Drugged Honeybees Do the Time Warp
by Jane J. Lee
"Waking up from surgery can be disorienting. One minute you're in an operating room counting backwards from 10, the next you're in the recovery ward sans appendix, tonsils, or wisdom teeth. And unlike getting up from a good night's sleep, where you know that you've been out for hours, waking from anesthesia feels like hardly any time has passed. Now, thanks to the humble honeybee (Apis mellifera), scientists are starting to understand this sense of time loss. New research shows that general anesthetics disrupt the social insect's circadian rhythm, or internal clock, delaying the onset of timed behaviors such as foraging and mucking up their sense of direction."
Drugged Honeybees Do the Time Warp by Jane J. Lee
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"There are several reasons why honey bees are perhaps one of the most studied insects (probably next to Drosophila in terms of amount of money spent and number of papers published).
Honey bees play a critical role in agriculture. Honey bees are studied extensively, also because they are fascinating organisms. Honey bees are increasingly being used as a model system to study other aspects of biology." Honey Bee Research http://www.cyberbee.net/research.htm "Recent weather changes have been adversely affecting bee colonies, plants and flowers in Devon, beekeepers and garden managers say.
Bees began laying eggs and making honey, and plants flowered earlier than expected because of recent hot weather. Cold weather afterwards then 'confused' them, staff at the National Trust's Killerton House said." Devon weather 'confusing' bees and plants BBC News- Devon " Honeybees are known to communicate in a dance language called the waggle dance to point out the location of resources that keep the hive alive, but new research reveals that gravity can mess with this dance's accuracy.
The waggle dance is an important part of how they provide for the bee community. Foragers go out, find food, water or other resources, and come back to signal the location to the rest of hive to go out and harvest. The dance signals the direction of the food patch in relation to the sun, which is always interpreted by the other bees as straight up (regardless of where it is in the sky). If the dancing bee positions its body straight up, that indicates to the other bees to fly straight toward where the sun is on the horizon. If the dancer angles her body with face pointing down toward the ground, which means the food patch is located directly opposite the sun's position on the horizon.When bees signaled angles close to the horizon, like 90 or 270 degrees, they seemed to have much more trouble staying on point than when walking directly up or down. The researchers think that horizontal angles are more difficult because the bees need to work against gravity to stay in a straight line." How Gravity Messes with Honeybees' Waggle Dance By Jennifer Welsh | LiveScience.com Plant these seeds to attract deer and the bees will thrive as well.
Sweet clover: "Sweet clover is a fine source of nectar and pollen for honey bees. Usually both yellow and white are used by beekeepers because yellow may bloom as much as two weeks before white, and a combination of the two extends the flowering season."- White, Ladino and Sweet Clover, Jimmy C. Henning and Howell N. Wheaton, Department of Agronomy Alfalfa: "Alfalfa is a perennial plant in the important family of bee plants, the legumes. From alfalfa, the bees collect both nectar and pollen." - Alfalfa in Bloom, Richard Underhill Buckwheat: "I have two small plots currently in buckwheat. They total about .6 of an acre. They were planted June 8th.....so as of today they are almost exactly 6weeks old. The crop is bountiful, as you would expect with all the moisture & heat we've been getting. Coincendentally my neighbor has allowed a beekeeper to put about 12boxes 50yds off of my property line. (a blessing, I know). Well, you simply cannot believe the buzz coming off of the plots at about 10am these mornings. You can hear bees from nearly 40yds away. And when you step up to the side of each plot the air above the plants is alive with bees flitting from one blossom to another." - ...Buckwheat & Honey Bees.... fairfax1 "Long known as the angels of agriculture, honey bees have received global attention due to losses attributed to a combination of factors: Colony Collapse Disorder, mites, deforestation and industrial agriculture. Honey bees provide pollination for crops, orchards and flowers; honey and wax for cosmetics, food and medicinal-religious objects; and inspiration to artists, architects and scientists.
While there are thousands of insects in the Hymenoptera order (for example, wasps, sawflies and ants), honey bees are the only living members of the tribe Apini, within the family Apidae. The one genus of honey bee Apis can be divided into three branches based on how honey bees nest: the giant open-nesting honey bees Apis dorsata and Apis laboriosa; the dwarf, single-combed honey bees Apis florae and Apis andreniformis; and the cavity-nesting honey bees Apis cerana, Apis koschevnikovi, Apis nuluensis, Apis nigrocincta, and Apis mellifera. These nine species thrive in environmental extremes like deserts, rain forests and tundra, but most people only know Apis mellifera, the agricultural darling." Honey Bees: A History By TAMMY HORN "Honey is frequently mentioned in the Bible; it was referred to as a wholesome food, a helpful medicine, an ingredient of delicious drinks, an appropriate gift and a valued possession. There is only little evidence that the Hebrews cultivated bees, but they used wild honey in profusion. 'Wild' honey is often mentioned; whether this was meant as a contrast to domesticated honey, it is difficult to say. That the Jews were solicitous about their honey supply is indicated in the Talmud (B. Batra 18, A) where a warning is given never to let mustard plants grow near bees' nests because bees are fond of these flowers which, however, burn their throats and they then consume a greater quantity of honey. The Jews were permitted, according to their religious laws, to provide water on Saturdays and holidays to their domestic animals, but this dispensation did not apply to bees, because they themselves could secure it (Sabath 24: 3). On the other hand, in case of rain, or to protect the bees from the scorching sun, the Jews were permitted to cover the nests with linen even on holidays (Sabath 436) Philo, the historian (in the time of Christ), in his work, De Vita Contemplativa (II. 663), refers to a caste among the He-brews called Essenes, who lived in the region of the Dead Sea, and whose occupation was supposed to be the cultivation of bees and the production of honey. Josephus, in the Antiquities of the Jews, also mentions the Essenes of Judea. (It is noteworthy that the Greek term Essenos (king bee) was the epithet of Zeus. The priestesses of Artemis were called Melissai (bees) and their high priests, Essenes.)"
Honey In The Bible http://www.honey-health.com/honey-52.shtml "Virtually all living things, from the smallest organisms to humans, are vulnerable to infectious diseases. Most humans know they have to stay away from other infected people if they don’t want to get sick themselves. But how does nature figure it out?
The social behavior of honeybees may provide some important clues." Understanding Honeybee Diseases Health and social structure play role in crop production By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation "They were almost obliterated by disease nearly a century ago but it looks like the native black honeybee is making a comeback.
Research reveals that the native bee is still hanging on in parts of the UK where it was believed to be extinct — including Northern Ireland’s north west region. The bees were largely wiped out by acarine disease in the 1920s, after which beekeepers were forced to rely on imported honeybee subspecies to maintain their hives. Beekeepers in Ireland have now found populations of the native black bee clinging on in pockets of the west and are using these to revive the breed across the island." Black honeybee back from the brink of extinction By Linda Stewart Local beekeepers called on to relocate thousands of valuable honey bees
By Marlene Taylor, Special to the News Sentinel Beekeepers remove honey bee swarms in Knoxville, TN. For honey bee removal in the Detroit area, visit The Bees' Knees Bee Removal Services. |
AuthorBilly Craig Archives
May 2013
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