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Bees

Roslin Chapel through the ideas of books such as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail etc has a strong connection with bees symbolically. A few years ago during rennovations a large bee hive was discoverd in one of the rampart towers with the entry through the centre of a a flower carving. Very cool. And it could have been so much worse, it could have been honking devil ducks flying around that you had to dodge rather than bees!
 
Bees seem to recognise people at least the ones that hang round our front garden do,
two of the bushes emit a low hum due to them hundreds of them but they never make
any move against use even when we take to gardening.
 
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I had a swarm of bees in my compost bin which stung me when I lifted the lid to put some leaves in , so had to get a friend's friend who kept bees to come and take them.
My youngest gave me a bee motel for native bees for Christmas but none have checked in so far.
 
They could replace bees and they won't even sting you!

Drones that blow pollen-laden bubbles onto blossoms could someday help farmers pollinate their crops.

Rather than relying on bees and other pollinating insects — which are dwindling worldwide as a result of climate change (SN: 7/9/15), pesticide use (SN: 10/5/17) and other factors — farmers can spray or swab pollen onto crops themselves. But machine-blown plumes can waste many grains of pollen, and manually brushing pollen onto plants is labor-intensive.

Materials chemist Eijiro Miyako of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Nomi imagines outsourcing pollination to automatous drones that deliver pollen grains to individual flowers. His original idea involved a pollen-coated drone rubbing grains onto flowers, but that treatment damaged the blossoms (SN: 3/7/17). Then, while blowing bubbles with his son, Miyako realized that bubbles might be a gentler means of delivery.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/bubble-blowing-drones-may-one-day-aid-artificial-pollination
 
It's not just chimps that use shit as a defensive weapon ...

Vietnamese honey bees deter giant Asian hornets (aka 'murder hornets') by putting animal dung around the entrance(s) to their hives. This is claimed to be the first known tool usage by honey bees.
Honey Bees Use Animal Dung to Fend Off Giant “Murder” Hornets

Honeybees spread animal dung on the entrance of their hives to effectively ward off giant hornets.

What’s the best way to ward off giant hornets if you’re a honeybee? Animal dung, according to a first-ever University of Guelph study.

U of G researchers have discovered honeybees in Vietnam collect and apply spots of animal dung around hive entrances to deter deadly nest raids by an Asian hornet (Vespa soror) whose North American cousins have been dubbed “murder hornets.”

This finding is also the first to document the use of tools by honeybees. ...

The researchers found that honeybees have developed a pre-emptive defense by collecting animal dung and applying it to hive entrances.

“This study demonstrates a fairly remarkable trait these bees have to defend themselves against a really awful predator,” said Mattila. ...

Otis began the project after asking beekeepers in Vietnam about dark spots at hive entrances of Asian honeybees. As part of a successful beekeeping development project funded by the Canadian government, he ran fall workshops from 2007 to 2011 in rural villages with high levels of poverty.

During one visit, an experienced beekeeper explained that the substance was buffalo dung. All the beekeepers that Otis worked with linked these hive spots with hornets. “Dung collection is a behavior never previously reported for honeybees, and no one had studied the phenomenon,” he said. ...
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FULL STORY: https://scitechdaily.com/honey-bees-use-animal-dung-to-fend-off-giant-murder-hornets/

PUBLISHED RESEARCH REPORT: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0242668
 
A survey of global data by Argentinian researchers indicates a decrease in reported bee species on the order of 25% over the last 30 years.
“Something Is Happening to the Bees” – 25% of Known Bee Species Haven’t Appeared in Public Records Since the 1990s

Researchers at the Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) in Argentina have found that, since the 1990s, up to 25% of reported bee species are no longer being reported in global records, despite a large increase in the number of records available. While this does not mean that these species are all extinct, it might indicate that these species have become rare enough that no one is observing them in nature. The findings appear today (January 22, 2021) in the journal One Earth.

“With citizen science and the ability to share data, records are going up exponentially, but the number of species reported in these records is going down,” says first author Eduardo Zattara (@ezattara), ... “It’s not a bee cataclysm yet, but what we can say is that wild bees are not exactly thriving.” ...
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FULL STORY:
https://scitechdaily.com/something-...t-appeared-in-public-records-since-the-1990s/

PUBLISHED REPORT:
https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(20)30651-5
 
A software start-up company vacated because of pandemic conditions came to host bee squatters.

NOTE: The bees removed were not killed, and they were relocated alive.
This Startup Left Its Office When Covid Hit. The New Tenants? 20,000 Bees

The headquarters of Santa Barbara, California, software company Invoca have been empty since March. But unbeknownst to the staff, the office was buzzing with activity. Specifically, with bees.

While Invoca's 210 employees were working from home amid the Covid-19 pandemic, a colony of honey bees was busy building a nest inside the walls of the three-story building the company rents on State Street in Santa Barbara. By the time the bees were discovered this month, they numbered 20,000. "We've talked a lot about the challenges of coming back to the office," says Gregg Johnson, the company's CEO. "We have not thought about this one." ...

Susan Arango, an Invoca workplace experience manager, had first noticed the critters when she went to the office in late April to check up after a windstorm. She saw dead bees in a hallway near the rear entrance and assumed they'd been blown inside somehow. But when she returned about a week later, there were more bees. ... Then months passed, and she kept seeing more dead bees near the entrance. Eventually she searched the building trying to find evidence of a nest, and in January she finally gave up. ...

Unable to find the source of the bees in the building, Arango did some online research and called a local company, Super Bee Rescue and Removal ...

Super Bee sent a technician, who spotted bees flying into the building from outside. Using thermal imaging, the technician tracked down the nest within five minutes, Arango says. It held 10 gallons of beeswax, honey, and pollen. ... The technician estimated they had been there at least six months. ...

Johnson--who is allergic to bee stings--says he was "flabbergasted" to learn of the incident, but relieved that it happened while the office was empty. The company doesn't have an urgent need to return to the office and likely won't do so until the late spring or summer, he adds. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.inc.com/sophie-downes/i...ee-hive-honey-weird-discovery-california.html
 
It was cold weather, and this Pennsylvania couple paid little attention to the disclosure there were bees in the walls of the farmhouse they were eager to purchase. Warm weather arrived, and the full scale of the bee occupancy became evident.
450,000 bees removed from inside walls of Pennsylvania home

A couple who recently purchased a Pennsylvania farmhouse said they had to pay $12,000 to have 450,000 bees removed from inside the walls.

Sara Weaver said she and her husband bought the 1872 farmhouse in Skippack without conducting an inspection because they had been searching for a home in the area and wanted to move quickly when they saw the house on the market. ...

"On the seller's disclosure it said 'bees in wall,' and that was it and I think because one, we didn't see them and two, we were just so floored that we actually found land in the [school] district that was within our price range that I didn't really ask any questions about those bees," she told CNN. ...

The beekeeper said he removed an estimated 450,000 bees, comprising three colonies, from the walls of the home. He said the bees appear to have been living inside the house for about 35 years.

The Weavers said the total cost of the bee removal and reconstruction on damaged parts of the home amounts to about $12,000. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...ppack-Pennsylvania-Mary-Weaver/9891628018795/
 
EnolaGaia said:
It was cold weather, and this Pennsylvania couple paid little attention to the disclosure there were bees in the walls of the farmhouse they were eager to purchase. Warm weather arrived, and the full scale of the bee occupancy became evident.

FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/0...ppack-Pennsylvania-Mary-Weaver/9891628018795/
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This doesn't surprise me. My folks old home had bees between the drywall and outside wall. Thousands behind the drywall it was one solid hive.
 
What sort of a cunt do you have to be to burn beehives?

Beehives set on fire and killed as beekeeper left heartbroken

In Kinoulton, Nottinghamshire.

Three hives were completely destroyed at the farm and three others were partially burned, with as many as one million bees killed.
Mr Chudy, 52, who’s been keeping bees for more than 30 years, said he could not believe his eyes when he came across the ‘terrifying’ scene at 6pm on Saturday.

‘I am just heartbroken and completely devastated,’ he said.

He added: ‘This is my life and someone has taken this away from me. It is a nightmare, just horrible.’

Mr Chudy is a master beekeeper who built all the hives himself, and has been the frontman of the family-run business Golden Drops since 1994.
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Bees' venom is the most valuable product (per unit volume / weight) humans gather and exploit. Newly reported findings from Western Australia indicate angrier bees produce more potent - and hence more valuable - venom.
Angry bees in the Western Australia's south-west make stronger, more valuable venom

The venom of angry bees fed on a native West Australian forest diet has been found to be stronger – and with more desirable medicinal properties – than more docile bees. ...

Key points:
  • Research has shown angrier bees in Western Australia's native marri forests produce more medicinally valuable and allergenic venom
  • Bee venom is used in medicine and cosmetics and can be worth up to $US300 per gram
  • Despite its value, harvesting venom is difficult and few beekeepers sell it commercially
  • By weight, venom is the most valuable product bees produce — worth more than honey, royal jelly, wax, pollen or propolis — at up to $US300 ($A419) per gram.
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FULL STORY: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2021-08-23/angry-bee-venom-more-valuable-and-allergenic/100399578
 
Do Bees recognise people? we have lavender in our garden and it's
thick with bees as are other flowering bushes, but even though we often
brush against were they are getting in the car or doing a bit of gardening
we have never had any sort of aggressive move against us not been stung
by a bee in over 30 years, wasps are a different thing entirely but bees never,
the ones in the pic were making a home in a traffic bollard the place was
humming people coming out to see what was going on.

Pics 003.jpg
 

Some postive bee news for a change:​

wild heirs of lost British honeybee found at Blenheim​

Thousands of rare forest honeybees that appear to be the last wild descendants of Britain’s native honeybee population have been discovered in the ancient woodlands of Blenheim Palace.

The newly discovered subspecies, or ecotype, of honeybee is smaller, furrier and darker than the honeybees found in managed beehives, and is believed to be related to the indigenous wild honeybees that foraged the English countryside for centuries. Until now, it was presumed all these bees had been completely wiped out by disease and competition from imported species.

Filipe Salbany, a bee conservationist who found 50 colonies of the rare honeybees in Blenheim’s 400-acre estate, said: “These bees are quite unique in that they live in nests in very small cavities, as bees have for millions of years, and they have the ability to live with disease. They have had no treatment for the varroa mite – yet they’re not dying off.”

Unusually, the bees swarm with multiple queens – up to nine in some cases – to ensure the colony’s survival, and have been recorded foraging for honeydew on the treetops in temperatures as low as 4C. Most bees will stop flying at 12C. “A wild bee that has adapted to the environment is called an ecotype, and this bee could be a very precious ecotype – the first wild bee that is completely adapted to living in the oak forest.”

The results of DNA samples taken from the bees are expected within the next three to four weeks, but Salbany is confident it will show the bees are descendants of an ancient native species. “I think the majority of the genetics are going to be of an old English bee, of something that was here many, many years ago.”

One of the nests he found was at least 200 years old and he estimates that the bees have been living on the Blenheim estate, which dates back to the middle ages, for “quite a few” centuries. Unusually, they have built their nests in tree cavities a quarter of the size of a normal beehive, 15 to 20 metres off the ground, and despite several ecological surveys over the years, “nobody knew they existed”. The entrances to the nests typically have a diameter of less than 5cm.
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Bee conservationist Filipe Salbany handles the Blenheim bees without protective kit as they are ‘extremely relaxed’.
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On the Canary Islands, six beehives survived being buried in volcanic ash for over 50 days by sealing themselves in with propolis (a mixture of tree resins and wax) before being dug out and rescued by local police.
 
Kondoru said:
... Wouldnt ash be hot?
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Generally speaking, ash that has fallen out of the sky isn't hot - at least not dangerously hot. More often than not, ash consists of crystallized particles that have been ejected far into the atmosphere and have had time to cool during their time aloft.

There are circumstances under which ash can form and travel closer to ground level, but this usually involves pyroclastic flows or magma flows.
 
AFAIK the main problem with ash building up over a longer period of time, such as in the La Palma eruption, is the accumulated weight of the damn stuff making buildings collapse, it being much heavier/denser than snow, and the buildings not really being designed with the expectation that they'll have to support any weight other than that of their own structure and any heavy rainfall.
Beehives, often being quite small and sturdy, would be much more able to withstand a build up of ash on them.
 
So the bees would just hunker down and eat their stores.

Awaiting rescue by the local police (Whos job it is to rescue non tax payers)

Thats ok.
 
A Florida family had grown tired of sharing their beach house's bathroom with bees, so they called in a specialist to remove them. The bee removal person found 80,000 bees living in a hive within the walls, extending from floor to ceiling.
80,000 ‘nice’ bees discovered in bathroom wall during home renovation

A seven-foot-tall beehive was found at a Florida beach house in which about 80,000 “nice” bees had been busy manufacturing a hundred pounds of honey behind a shower wall.

Even though the homeowners in Florida’s Shore Acres area had grown accustomed to the occasional bee sting, they were tired of constant buzzing noises and had decided to bid goodbye to the uninvited guests by renovating their home.

The family, however, were in for a surprise after they called beekeeper Elisha Bixler who tore away at the shower wall in their bathroom to reveal the massive beehive.

The beekeeper had initially seen a tiny patch of the beehive from an opening in the bathroom, but once she began breaking down the wall tile by tile, she found the massive beehive that covered the entire area from the floor right up to the ceiling. ...
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FULL STORY (With Photos & Video): https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-bathroom-renovation-honey-bees-b1977115.html
 
For those who do beekeeping, this is a really neat way of doing things (and I think it may possibly help to solve colony collapse disorder):

 

'Banned' bee-harming pesticide approved for use, despite expert advice​

Emergency use of a product containing the chemical thiamethoxam has been authorised in England because of a virus [yellow virus] which affects sugar beets.

The decision came despite expert advisers finding pollution from the pesticide would damage river life, and requirements for use had not been met.

But Environment Secretary George Eustice said product use would be "limited and controlled".
In 2018, an almost total ban was put in by the EU and UK because of the serious damage the chemical could cause to bees.

There was controversy last year when ministers gave farmers approval to use the pesticide, though the cold winter meant it was never actually used.

Scientific studies have linked the use of these chemicals to the falling numbers of honeybees, wild bees and other animals which pollinate plants.

To minimise risks to bees, George Eustice says that farmers will be forbidden from growing flowering plants for 32 months after the sugar beet crop.

But he admitted it was not possible to "rule out completely a degree of risk to bees".
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I was watching Countryfile the other night, letting it all wash over me as you do, but I'm sure one of the experts said because of the mild winter we will have many more bees than last year, is that good for the bee population? Or do they start fighting for space? Any bee experts here?
 
The mystery of icon-preserving bees

For a decade, a beekeeper named Sidoros Ţiminis, living in the region of Kapandriti, near Athens, has kept a tradition: every spring, he slips icons of Christ, the Holy Virgin and different saints in his beehives, in order to bless his bees and his yearly honey production.

And every year, the very same mysterious phenomenon occurs: bees make their honeycomb cells around the pious images, meticulously avoiding covering them.

FMoMYIWXEAke0vA.jpeg.jpg


A Little More:
https://www.aleteia.org/2017/07/05/the-mysterious-icon-preserving-bees
 
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