#honey-bees — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #honey-bees, aggregated by home.social.
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Several things I learned since buying a house with a holly tree in the backyard:
-They grow large enough to become genuine trees.
-The leaves are smooth, it isn't until they're damaged that the leaves grow back in the traditional spiky form as a defensive measure.
-They blossom in spring, they smell absolutely fucking amazing and bees can't get enough of them.
-They spread like wildfire. 😅
#beebutt #holly #bees #nature #hulst #blossom #honeybees #pollinators #backyard #bijen #spring #lente
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Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners by Thomas D. Seeley
"The personal backstory to 20 of the most exciting research projects that the author has been part of during his 50 years of research into the abilities and behaviors of honeybees."
#honeybees #books #pollinators #NaturalHistory #Entomology https://grrlscientist.medium.com/piping-hot-bees-and-boisterous-buzz-runners-by-thomas-d-seeley-review-90f7d1d746d1
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🐝🔢 Researchers Dr. Mirko Zanon and Dr. Scarlett Howard used mathematical models to show how #honeybees recognize #numbers despite their low visual resolution.
The #research supports the theory that #insects are truly counting rather than simply matching complex visual patterns.
👉 https://www.sciencealert.com/bees-actually-can-count-new-study-suggests
#bees #biology #science #math #intelligence #nature #learning #entomology
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Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners by Thomas D. Seeley
"The personal backstory to 20 of the most exciting research projects that the author has been part of during his 50 years of research into the abilities and behaviors of honeybees."
#honeybees #pollinators #NaturalHistory #Entomology https://grrlscientist.medium.com/piping-hot-bees-and-boisterous-buzz-runners-by-thomas-d-seeley-review-90f7d1d746d1
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Piping Hot Bees and Boisterous Buzz-Runners by Thomas D. Seeley
"The personal backstory to 20 of the most exciting research projects that the author has been part of during his 50 years of research into the abilities and behaviors of honeybees."
#honeybees #pollinators #NaturalHistory #Entomology https://grrlscientist.medium.com/piping-hot-bees-and-boisterous-buzz-runners-by-thomas-d-seeley-review-90f7d1d746d1
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Since they are consuming it so fast I switched to honey at 1:1. This is two hours elapsed.
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The new hive with the caught swarm has pollen going in and the bait hive might be back to scout bees and no robbing.
#beekeeping #bees #beehive #BaitHive #BeeSwarm #apiary #SwarmTrap #April21 #HoneyBees
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The bait hive is busy this afternoon. Seems like a little fighting going on so must not be from the same hive. Could be some robbing but there's a lot of coming and going too. There was still some honey in some of the old comb put in here.
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The captured bees seem to be doing bee things as it warms up. I peaked in the top deep around 9 am and there were no bees up in there so I took it off and there was no drama. It looked like they were clustered up into 3-4 frames but it's just waxed foundation so I guess there's lots of room in that space.
#beekeeping #bees #HoneyBees #swarm #beehive #apiary #April19
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This same hive swarmed at the same degree days last year and it's not even the same bees unless the swarm I caught and put in the box was from there originally.
My bee log entry last night:
"Last year: April 23, 2025 107.4 + 184.9 = 292.3 Blossom degrees
Swarm day, West hive, might have been a fire drill,, but that meant queen flying.""Apr 18, 2026 Feb 8.5 + Mar 145.9 = 154.4 + 150.5 = 304.9 Blossom degrees"
#beekeeping #Swarm #BeeSwarm #SwarmCatching #bees #HoneyBees #apiary
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One of the hives swarmed today and it was low enough in a tree I could catch it while standing 7 feet up on a ladder with a fiberglass pole I modified. Once most of the bees were caught the weight couldn't be held vertical and then I heard a crack from the pole I let it go and landed on my roof. I got them in an empty hive before dark.
#beekeeping #Swarm #BeeSwarm #SwarmCatching #bees #HoneyBees #apiary
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The East hive. This would technically be the oldest hive since the OG queen moved here with a split, or maybe after I caught a queen wandering around after the split which I suspect was the old queen since I probably split them days before they would have swarmed or she couldn't fly good enough to swarm.. whatever, she was here and generally I'd say it's been the best hive but a bit swarmy. Lots of drones in this photo.
5/5 🏁
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The White hive. Not much to say about it, I think it swarmed twice or more last year so I suppose it doesn't really have much character.
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The Center hive. This hive always has lots of bees, and swarmed once last year so maybe the slight meanness of some bees went with that queen. It was like 1 of 100 bees would just hit you and sting you, no warning, when checking them.
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The Green hive. This is the part of the split with the queen from the East hive. It's activity is picking up every day as more foragers take flight. They have a green 4 leaf clover and a water trough to help ID the hive and for other bees to see sooner it's not their hive. I noticed a lot of drift from other hives landing or almost landing before realizing it wasn't their hive.
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The West hive. These bees seem to be smaller. They could just be young bees but I've seen the small ones bringing in pollen. They seem healthy and didn't have any issues over the winter. This was a swarm caught July 17 last year and combined here since this box had swarmed and I probably cleared out it's queen cell when checking things.
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A naturally occurring hybrid honeybee in southern California shows substantial resistance to infestation by the Varroa mite. The resistance is effective at the larval stage, so it is likely genetic and not behavioral.
Summary: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1123566
Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-45759-9
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The East hive has lots of bees and some queen cells and also some brood that hasn't hatched yet. This is all in the bottom box of a 2 deep box hive.
The hive split seems like it will be successful!
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I checked the hives that were split 13 days ago. The Green hive that got the top box from East has lots of fresh brood so the queen was moved. This is the best scenario since most of the foragers would of went back to the other hive. I started seeing some new foragers in the last few days. Drones started flying 6 days ago.
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A recent review of studies assessing interactions between honeybees and native bees in North America finds that overall, honeybees are not associated with adverse impacts on wild bees.
Summary: https://theconversation.com/its-ok-to-love-all-the-bees-the-honey-bees-too-279849
Original paper (not ope access): https://academic.oup.com/icb/article-abstract/65/4/893/8154036?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false
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Fascinating – and alarming 🐝:
“The Bee That Everyone Wants To Save”, ‘The Naturalist’ (https://naturalist.bearblog.dev/the-bee-that-everyone-wants-to-save/).
Via HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47520599
#Bees #HoneyBees #BumbleBees #Insects #Environment #Pollination #BeeKeeping #BeeHives #BeesColonies #Flora