Tanglewood Hollow

Sweet! Honeycomb in a bell jar… Observation hives have always intrigued me. I think I’ll get around to trying one this year. The wife actually gave me permission to set one up in our mudroom. It should be a hoot.

A bell jar was placed on top of a mini hive and bees from the nucleus started to create foundation of a hive in the jar. Once the foundation is laid, the bees work in masses to form the rest of the hive. 14 more pics of bees making hive in a jar after the jump.

via Bees Makes Hive In A Jar.

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Researchers may have found the cause of CCD.

CHAMPAIGN, lll. – Researchers report this week that they have found a surprising but reliable marker of colony collapse disorder, a baffling malady that in 2007-2008 killed off more than a third of commercial honey bees in the U.S.

Their study, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to identify a single, objective molecular marker of the disorder, and to propose a data-driven hypothesis to explain the mysterious disappearance of American honey bees. The team included researchers from the University of Illinois and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

via Genomic study yields plausible cause of colony collapse disorder | News Bureau | University of Illinois.

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Antonio Stradivari is alleged to have used propolis in his famous violins. Violin makers have used propolis, or bee glue as they call it, as a component of the varnish for quite some time.

Hausen et al. [46] reported that propolis has been used as an ingredient in violin varnish for centuries. Stradivari is said to have used it in the varnish of his instruments. Propolis, also known as bee glue, is produced by bees during hive construction to fill structural gaps. It has approximately 50 constituents, primarily resins and vegetable balsams 50%, waxes 30%, essential and aromatic oils 10%, and pollen 5%. Since ancient times, this agent has also been incorporated into numerous medical and cosmetic products since it is believed to be a potent antiseptic and anti-inflammatory substance, local anaesthetic, adstringent, and antioxidant. Moreover propolis may be found in toothpaste, mouthwash preparations, facial creams, chewing gum, polishes, and varnishes.

via BioMed Central | Full text | Contact dermatitis and other skin conditions in instrumental musicians.

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Ants and bees share many characteristics and have similar life cycles. Here’s a fascinating insight into the lives of ants:

Queen Ant Will Sacrifice Colony to Retain Throne | LiveScience

A mighty struggle for ultimate power, with calls of “death to the queen” answered by armies of workers, is routine in some ant colonies. Queen ants are therefore sometimes forced to take care of themselves rather than look out for the good of their colonies, a new study suggests.Queen ants will do whatever it takes to be the last one standing, even if it means producing fewer young workers to the detriment of the collective.

via Queen Ant Will Sacrifice Colony to Retain Throne | LiveScience.

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If you are a beekeeper who treats your bees, you need to read Michael Bush’s Web site:

I suppose you’d have to be living under a rock these days to have not heard that the honey bees and beekeepers are in trouble. The problems are complex, far reaching and mostly recent. They are certainly a threat to the survival of the beekeeping industry but, even more so, to the survival of many plants which we need or want for food and many other plants that are a necessary part of the environment.

via Beekeeping Naturally, Bush Bees.

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I wanted to share a few random snippets that I’ve gathered and come up with:

Some bees will steal honeydew from aphids to make their honey, which shows how they are opportunists. Rather than start from nectar, they skip the beehours of labor and get a substance that is higher in original sugar content.

But they are also shortsighted in their pursuits. If they eat honeydew honey during a cold winter it can kill them (or at least make them very uncomfortable from dysentery).

From wikipedia.org: honeybees.

You can trick them with smell. They are VERY scent reliant. Many of the complex behaviors, including when the queen swarms, how the brood is reared, how they find the best flowers or a new hive and more are led by scent.

For example, you can attract a swarm to a hive with lemon grass oil. If you add a half portion of rose oil it may be even more effective.

If you wear rubber dish gloves (the thicker variety) and reach your hand into a hive of bees when it is cooler out, it feels like you are reaching into a warm oven. It’s way above the ambient temperature. You can do it barehanded if you are careful and the bees are in a good mood.

There are few sounds as impressive (or intimidating) as an angry and buzzing hive of bees.

More bees are interested in licking honey off of you than stinging you, even when you are cutting their hive apart during a cutout.

Angry bees are very often hungry bees.

Honeybees get to know their keeper. They recognize you and after a time don’t get as alarmed because they know they can trust you to not be destroying their hive (hopefully my cutouts will forget that part!).

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Bee pollen is one of the oldest healing substances known to man and considered by many to be a perfect food. Pollen is the fine dust-like grains or powder formed within the anther of a flowering plant and is the male reproductive substance in plants that fertilizes the ovules. Bee pollen is collected from bees using a screen that the bees must go through to enter the hive.

via Apitherapy News: Bee Pollen is One of Nature’s Most Perfect Foods.

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A superorganism is an organism consisting of many organisms. This is usually meant to be a social unit of eusocial animals, where division of labour is highly specialised and where individuals are not able to survive by themselves for extended periods of time. Ants are the best-known example of such a superorganism, while the naked mole rat is a famous example of the eusocial mammal. The technical definition of a superorganism is “a collection of agents which can act in concert to produce phenomena governed by the collective,”[1] phenomena being any activity “the hive wants” such as ants collecting food or bees choosing a new nest site.

via Superorganism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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My father (who was responsible for turning me on to beekeeping) is also a dentist. He had an old intraoral camera (the kind that they use to look at your teeth up close) sitting around unused, so he gave it to me to mess around with.

I’m in love. I can’t wait to get it set up with a laptop so that I can put it into my beehives!
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I love my bees. They are very polite as long as I am too.

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