and soy as the primary driver of this change. The study is the first to characterize the geographic patterns of insecticide toxicity to bees and reveal specific areas of the country where mitigation and conservation efforts could be focused.
According to Christina Grozinger, Distinguished Professor of Entomology and director of the Center for Pollinator Research, Penn State, this toxicity has increased during the same period in which widespread decline in populations of pollinators and other insects have been documented.
“Insecticides are important for managing insects that damage crops, but they can also affect other insect species, such as bees and other pollinators, in the surrounding landscape,” she said. “It is problematic that there is such a dramatic increase in the total insecticide toxicity at a time when there is also so much concern about declines in populations of pollinating insects, which also play a very critical role in agricultural production.”
[A white fortune cookie paper with black text on the front and an icon of a bee. It reads: You have great business sense and will surprisingly succeed.]
“by the year 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s ocean.”
“meat production causes more greenhouse gas emissions which contribute to global warming than the transportation and manufacturing industries combined.”
“bees pollinate 71 out of 100 crop species that provide 90% of our global food supply, yet we are killing them slowly with over-use of pesticides.”
Benderman doesn’t get that eyelashes are a thing lol
So I guess I’m making shipping art of them now. But I wanted to take them a step further anyway. I hope you guys don’t mind. I am trying out new color pencils and they feel a little light and hard to blend, they do get a soft pastel look down without me meaning to get that look lol
Beekeeping is a fun hobby. You get to learn about the #bees, food cycle, #Pollen, #Honey, #beeswax and all things related to #beekeeping industry such as the different beehives, beekeepers tools and different methods for keeping bees, maintaining bees and managing various parasites and bee related illnesses. If you are successful though, you get to share in the spoils of the honey bee. Once the beehive and the bee colony living within it grows to strong and healthy size, they will start to to produce more honey than they can consume. In late spring to early autumn usually. At these times, you get to harvest a few frames per hive and extract the liquid gold that has been gathered by the bees and capped over with a thin layer of perfectly white beeswax capping.
Once you rob a beehive of its fresh honey frames full of raw honeycomb, you need to extract the honey. There are many tools and methods you can choose to achieve this. If you are only a small backyard beekeeper, you will most likely not have at your disposal a honey extractor or a spinner, and nor would you need one either. You can use a simple crush and strain method which is simple to do and very cheap to make the equipment for. Although this is a more labor intensive method, and will also completely destroy the honeycomb foundation, you can easily extract 20-50 honey frames in this fashion and also recover enough beeswax a few raw beeswax candles as well. In our video, we give you a few tips on how to extract honey using the crush and strain method. We also take a close up look at the fresh raw honey we extracted and reveal some of the health benefits of honey, propolis, and beeswax. Enjoy the video, thumbs up and share. To support our channel, we invite you to subscribe. Every vote counts, and we would be happy to have you along for our beekeeping journey. Thank you for visiting our beekeeping YouTube channel MahakoBees
In this video, we take a very close look at the Flow Hive Flow Frame. During the review, it falls apart on us, not totally unexpected, but it is really annoying when it does happen, so we can think of better ways to spend our beekeeping time. In any case, the close up shots will show you the detailed workings of the Flowhive frame, both assembled and completely pulled apart. The honey harvesting process is rather simple using the flow hive frames, but there will be many questions on the longevity of the frames themselves as well as the number of repeated honey extractions beekeepers can expect to successfully complete before having to pull the flow frames apart and trying to clean them. Only time will tell. It certainly is not much fun putting the flow hive frames together and the tensioning process using the provided wires was a bit cumbersome. To put the flow frames together, we found using large rubber bands very useful, especially after they fell apart for the third time just as you are trying to tension the wires. Most useful is a beekeeping partner if you can find one. Having four beekeeping hands was the way to go.
Hope you enjoy this video, and if you have learned something or found them useful, we invite you to subscribe so we can continue producing more beekeeping 101 videos. Thumbs up and share. Happy Beekeeping http://www.mahakobees.com • PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=353649&patAmt=1 •Website http://www.mahakobees.com •eSTORE: http://www.mahakobees.com/store.html •Blog: http://mahakobees.com/blog •Blog kids: http://beekeepingwithkids.blogspot.com.au/ •Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/mahakobees •Google+: https://plus.google.com/+MahakoBees •Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mahakobees/ •Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/mahakobees/ •Twitter: https://twitter.com/mahakobees •Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/125372235@N04/ •Stumbleupon: http://www.pinterest.com/mahakobees/ •Tumblr site: http://mahakobees.tumblr.com/ •Tumblr blog: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/mahakobees •LiveJournal: http://mahakobees.livejournal.com/ •Delicious https://delicious.com/mahakobees •Diigo https://www.diigo.com/user/mahakobees •Plurk https://www.plurk.com/MahakoBees
A few weeks ago I told you about one of my illustrations ‘A Quilt Of Honey Bees’ being used by a lovely German Honey Company called ‘Bee Loved’.
Well, here it is! I couldn’t be more proud. I’m in love with these jars of Honey, not only do they look great but the Honey tastes incredible too. The owners, Martin & Birgit have done an excellent job and let’s not forget to praise all of those wonderful busy bees who have been hard at work creating all that yummy Honey!
If anyone wants to check out more about this wonderful company & their fantastic bees, then you can do so at: www.beeloved.one
I had an accident in February & broke my knee cap which needed surgery to repair it. It’s been a long road to recovery but I’m just about getting back to normal. I haven’t been posting lately, however I’ve still been busy creating & painting.
I’ve lots of new work to share with you all & I also have some very exciting news regarding one of my illustrations ‘A Quilt of Honey Bees’ being used on the labelling & branding for a lovely German honey company called ‘Bee Loved’. Pics to follow very soon! xx
In a single year, one honey bee colony can gather about 40 pounds of pollen and 265 pounds of nectar. Collectively, they will fly over 55,000 miles to make 1lb of honey and can create 100lbs of honey in a year.
