Bees - Scary?

[Ann]

Scott Hildenbrand expounded:

No, pollen is most definitely a source of food, lipids, vitamins, sterols, minerals, micronutrients and most importantly protein, some within the worker bees' bodies in the form of vitellogenin and some of which is stored as beebread. Honey comes from nectar gathered and processed in the workers' honey stomaches and is also used as food, mainly carbohydrates they burn over the winter to keep themselves and the all-important queen warm until spring. There's more involved, but books have been written on bee nutrition, I'm not going to bore you all with the rest of it

[Hettie®]

LOL! Taking a sound reading?

The yogurt cup was to trap them inside the house when they landed on the window glass trying to find a way out. I suppose I could have used a plastic Solo cup, but the yogurt cup was the handiest I could grab. I held it in one hand, my right hand to be specific, tried to clap it over the intruder, then slide the knife under easy like so as not to amputate their legs, usually they went to the bottom of the cup but sometimes not, hold the knife over the cup until I got out the door and released it. It is hard to open an interior and storm door when you have a bee trapped inside a yogurt cup. My method gives new meaning to catch and release. Bumblebees though take longer to catch and fly very fast through the house, zooming through several rooms, until they decide to seek the light, on a glass window, and some of my panes are small on top; hence the yogurt cup. That makes them furiously mad. What do they know?

I didn't have a yogurt cup when I got stung outside on my thigh. The bee got under my bermuda shorts, and I didn't know it was there until ouch, and then I felt something wiggley under there!

[enigma]

Stephen Henning wrote in news: [e-mail]:

duh! because they are *bees* & the man made hive is where their queen is. bees are social. they work for the hive. worker bees just do NOT go out one morning, find a nice field of buckwheat in bloom & say "Wow! this is cool. i'll just stay out here forever. no more Queenie telling *me* what to do!" no, they mark the field in their little inborn GPS & head back to the hive to tell all the other worker bees about it.

yes, and assorted viruses & the lovely verroa mite... while it may be convenient for the farmers to have the travelling bee keepers come around, those travelling hives are spreading viruses & mites & all kinds of unhealthy bee bugs.

oddly, that's not true. there are very few 'wild' hives of honeybees. lee

[Ann]

Ann expounded:

Dammit.

read 'some stored in'

[Ann]

enigma expounded:

Thankfully they seem to be on a bit of a comeback. There have been feral hives located that show resistance to varroa. There may be hope

- that is if humans will leave them alone and let them adapt!

[Scott Hildenbrand]

Not bored at all, actually.. ;)

So they can indeed survive on their own munching on pollen and wondering around aimlessly?

Knew they did eat pollen but I'd always thought that honey was their main food source and not just for winter stock.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

As if that will ever happen.. First instinct for people who sees a hive in a tree is to eradicate them. Especially with all the killer bee fear.

On the bright side there are still pockets in the country that are sparsely populated.

[Billy]

Can't help thinking it is "Groundhog Day". We've had this conversation before, back in the Spring. People must be gettin' bored.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

I must have missed that conversation being new to the group..

Ah well, not much to talk about now?

[paghat]

I'mlooking into possibly doing a home beehive design, and yourselves asgardeners have probably encountered the odd bee or two. I have a quickquestion for you then, are you;

of bees) or cnidophobic (fear of stings).

read and respond.

I love bees & as they pollinate the flowers I can even pet them like itty bitty furry kitties.

-paghat the ratgirl

[Usenet2007]

How many bees? One? Two? A hundred?

If it is just one, paying attention to some flowers, it can be very close, and I don't bother it, and doesn't bother me.

I don't go over and try to touch them or anything, and I wouldn't mess around with a hive.

But on my normal garden level, there's no problem. I actually like seeing them getting some pollination going on. Although I will note that I have never been stung by one.

[Eggs Zachtly]

My money's on some lab, somewhere, creating a varroa-proof bee. You know what they say about history and it's repeats. ;)

[Billy]

Oh, just think of it as another "lip-syncin'" re-run of Law and Order with Lenny Brisco.

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Well, while everyone is having a hard time sleeping, anyway, here's some more fun:

Effects of EMFs on Birds, Bees, Bat-Rays, Butterflies & Buzzards

Microwaves and Insects

of EMFs on Birds, Bees, Bat-Rays, Butterflies & Buzzards phones blamed for sparrow deaths of a conection between Sparrow decline and the introduction of Phone mast GSM sparrows of London on a wire theory needs closer look in disease watch have all the sparrows gone? microwave radiation and wildlife - Are Cell Phones Wiping Out Sparrows? paper on RF effects on birds suffer from biological effects of GSM, 3G (UMTS), DECT, WIFI, TETRA Bioeffects on Animals near a New Zealand Radio Transmitter phone mast blamed for vanishing pigeons From: FragileWarrior

[Suzie-Q]

I used to work at Wal-Mart where they have the big, big windows in the front of the store. One day a bee was on the window, obviously trying to get out. I went over and coaxed the bee onto my hand where it stayed until I got it outside. It flew away.

Living in central Texas, I do worry about the possibility that I could come in contact with a hive of "killer" bees. I worry more that my dogs or cats could be attacked. But I don't obsess about it.

[Jangchub]

I hate cell phones. More than that, I strongly dislike people going food shopping while on the phone asking, "do we need butter." Ridiculous.

[Hettie®]

Neat. I don't think I'd have the courage to try that.

That would worry me, too. They are fanning out, but I don't know if they will hit the northern zones or not. I don't see too much about them any more, but did read fairly recently about a tragic death of a man stung hundreds of time by a swarm of bees, don't remember if they were the killer kind or not. They were in this case, unfortunately for him.

>

[woody creature]

Hi There Neil,

This came up in a conversation today with my friend Travis as I was planting bulbs. We were discussing Einstein's prediction (humans only have 4 years after the bees die off) and he heard a conspiracy theory that a terrist group but a satelite in space to mess with the bees (take what you will from that). We discussed the possibility that all the pesticides, insecticides and hormones bred into corn and other crops is affecting the pollen and then the bees. Also production bees are moved around a lot. I've been stung numerous times. A bee got in my boot when I was a teenager and stung me on the ankle. Yikes. Also been stung on my hand and behind my ear. I spent a lot of time outside as a kid. But even with all this I'm not in the least bit afraid of them. I work in the garden next to them all the time and their just out doing their thing and I'm doing mine. I've thought about keeping bees and when I by a bigger property I will. Good luck with your project.

Lee

[Jim]

these are not the kind of bees you put in hives. I was within a couple of feet of them and still used the zoom on my camera.

that'd be my answer because it is more about how you act around them and treat them producing how they respond to you.

there is one kind of bee you just don't want to be around because you can treat them nice and they'll still attack you. violent african bees. kind of like fire ants.

[Val]

I saw that program and taped it the second time it was shown later in the week. One of the most interesting things, I thought, was that the beekeeper who had his hives on the roof of the building in the middle of Paris(?) France didn't have any signs of these problems with his bees. The only difference in their environment was that in the middle of the city there were no pesticides being used in the parks and small plots of private gardens and flowers within the city.

People around here are buying loads of Mason bees and making wood block homes for them to winter over. No honey production but great pollinators. Unfortunately this is only a band aid on the pollination problem, not a solution to the demise of our honey bees.

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Have you read any of the data out there on changing the size of the foundation the honeycomb is built on? Supposedly going to smaller comb helps as there isn't enough room for varroa to stay attached to the bee and lay eggs in the comb.

Ted