Bees Without Borders

Our friend Andrew's beekeeping and edu-beeking activities were covered in the New York Times today. Congrats, Andrew!

Superorganism

is one of my favorite words—it's so D.C. Comics!

So I was psyched this morning when my friend Eva brought this new book to my attention: The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies by Bert Holldobler and E.O. Wilson.

Sounds like a good read on the fascinating topic of swarm intelligence. A cool gift for the bookworm beek in your life.

Pollination 101

Even the most casual conversation about beekeeping soon wends its way toward the inevitable topic of pollination—What is it, exactly? What role do bees play in it? And why should we care about it?

Such questions are usually asked with a vague sense of apology. We know we should be more conversant with something so basic to our food supply and our natural world, yet back in school, who among us did not zone out 150% when the topic of botany arose? The clock hands practically froze when the words "stamen," "stigma," and "anther" were uttered by teachers who somehow managed to make it all seem so distant, static, and dull.

I guess it takes decades of living to realize just how spellbinding plant sexuality can be, and just how mighty a role insect pollination plays in our lives—at least to the degree that our existence is tied with the availability of fruits, nuts, and flowers (not to mention stuff like coffee, cotton, and cola nuts). Check out this cool chart of bee-pollinated crop plants to see the scope of services bees and other insects provide.

I'll be the first to admit that, until I started gardening and beekeeping, the ins and outs of pollination were shrouded in vagueness and/or outright mystery. These days, though, every almond, apple, squash, and berry I encounter brings amazement about the intricacies of pollination and gratitude to the compound-eyed critters who make such gifts as the cukes below possible.Putting aside the 1950s-style narration and attendant assumptions about insect awareness (which I confess I find amusing), this short video provides a decent summary of how flowering plants reproduce.


Here's more:

A ton of fact sheets from the Xerces Society about pollinator conservation.

A HowStuffWorks Video on Pollination & Fertilization.

A Wikipedia page fruit tree pollination.

Wikipedia on pollination in general.

The Pollinator Partnership's new ecoregional planting guides to attract pollinators to your garden.

The utterly fascinating Pollinator Conservation Digital Library.

A New York Times article on the sexual trickery of orchids and hot, hot waspy action!

Change We Can Believe In

When Trees Have Faces...

...One can (like Dorothy) get a little creeped out walking in the woods. Here are some of my local players on the facially-inclined tree front.
If you like these, check out Trees of Halloween.

And talking of trees, here's my favorite arboreal cyber-thingy, Festival of Trees.

Botanical Convergences

Wren and I were amused to find this bit of botanical signage on our walk in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on Sunday afternoon. So weirdly election-y!
It's quite a lovely tree, in spite of its name. The iPhone camera gave it this warm, buttery, 19th-c. treatment.

Turning Over a New Leaf

Whew.
Now that that's taken care of, we'll be returning to the bees and related topics of interest. More soon.

VOTE

Vote Barack

Hockey Mama for Obama