Don't need no fancy store bought hives...

Pine Mountain, Ky - Been there.

Pine Mountain is on a high ridge in eastern KY that runs SW-NE almost forever. It's a very prominent land feature, this ridge. High, steep, and it literally runs for a hundred miles or more. You should give it a look on GoogleEarth. It's kinda impressive.

Moonshine country, still. Among, ahem, other things.;)

Yeah, I checked it out on Google Earth, that ridge is impressive.

Me too. Flew the length of it in the F18. Nice

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Collegamento

Yeah, whatever. I'd like to see if it burns in pretty colors. Now THAT would be interesting.

You're welcome.

I was reading about ancient chemical warfare when I found this.
That surprised me because I though all honey was safe if you're lost in the wild. :eek:

People still eat this honey for its hallucinogenic qualities. The poison is in the dose.

Nepal has a similar product. There is also a moment in here that will remind you how evil the ChiComs are.

The bees love you.

Gathering pollen the hard way, when they could just shovel it off my car. ;)

Don't mess with a bee that can pull a nail from a brick wall. :headshake

From AP, via YahooNews

Millions of bees released in interstate crash

Trooper needs help from the hive mind for a solution. :haha:

I saw somewhere that keepers are at about 44% losses this year. :sniff:

Here's a charm for beekeepers. Actually it's supposed to be a Hornet school mascot, but beekeepers are adaptable folk. :D

Last night I made a carpenter bee trap.

We'll see how it works. The little shits are eating my house.

Good Doggie...

In case you weren't sure, to bee, or not to bee...

Praise the Lord, a rational response from the MA Environmental Police.

Although their response was more likely, damn it, we'd like to fuck this guy but he's got us on a technicality. You have to know these clowns.

...and then God created the bee:

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Bees...

INCOMING!!!!!

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BMets mascot Buddy the Bee to be replaced. :(

I need the plans for that. Those bastards have perforated my house.

I followed these plans, more or less.

Get about an 8 inch scrap of 4x4 post. Drill a 1 inch diameter hole into the end grain and about 6 inches or so deep. then drill 0.5 inch diameter holes in from each of the 4 sides at a 45 degree angle so they all meet at the bottom of the 6 inch hole you already drilled. I got an empty peanut butter jar because I didn't want any broken glass in case the thing fell, and drilled a 1 inch hole in the cap and screwed the cap to the block of wood in line with the 1 inch diameter hole. Attache the jar to the lid and hang the whole thing under an overhang of some sort, near the wood damage.

The bees come up to the block, see the 0.5 inch diameter hole just begging them to investigate. They go in and crawl uphill at the 45 degree angle. Everything is dark until they get to the top, and then there is the large 1 inch shaft that drops down into the jar and there is lots of light down there, so they follow the light out. Except then they are in the jar.

Here's a nice site too.

And I made my trap a little more tricky by cutting off the top of a water bottle and inverting it like a funnel and attaching that to my peanut butter jar lid so the bees would have an even harder time finding their way out. Kind of like this.
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The life cycle of the carpenter bee is that they are active in the spring and lay lots of eggs, and then those eggs hatch in the late summer, and they are active again. So it's a bit of a lull here now and I haven't caught anything. But when they hatch, I'll get them.

Awesome. I'm on it.

20,000 bees follow a car for two days trying to rescue their queen

I once had a spider lay her eggs in one of my rose flowers. She tied the flower up with her eggs inside. The amazing thing was the other flowers died in winters chill, but this one stayed red and whole. February came and was time to cut the bushes to the ground. I left the one sprig uncut. Spring came. The little buggers hatched. They were red like the rose, soon to be green like dear old mom. After a few days I noticed a couple of yellow jackets were eating my babies. I dispatched them with fly spray. The time came for the brood to leave the nest and the rose flower finally died. None said goodbye or thanks for protecting them. I did notice that I didn't have to spray for white flies or Japanese beatles that summer. I think that was enough thanks for anyone.

tarheel

Friendly neighborhood bees vs. asshole wasps...

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Bees are faster than pigeons.

If Attenborough is describing a horrific lifecycle, 90% chance he's describing a wasp.

Pertinent quote from the comments section of the WaPo article:

I have activity in both hives but I think I took a numbers hit.

That's not what I got from the article. My take is the bumblebee is the is first to make the endangered list, but a lot of lesser know bees are in deep shit too.
The honeybee is doing OK only because of intense intervention by man.

I've read a bunch of articles saying the problem's real cause is X or Y or Z. Likely it's a combination of a bunch of things, none of which anyone cares to tackle other than on a local small scale.

I've read enough to know that we're in trouble, but not enough to be confident about all of the science (meaning trends and population issues; the neonicotinoids are another matter). However - small local scale can make a difference, even turn the tide. I'm going to set up hives this spring.

I've watched the bat population on our property wax and wane over 10 years - there isn't much I can do to help them other than do no harm. For the bees, maybe a little positive intervention is possible.

They're smart too!

Bumblebees are nimble learners.

They learned from watching a puppet bee. Daaaang.

And some busybee-scientists are probing the bee brains.

I was using a small underpowered wood chipper that had an engine like a lawn mower with the fan on top pulling air in and down through the engine for cooling. Anyway, I'm making a lot of noise and chips are flying but the huge Bumble bee is nosing around at their usual pace of how the hell do they stay up. Sure enough he gets sucked into the engine and I figure he's a gonner.
It must have been at least five minutes before the engine stalled again and pretty quick he come flying out, flew in a couple circles then moseyed off.
I thought damn, he is one tough bastard, must be a Seal, or Green Beret, of the Bumblebees.

Beeeeeeeeeeeees

Cheerios ran a ad campaign offering wild flower seeds for the claimed purpose of helping save the Honeybees. We know it was a self serving ad campaign but at least it was something cool, instead of some plastic shit which would break the heart of every kid who mailed in and waited six to eight weeks.

They are promising to add 3300 acres of wild flowers to their oat farms, and set a goal of giving away 100,000,000 wild flower seeds. I don't know how many seeds in a packet so it's hard to figure how many people requested seeds.
They stopped the promotion after giving away 1.5 Billion seeds. I hope half of them get planted, and 20% of those grow.
Thanks, Cheerios.

That kind of advertising should be rewarded.

7 of my hives are still cruising, will probably be out flying this weekend. I'm glad that I added supplemental sugar blocks with this cold weather not giving up.

Myth: Bees make honey.

How it spread: This one spread because, well, bees do make honey.

The truth: However, only a small number of bees make beeswax hives and fill them with honey. In fact, there are only seven species of true honeybees— out of the approximately 22,000 species— on the planet. Several other species not considered true honeybees make and store honey, too, but not in the amounts that honeybees do. Some of the remaining bee species make tiny amounts of honey to feed to their young, but most make no honey at all and don’t even live in hives. (Most bees are solitary, and make nests in the ground.)

Spring...

Crazy weather here in central CT. 52F yesterday, 14F tonight. Still too cold to fill the feeders, glad I have the sugar blocks on.

Oh dear, the poor bees. They must like honey, who'd a thunk it.:smack:

But I thought they always told us if you roll them on their side they WON'T drown in their own vomit...

Those bees were emotional children of business school graduates, so...

Those are the non-union bees sent to their death by an uncaring and dictatorial top management - the queen. Even bees need a union.

:D:p:

If you think you're out of honey, before you run out and buy some check the cupboards, look in the fridge, scout the pantry, and don't forget to check the wall. ;)

Some combination of that and the modern hive... Just a honey spigot in the kitchen no big wup.

From the Bee Bee Central comes the latest Buzz...

Beekeepers can have more fun with Melissophilia.
It seems bee stings on your naughty bits causes swelling.

The bees have my sympathy.

And just where the hell have you been?:eyebrow: