"Hundreds of bees assaulted a drone operated by a CBS12 News crew in West Palm Beach, Fla., Thursday morning and then attacked the station's team of journalists when they maneuvered the aircraft back toward them to figure out what was wrong.

The crew sent the drone into flight in an attempt to get an aerial shot of a backhoe tearing into the Palm Beach Mall, which is in the process of being demolished."


Hundreds of bees sting Florida TV news crew after swarming over them during video shoot
By Daily Mail Reporter

"Even though it is usually easy to get a bottle of honey, it doesn't always mean that it is good for you. Many larger stores pasteurize their honey, destroying much of their nutritional value and filling it with artificial enhancers to make up the lack of flavor, she said. The stores microfilter out the pollen, removing much of the natural taste while trying to make it look pretty on the shelf.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture's Grading Standards of Extracted Honey, filtered honey is honey that has had most or all of its fine particles, pollen grains, air bubbles or other materials normally found in suspension removed.

"People think, 'Oh, honey is honey' until they try natural, raw honey. Then they say, 'Oh my goodness, there is a difference,'" Marion said.

According to the USDA affiliated National Honey Board website, there are more than 300 different types of honey, and each has its own taste and coloring. While pollen is naturally kept inside the honey, many consumers prefer clear, liquid honey that stays in a liquid form for long periods of time. This kind of filtered honey is what is usually sold in stores.

"'Most [local] farms don't pasteurize their honey, which keeps the vitamins and other benefits in the honey,' certified clinical nutritionist and registered dietitian Rukhsana Shanbhag said. 'At the same time, you are supporting local farms.'"

Geneva beekeeping couple runs sweet business
By Anna-Michelle Lavandier



You can find real honey here.

"The honeybees prefer a highly structured society of drones, workers, queens and hives. A hive consists of the matriarch, the queen, and her 30,000 to 50,000 subjects, the male drones and the female worker bees. Older worker bees are tasked with foraging for food and usually work themselves to death. A teaspoon of honey requires a visit to a million flowers. Their loss is our gain, since our gardens and fields thrive from their labor.

While honeybees prefer the metropolitan atmosphere of the hive, native bees, on the other hand, are solitary introverts that do their jobs and go back home to get away from the crowds. Compared to the belligerent African bees, native bees are even-tempered hard workers that do not attack unless provoked."

Bees sweeten deal for native plant nursery
by Maria Sonnenberg, For FLORIDA TODAY

"African bees are a subtropical bee, Lemire said. They can be seen across the southern part of the United States from Florida to California. Mosquito Control has found them in tree holes, storm drains, underneath trailer boards, and gutters. The number of bee stings it takes to kill a person depends on their body weight and how allergic they are to the bees. It could take anywhere from 500 to 800 stings, Lemire said.

"If African bees attack, Lemire recommends getting inside because running from them won’t be enough. This type of bee will chase a victim the length of a football field, he said.

"'You can’t jump in a pool and go underneath and go back up,' Lemire said. 'True African bees will just hover around the pool waiting to sting you.'”

African Bees Kill Dogs, Injure Florida Woman
By Jennifer Abbey




Brutal, though the expert is wrong about one thing... the number of bee stings it takes to kill a person.  One sting can do the trick in some cases.

  "Traditionally, varroa mites have been controlled chemically. In fact, chemical-based, in-hive treatments have followed varroa everywhere the mite has been introduced. Pyrethroids, organophosphates, essential oils, and organic acids have been used by many countries to control varroa. Initially, the pyrethroid fluvalinate showed high levels of efficacy (>90%) against varroa mites. However, varroa mites have a demonstrated ability to become quickly resistant to this and other synthetic acaricides. This has made many acaricides useless in areas where varroa resistance to chemicals has developed. Further exacerbating this is the issue that many of the synthetic chemicals used inside of bee colonies to control varroa double as insecticides in other pest-management schemes. So, varroa mites have required beekeepers to put insecticides into insect colonies, the results of which are only just beginning to be understood. The effects of chemical varroa treatments on honey bees include reduced longevity of queen bees, reduced sperm loads in and longevity of drones, brood death, and reduced queen laying patterns. Many more effects are believed to exist.

"Because of the reduced efficacy of chemicals used to control varroa, attention has turned to the application of non-chemical methods for limiting varroa populations. For example, varroa are attracted disproportionately to drone brood. This has led some beekeepers to practice selective removal of drone brood from bee colonies after it has been capped. This practice eliminates a cohort of varroa mites from colonies. Also popular is the use of screened bottom boards to lower varroa mite populations. Although its level of efficacy is debated, replacing solid bottom boards of a bee colony with screen mesh can reduce varroa populations as much as 14%.

"Without question, the most significant advancement toward controlling varroa non-chemically has come in the realm of bee breeding. A number of bee defensive responses to varroa have been identified and selected for in natural and artificial breeding programs; the most notable of these are hygienic behavior and grooming behavior. Bees that exhibit grooming behavior use their legs to comb themselves. They do this both to themselves and to other bees in the colony. This behavior can increase the number of varroa that fall off of the bees, thus lowering the number of varroa in a colony.

"Hygienic behavior is the most studied of all of the natural defenses against varroa. Although it is not a behavior specifically targeting varroa, its manifestation can lower varroa mite populations within a colony. Bees that are hygienic can detect many problems that affect brood (American foulbrood, varroa, chalkbrood, etc.), even if the brood is capped, and remove the affected brood. Because varroa mites go into cells immediately prior to the cell being capped, hygienic bees are given little time to 'find' varroa before the cell is capped. As a result, hygienic bees have a refined ability to detect varroa in capped cells, remove the capping, and abort the brood. Often, this behavior can lead to the death of the mite, thus lowering varroa populations. It is interesting to note, a heightened form of hygienic behavior called 'varroa sensitive hygiene' (VSH) has been found in some bees. VSH bees are able to detect varroa in capped cells and remove only those varroa that are reproducing."


Publication Number: EENY-473
Authors: James D. Ellis and C.M. Zettel Nalen, University of Florida