So, scientists at Cornell set up the optimistic motion-photography equipment seen in the top picture in 1961. By the way, that's Dr Norman Gary on the right in this photo. Shortly after this experience, Gary (who earned his doctorate at Cornell) headed out to the University of California ...
In the past year, commercial beekeepers in California – personal friends of mine – lost more than 50 percent of their overwintered hives because of exposure to pesticides IN THE GROVES AND ORCHARDS THEY WERE CONTRACTED TO POLLINATE! In other words, farmers would contract with commercial […]...
As well there is still open question for a discussion –“Is there any harmful effect of wireless data transmission on bee health?” Almost simultaneously with the development and improvement of wireless technologies, there are a lot of discussions in the society about the wireless technology impact...
We California beekeepers shift quickly from building up our colonies for almond pollination to trying to keep them in their boxes after the bloom is over. It’s all about timing—there’s no sense in building up colonies too early in the season, unless you want to make increase. Ideally,...
In contrast with agricultural and natural areas, the extent of competition between honey bees and wild bees in urban areas is unclear. The objectives of this study were to quantify the impact of honey bees, urbanization, and the availability of floral resources on wild bee communities. We ...
Beekeeping has a long history of challenges, die offs, and debate about management practices. We now have at our disposal fantastic advances in scientific tools—polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gene sequencing that can dissect the genome, pesticide testing to the parts per trillion, data-...
as a primary source of bee ills. But for me, all these challenges point back to many poor (to terrible) human choices and decisions … to our tendency to sleepwalk and forget our fellow family on this precious Mother of an earth. It is in this deeper field that I have set up camp....
As my sons Eric and Ian take over the beekeeping operation in which they grew up, I look back over the challenges and changes in beekeeping over the course of their lives. The invasions of tracheal mite, varroa, the Small Hive Beetle, and Nosema ceranae—each with devastating consequences....
This can be a difficult effect to quantify, as explained by Repetto (1996): “In healthy people, some immunosuppression may occur without discernible effects, because the immune system has overlapping and redundant capacity to deal with challenges. Perhaps for this reason, many studies that ...
After last year’s debacle, in which some Midwestern beekeepers who had hauled hives to California in November (in expectation that supply would be as short as “usual”) and then had the unfortunate experience of not finding a home for them (and as a result suffered great financial loss)...