Bees Rule!

“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.” – Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Flowers are nature’s ad men. They’ll do anything to attract the attention of the pollinators that help them reproduce, and they taylor their displays based on the sensory capabilities of those pollinators. Bees can see visible and ultraviolet light, they have precise olfactory receptors, and now we know they can also detect electric fields.

Visible spectrum (photo). Particular bright colors and petal shapes attract particular pollinators. (Credit: Kevin Collins)

Ultraviolet (photo). Bees and other pollinators can see the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. They are guided by patterns on flowers that are invisible to humans. (Credit: Kevin Collins)

Fragrance plume (artist’s depiction). Bees follow specific odors to locate flowers and, once they arrive, use scent maps to move toward the center of the flower. Fragrance that clings to a bee provides information for other bees back at the hive.

Electric field (artist’s depiction). Flowers have a weak negative electric charge relative to the air around them. Different flowers have different electric fields, often with charge concentrated at the tips of the petals.

Check out this amazing time-lapse photo of bees flying to and from their hives!

 🐝🐝🐝

Thanks to Whispers from the Bee for the pic!

According to an op-ed in The Los Angeles Times by Noah Wilson-Rich, author of The Bee: A Natural History, the repeal of the beekeeping regulation is long overdue:

On June 10, 1879, Los Angeles lawmakers banned beekeeping within city limits. According to Mark Vallianatos, who teaches environmental policy at Occidental College, their rationale was frankly preposterous. Having noted the affinity between bees and fruit trees, they reasoned that bees attacked and damaged fruit, and concluded that outlawing bees was the best way to preserve crops.

Soon enough scientists debunked this ridiculous theory — bees are vitally important pollinators — and by 1917, the Los Angeles Times was calling the no-beekeeping policy ‘an ancient and still-unrepealed city ordinance.’

IN 1917 THEY ALREADY THOUGHT THIS WAS A RIDICULOUS LAW! And they just overturned it. 

Bees are great, and they need our help. Full story here.

Andrena nubecula (female)

Top Bar Beehive: Still in Progress!

The new patio proved to be an excellent workspace to actually start cracking on that top bar beehive (a.k.a. ‘Honey Cow’) again.

We’ve come in to some more free timber, free acrylic glass, and some free paint, so things are really moving now. We can’t really do things like this unless they’re free, so we’re lucky my partner’s dad works at the municipal waste sorting facility (you’d be amazed at what people throw away).

Last time, this project fell by the wayside in favour of using the wood we had to build a mallard house. Now, I’m determined to have it ready for next spring when the local bees are swarming. I spotted European Dark Bees here this year, so I am hoping that if a wild swarm moves in, it will be one of the local, lesser-kept subspecies.

When I install the bars, I’ll be coating them in beeswax, and baiting the hive with lemongrass oil: it is chemically similar to the pheromone scout bees release when they have found a suitable hive, so it increases the chance of a swarm moving in voluntarily.

I really really really love bees. I love their little fuzzy bodies, and their little buzzy butts and their tasty gloopy honey 🍯 so I like to help them out in return for their lovely golden squish. 

We’ve all seen bees lying still on the ground, and I think a lot of us assume they’re dead when they just lie there, but often they’re just sleepy (pollinating is tiring work u kno). 

“But what should I do with this sleepy bee on my floor?” you ask. Mix up a nice sugary treat for the little bug and soon they’ll be up and away in no time, buzzing back to the hive. 

All you need:

✩ 1 tbsp water

✩ 2 tbsp white granulated sugar

Just mix them together ( in my experience the sugar won’t dissolve completely, but the water at the top will be SUPER saturated with sugar) and pour a little bit in front of your bee, or put it in a little shallow dish (that they won’t fall into) and watch them lick it up. 

Look at that cute slimy little proboscis!! Your new bee friend will be super grateful as long as you don’t drip it all over them, and you will feel super cool that u just saved a life bro 🐝