The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting

This definitive work by world-renowned bee authority Eva Crane offers a fascinating account of bees and their complex relations with both humans and animals. Comprehensive, absorbing, and lavishly illustrated, this scholarly, yet accessible volume explores how bees, honey and other bee products have been gathered and utilized throughout the world.

Beginning with the rock paintings of the Mesolithic cave dwellers, readers will learn about the variety of methods used by human beekeepers, the stratagems used by animal honey-hunters, and the multitude of products humans have derived from bees. The first in-depth book on the subject, the World History of Beekeeping and Honey-Hunting is the ultimate work on bees for scholars in biology and the life sciences, professional and amateur beekeepers, and anyone who is interested in bees or the collection of honey.

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The plight of the Honeybee

So you want a small bee me to write a story about the current situation in the bee Kingdom of (or more strictly correct, queendom)?

People have been still more attention to the stresses and strains that have been placed in the bee population.  Honeybee not only, but the bees, and other types of bees.  There has been a lot written in the newspapers and alarming comment to documentary film.

So what is really going on, you ask?

Good has put it in context, bees have been around 50 million years.  People much less than that!  So, as you often say bees "been around the block a few times!"

We have survived global warming, global cooling, global volcanic disturbances and the impact of many out of the space objects like you never could consider.  And we are still here!  Some of your scientists have predicted that, if there was a nuclear war, we would be one of the few creatures that survive.  I am pleased, even if you have decided not to press the button and try that, in particular, the theory!

It is, we are all connected.

We contribute as a worldwide population of bees, to provide about 50% of your food.  And we continue to do so without complaint, to get with our daily lives.  Yet you are poisoning our food (and their) with chemicals, which should never be used in such a concentrated force.  You are also changing seed, grow food, so that they become pre-laden with further concentrated toxic substances.  And it makes you now on a massive scale.  We are all connected.  Your wife is our poison your married.

We are used to suffering local disasters, but in some parts of the world, large proportions of your domestic honey bee hives are loaded into trucks and transported across continents and then poisoned and fed on junk food — just so that we can pollenate your Almond groves.  The industrialization of your food industry is one of the largest man-made disasters in the last century.  We are all connected.  Your company-mega-industrial process creates our junk food, which creates your junk food.

We have some problems like the mite that attacks us, makes us weak, so we are susceptible to virus attacks.  We have faced these problems before.  Your beekeeping methods help us to tackle this problem.  You also understand other aspects of bee health and good animal husbandry.  We are all connected.  Our health is now dependent on your help, which is dependent on you become more aware and more connected with your food and your environment.

We are all connected.  Buy more honey.  Take more of an interest in our small bees.  Become a beekeeper!  You can become dependent on a hobby for a lifetime!

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The year's honey harvest and dissolved notes

With the first two weeks on vacation the bees had to wait until the last weekend before I removed the honey.  We took four full honey magazines – which will produce a good crop-although I do not have packaged it yet. Planning the next weekend.

I always leave a super on each hive to survive the winter.  Some beekeepers believe this is a waste of good honey – but I think that the bees become more healthy, if they are eating their own honey rather than sugar substitute.

While inspection of hives I took my notebook out of the Toolbox to find it had been leaked to some water – and all this seasons records literally was dissolved.  Quite extraordinary!  So my records are now my rusty old memory and odd blog entry.  A doctrine that use a location — perhaps indelible ink or something?

The purpose of beekeeping

"Bee-keeping or bee-keeping is the art of managing bees in order to get the maximum return from this work with a minimum of expenditure.
The bees produce swarms, queens, wax and honey.
Production of swarms and queens should be left to specialists.
The production of wax has some value, but this value is reduced by the cost of reproduction.
The production of honey is the main objective of beekeeping, beekeeper who pursues before anything else, because this product has been valuable, and because it can be weighed and prices.
Honey is an excellent food, a good product, best of all sweeteners. "

From the chapter opening in "Beekeeping for all" by Abbé Warré.  Translated from the French original version of L'Apiculture Pour tous (12th edition) by Patricia and David..

At sunset – things to look for

 

1. Queen Cups
One of the most obvious compromise rme behaviour is the construction of Queen cells. These cells normally live on the edge of the frames, but they can be displayed almost everywhere. In order to prevent compromise-monitor Remote Queen these cells, unless you require to super seed, etc. See picture to the right:

2. Queing and over population
If the gate of the hive is fully opened (i.e., no mouse guards, etc.) and bees are queing or you notice a lot of bees collected around the gate of the hive-it could be a pre-cursor to Sunset. If many bees ends the hive and cluster around the gate when you approach it, it could also be characters bees lack a little space. Add more space by adding a second brood box and/or power.

3. large Cluster at the bottom
If you look through the gate of the hive and the bottom of the bee cluster hive then fills the missing space width and will probably see to swarm. Add more space by adding a second brood box and/or power.

4. Not laying space
If the brood frames are all full of juveniles and the hive honey stores could then look to start swarming. Add another broodbox and framework in order to prevent this.

Swarm is most likely to occur between the beginning of June to the end of August.

Bee safe, not sorry

Silently, billions of bees dying and our entire food chain is in danger. The bees make honey, not only they are a giant, humble workforce, Pollinating 90% of the plants we grow.

Several scientific studies to blame a group of toxic pesticides for their rapid disappearance, and bee populations have increased in four European countries have banned the use of these products. But powerful chemical companies lobbying hard to keep the sell this poison. Our best chance to save the bees now is to push the United States and the European Union to ban this deadly product — their efforts are crucial and will have a ripple effect for the rest of the world.

We have no time to waste — the debate is raging about what to do. This is not just about saving bumble bees, of survival. Let us build a gigantic global buzz requires the EU and the United States to prohibit these killer chemicals and save our bees and our food. Sign the emergency petition now and send it to all, and we will deliver it to the central decision-makers:

https://Secure.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees/?VL

Bees are vital for life on Earth — each year, pollinating plants and crops, with an estimated $ 40bn value, over a third of the food supply in many countries. Without immediate action to save the bees could we end up with any fruit therefrom are no vegetables, no, no oils and no cotton.

Recent years have seen a steep and disturbing global decline in bee populations — some bee species are now extinct and the other is only 4% of their former numbers. Scientists have obscure answers. Some studies claim the decline may be caused by a combination of factors, including disease, habitat loss and toxic chemicals. But leading independent research has presented strong evidence for blaming neonicotinoid pesticides. This has led to beekeepers and scientists in France, Italy, Slovenia and even Germany, is the main manufacturer Bayer based, already pushing correctly to the ban of one of these bee killers. In the meantime continues Bayer to export its poison throughout the world.

The problem is now coming to the boil, as major new studies have confirmed the extent of the problem. If we can have European and American decision-makers to take other measures, will follow. It will not be easy. A leaked document shows that the environmental protection agency knew about the pesticide dangers, but ignores them. Document says Bayer's "very toxic" product "great risk concern to non-target insects (bees)".

We must make our voices heard for counter Bayer very strong influence on policy makers and researchers in both the United States and the European Union where they finance studies and sit on the political bodies. The real experts — beekeepers and farmers — these deadly pesticides shall be prohibited, until and unless we have solid, independent studies that show they are safe. Let us support them now. Sign the petition below, and then forward this email:

https://Secure.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees/?VL

We can no longer allow our delicate food chain in the hands of research run from the chemical companies and the regulatory authorities in their pockets. Prohibition of this pesticide will move us closer to a secure for ourselves and the other species we care and depends on the world

 

3D bees! – Scanned Beehive reveals bee life live in 3D

Zoologist Mark Greco and his colleagues at the Swiss Bee Research Centre in Bern, Switzerland, and researchers at the University of Bath, led by Professor Cathryn Mitchell and Dr. Manuchehr Soleimani is pioneering a new way to display it inside a beehive.

3D single Beehive photo
The technique is called diagnostic Radioentomology (DR) that scans the hive takes a series of 3D images. These images create a vivid picture of the news going on inside the hive, which means that we can achieve a greater insight into what the bees are doing behind closed doors. These live images produced by x-ray computerized tomography can also be used to track individual bees in the hive, so that the tracking of the Queen, again to give a greater insight into her movements.

Mr Greco told the BBC when interviewed, "the approach is non-invasive and does not alter their normal behaviour …..We can accurately assess the number of bees and where they are at the time of scanning. "

Researchers are working to improve this new technique, which will hopefully result in clearer 3D pictures, and more precisely the bee population, measuring quantities of pollen, wax and honey in a hive.

University of Bath researchers are also working on new computer models, which will hopefully provide better assessment of parasites and pathogens affect the hive.

"Because the method is extremely accurate, we will see critical thresholds pathogen and parasite loads and loss of food resources from which bee populations cannot recreate," explained Mr Greco, who is completing his PhD dissertation.

"[We will also examine] how pathogens such as mites, viruses, bacteria and fungi can interact both with each other and with the pressures on the environment or stress factors that produce colonial decline or collapse."

The team also hope that the new imaging technique may indicate what reduces the number of other solitary bee species.

"Many solitary bees feed on the same floral resources to those of honey bees, some also suffer from the same pathogens, such as fungal infestations in their nests."

UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, together with the British Government spending £ 10 million to research the population decreased bees, some of the money could be used to promote these new techniques to gain greater insight into the inner-workings of hives.