How do beekeepers count how many bees are in a hive?
By volume, weight, or space occupied on frames. The size or weight difference between strains of honey bees – Italian, Russian,...
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eliochel
Feb 25, 20231 min read
How many queens can be in a honey bee colony?
Normally there is only one and she will battle with any other queen intruding or introduced into the hive in a stinging to the death...
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eliochel
Feb 24, 20231 min read
Do bees really die after stinging a person?
Yes, if the bee that stings is a worker bee, she will die shortly after stinging because the sting assembly separates from her body...
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eliochel
Feb 23, 20231 min read
If stung by a bee, how should the stinger be removed?
The stinger should be removed as soon as possible by scraping it out, such as by using a finger nail or credit card. Squeezing the...
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eliochel
Feb 22, 20231 min read
Bees can bite intruders with their mandibles and temporarily paralyze them.
Bees secrete an anesthetic, 2-heptanone, from their mandibular glands. When guard bees break through the outer body covering of...
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eliochel
Feb 21, 20231 min read
How can an abdomen with the rigid armor of an exoskeleton be flexible enough to “pant”?
The armor of a bee is in overlapping segments. The abdomen of the bee has one row of rigid overlapping plate on its dorsal side (back)...
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eliochel
Feb 20, 20231 min read
Sometimes the abdomen of a bee at rest is moving as if the bee is “panting.” Do bees breathe?
Bees can not pant; they don’t have lungs. However, bees do have membranes in their abdomen that act as diaphragms and aid in the flow of...
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eliochel
Feb 19, 20231 min read
How do bees determine the direction of sound?
They hear with the subgenual organs on all 6 legs as well as Johnston’s organs on the antennae. Their brains processing the sensory input...
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eliochel
Feb 18, 20231 min read
If adult bees don't efficiently digest pollen; how do they get their essential amino acids?
Two ways: from the production and consumption of bee bread and from the jelly fed to them by young bees at the jelly producing stage of...
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eliochel
Feb 17, 20231 min read
Bees spread pheromones with their feet.
All castes (worker, queen, drone) emit pheromones. The tarsal gland secretion mentioned in a previous post also contains a trail...
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eliochel
Feb 17, 20231 min read
How do bees walk upside down on surfaces, both rough and smooth?
The 2 claws or hooks on each pretarsus (end segment of each leg), grip rough or penetrable surfaces so that makes it easy to move...
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eliochel
Feb 17, 20231 min read
Why don't all the adult bees in a honey bee colony just eat the nectar and pollen directly?
Adult bees can consume nectar directly but nectar is basically sugar water, plant sugar, but is almost completely carbohydrates. Just as...
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eliochel
Feb 17, 20231 min read
Is just the queen honey bee fed royal jelly? What do the other adult bees eat?
Well, actually those secretions from various glands of the young worker bees are mixed into different forms of “royal jelly”. The queen...
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eliochel
Feb 17, 20231 min read
So what is temporal polyethism, and what is the advantage to honey bees?
Apis mellifera seems to be a species obsessed with efficiency and temporal polyethism is efficient. Why is temporal polyethism so...
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eliochel
Feb 17, 20231 min read
Honey bees have taken social cooperation to the Extreme!
Honey bees have taken social behavior to the highest level seen in the animal world. Social cooperation to the Extreme! Honey bees are...
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eliochel
Feb 11, 20231 min read
Myth: swarms leaving managed care hives will do fine in the wild. The truth is . . .
7 out of 8 swarms are expected to not survive their first winter unless captured and rehived by a beekeeper. A few beekeepers in rural...
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eliochel
Feb 11, 20231 min read
Myth: "'Feral' bee swarms have superior, locally adapted, survivor genetics." The truth is:
Most 'feral' swarms are escapees from managed hives. The closer you are to commercial apiaries and to the high density of hobby...
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eliochel
Feb 9, 20231 min read
The European honey bee is an excellent pollinator of non-native plants, many of our favorite foods.
The European honey bee, aka the Western honey bee, aka Apis mellifera, aka our beloved honey bee, evolved with European plants over...
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eliochel
Feb 8, 20231 min read
Varroa destructor mites feed on adult bees as well as on honey bee larvae.
Dr. Samuel Ramsey showed this feeding on adults as well as on bee larvae in the capped stage and presented his research in the youtube...
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eliochel
Feb 7, 20231 min read
Varroa destructor mites, the greatest threat to honey bee health, do not suck "bee blood."
Until recently, it was widely published that V. destructor fed on the hemolymph ("bee blood") of capped bee larvae as they metamorphosed...
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