Caffeinated Bees

Interesting goings-on at the compost heap the other day, with the honeybees frenetically gathering coffee grounds in their pollen baskets. Not sure what was up with that, but the proof is posted below for all to see.
Given the dearth of pollen sources so early in the season up in the Northern Catskills, perhaps the bees were simply "taking what they could get" by gleaning the coffee from our discarded Melitta filters. I wonder what, if any, merit the grounds have from a nutritional perspective.

Or perhaps these bees (and, one can only hope, bees across the world) are hyping themselves up for a long overdue battle with homo sapiens for world dominance. If so, I'm rooting for the bees and will gladly serve as barista to the revolution.

What interesting or unexpected things have you observed honeybees gathering or doing of late?

A Honeybee in Snow

Yesterday, on my afternoon walk around the pond, I found this sweet girl in the snow. Perhaps the warm day lured her too far from the hive and when the weather chilled, she couldn't make it back. Or perhaps she felt her end was near and ventured from her sister bees into the white abyss with a sense of final purpose. Whatever the story, I hope her end was quick. She was a lovely creature.

Brooklyn Bees

Last August, some locust blossoms fell on the hood of a car here in Brooklyn. The intrepid Brooklyn bees didn't let that stop them. Here are some pictures I took (and then tweaked, just for the hell of it) on my iPhone.

The Lowdown on Landings

If you've kept bees for any length of time, you've probably spent many hours watching your bees touchdown on the landing boards of their hives before scrambling inside to deliver their gleanings. Sometimes, the landings are smooth and elegant, other times (especially when the bees are laden with pollen), the landing is...well...kind of bumbling.The fine art of returning safely to terra firma (if you're a bee) is the topic of an interesting research item summarized in a recent Science Daily article entitled, Final Moment of Bee Landing Tactics Revealed.

How often, amidst the busy days of beekeeping and its attendant chores, do you remember to simply sit by the hive and enjoy watching the bees come and go? One of my New Year's resolutions is to do much more of this in 2010.

Circadian Syncronicity

The tiny clocks in bees and flowers: read all about it here.

Apis Abacus

A newly published study entitled Number-based Visual Generalisation in the Honeybee finds that honeybees can count, setting them apart from many other animals and (as far as we know) all other invertebrates. Here's the abstract:

Although the numerical abilities of many vertebrate species have been investigated in the scientific literature, there are few convincing accounts of invertebrate numerical competence. Honeybees, Apis mellifera, by virtue of their other impressive cognitive feats, are a prime candidate for investigations of this nature. We therefore used the well-established delayed match-to-sample paradigm, to test the limits of honeybees' ability to match two visual patterns solely on the basis of the shared number of elements in the two patterns. Using a y-maze, we found that bees can not only differentiate between patterns containing two and three elements, but can also use this prior knowledge to differentiate three from four, without any additional training. However, bees trained on the two versus three task could not distinguish between higher numbers, such as four versus five, four versus six, or five versus six. Control experiments confirmed that the bees were not using cues such as the colour of the exact configuration of the visual elements, the combined area or edge length of the elements, or illusory contours formed by the elements. To our knowledge, this is the first report of number-based visual generalisation by an invertebrate.

Read the entire study on honeybee counting or check out this user-friendly summary of the research on the Science News website.

Honeybee Yanks Caterpillar's Chain

In the latest entry from the "everything is connected" dept., here's an odd little piece in the NY Times: The Buzz of Bees, Though Benign, Halts Caterpillars' Munching. The illustration alone is worth the effort of clicking the link.

Recent Things

Don't Cry Over Spilled Honey.

Bronx Bees

SwarmCatcher Karen brought to our attention this New York Post item about a recent swarm in the Bronx: BRONX BEESTS.

It's good to know honeybees are thriving in NYC—along with the Post's punstering prowess.

Drink Coffee? Thank a Bee: Honeybee Pollination Research Roundup

If you eat fruit, drink coffee, or love flowers, you need to thank a bee today. In this springy time of pollen-gathering, here's a little roundup of articles on the topic of honeybee pollination.

Had Your Morning Coffee? Thank a Killer Bee; Smithsonian Scientist Shows Pollination by Exotic Honeybees Increases Coffee Crop Yield by More Than 50 Percent Who knew? According to the researcher, David W. Roubik, "the work of two or three dozen wild African honey bees is in every cup of coffee that you drink."

Primitive Plants Use Heat and Odor to Woo Pollinating Insects. Sex sells.

Wild Bees Making Honeybees Better Pollinators. I bet you'll never guess why.

Oregon Bee Loves Berries, May Help Fill Gap Caused by Colony Collapse Disorder of European Bees. Native bees to the rescue? We hardly deserve it.

See also my recent post on native bees (a.k.a. "alternative pollinators").

And buzz on over to Bee Culture to download a Cornell University study entitled The Value of Honeybees as Pollinators of U.S. Crops in 2000 (on the lower right-hand corner of the Home Page, look for the article under "Free Reprints").

Honeybees' In-flight Services

Today's New York Times has this: "Why Wait for the Hive? Honeybees Get to Work In Flight, Study Says."The new research, conducted in South Africa, suggests that honeybees begin evaporating the water in nectar immediately after collecting it, while en route back to the hive. It was previously thought that the process of evaporating the water occurred strictly within the hive itself.

How do they do it? Check out this short and sweet little article on the marvelous efficiency of the honeybee to find out.

Honeybee Decision-Making & What It Can Teach Us

Recent research on the process by which a swarm decides upon a new home from among the various choices identified by the scout bees. The swarm's decision is made relatively quickly and remarkably well. No small feat when you're talking 10,000+ individual bees.

Bee Movie, 1951

What could be more fun than taking in an old movie the day after Christmas? Found out about this gem on the Historical Honeybee Articles and Archive listserve. If you have trouble viewing through the embedded video below, you can watch it here.

Song of the Queen Bee by E.B. White

Song of the Queen Bee

by E.B White

New Yorker Magazine 1945
“The breeding of the bee," says a United States Department of Agriculture bulletin on artificial insemination, has always been handicapped by the fact that the queen mates in the air with whatever drone she encounters.”

When the air is wine and the wind is free
and the morning sits on the lovely lea
and sunlight ripples on every tree
Then love-in-air is the thing for me
I’m a bee,
I’m a ravishing, rollicking, young queen bee,
That's me.
I wish to state that I think it’s great,
Oh, it’s simply rare in the upper air,
It’s the place to pair
With a bee.

Let old geneticists plot and plan,
They’re stuffy people, to a man;
Let gossips whisper behind their fan.
(Oh, she does?
Buzz, buzz, buzz!)
My nuptial flight is sheer delight;
I’m a giddy girl who likes to swirl,
To fly and soar
And fly some more,
I’m a bee.
And I wish to state that I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.

There’s a kind of a wild and glad elation
In the natural way of insemination;
Who thinks that love is a handicap
Is a fuddydud and a common sap,
For I am a queen and I am a bee,
I’m devil-may-care and I’m fancy-free,
The test tube doesn't appeal to me,
Not me,
I’m a bee.
And I’m here to state that I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.

Mares and cows, by calculating,
Improve themselves with loveless mating,
Let groundlings breed in the modern fashion,
I’ll stick to the air and the grand old passion;
I may be small and I’m just a bee
But I won’t have science improving me,
Not me,
I’m a bee.
On a day that’s fair with a wind that’s free,
Any old drone is a lad for me.

I’ve no flair for love moderne,
It’s far too studied, far too stern,
I’m just a bee—I’m wild, I’m free,
That’s me.
I can’t afford to be too choosy;
In every queen there’s a touch of floozy,
And it’s simply rare
In the upper air
And I wish to state
That I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.

Man is a fool for the latest movement,
He broods and broods on race improvement;
What boots it to improve a bee
If it means the end of ecstasy?
(He ought to be there
On a day that’s fair,
Oh, it’s simply rare.
For a bee.)

Man’s so wise he is growing foolish,
Some of his schemes are downright ghoulish;
He owns a bomb that’ll end creation
And he wants to change the sex relation,
He thinks that love is a handicap,
He’s a fuddydud, he’s a simple sap;
Man is a meddler, man’s a boob,
He looks for love in the depths of a tube,
His restless mind is forever ranging,
He thinks he’s advancing as long as he’s changing,
He cracks the atom, he racks his skull,
Man is meddlesome, man is dull,
Man is busy instead of idle,
Man is alarmingly suicidal,
Me, I am a bee.

I am a bee and I simply love it,
I am a bee and I’m darn glad of it,
I am a bee, I know about love:
You go upstairs, you go above,
You do not pause to dine or sup,
The sky won’t wait—it’s a long trip up;
You rise, you soar, you take the blue,
It’s you and me, kid, me and you,
It’s everything, it’s the nearest drone,
It’s never a thing that you find alone.
I’m a bee,
I’m free.

If any old farmer can keep and hive me,
Then any old drone may catch and wife me;
I’m sorry for creatures who cannot pair
On a gorgeous day in the upper air,
I’m sorry for cows that have to boast
Of affairs they’ve had by parcel post,
I’m sorry for a man with his plots and guile,
His test-tube manner, his test-tube smile;
I’ll multiply and I’ll increase
As I always have—by mere caprice;
For I am a queen and I am a bee,
I’m devil-may-care and I’m fancy-free,
Love-in-air is the thing for me,
Oh, it’s simply rare
In the beautiful air,
And I wish to state
That I’ll always mate
With whatever drone I encounter.

Honeybees Removing Varroa Mites Through Grooming

In this amazing video, you'll witness what is known in beekeeper parlance as "hygienic behavior"—honeybees grooming themselves in an effort to remove the dreaded varroa mites from their bodies.

Honeybee Reconnaissance

The bees never miss a trick. You put something out on the hood of the car or carry a tool up to the field or lay a sweater on the lawn, and they're on it. Perpetual reconnaissance. This one's surveying the beekeeping equipment, to make sure everything's in order.

Portulaca Honeybee

Autumn has been gentle so far, with no hard frost as of yet and none predicted for the upcoming week. Though there's been significant die-back of the bees' forage plants, there are still a few decent stands of goldenrod and a great deal of aster to continue provisioning the bees for winter. The weather has been balmy and the bees have been foraging intensively in their continuing effort to pack away as much nectar and pollen for winter as they can. (My beekeeper mentors tellme a colony needs at least 60 pounds of honey to survive the winter; an inconceivable amount of work when you consider the size of a honeybee. Happily, all three of my hives appear to have attained the necessary stores.)

This weekend, I observed the bees foraging on borage, sunflower, black knapweed, ornamental (late-blooming) milkweed, zinnia, squash blossoms, and salvia, along with aster and goldenrod.

I was particularly intrigued to see a bee working the portulacas I planted early this summer near the front of the house. Though I have seen bees scope out these flowers throughout the summer (and occasionally collect dew drops from the petals), I've never seen a bee gather nectar or pollen from these plants—probably because better options abounded. But with the forage menu diminishing daily, this busy bee put aside any scruples she may have had about delving into the portulaca and literally immersed herself in the task, till she was dusted from head to tail with pollen.

Honeybees Luv Dogspit

I'm gathering photographic evidence of a natural phenomenon never before described in the scientific literature: honeybees gathering dog saliva for purposes as yet unknown.

For about an hour in late July, I observed this honeybee return over and over to gather dog saliva from the gnawed end of this, my dog's favorite stick. Once the honeybee became obsessed with the stick, I had to bribe the dog with another toy, so he wouldn't wind up competing with the bee. The dog, needless to say, was not amused.
Here's a shot from September—the dog's favorite Frisbee, with honeybee on board.
Again, I observed the bee gathering saliva from the toy for more than an hour after the dog had finished playing with it. She returned the next day to do the same thing. I mention the timing of these two observations because, given the short lifespan of a honeybee, I doubt this was the same honeybee as the one on the stick.
Off she goes, carrying her treasure back to the hive. My theory is the bee is going for the salts in my dog's saliva. I hope, over time, to gather more portraits of honeybees on dog toys.

Honeybee vs. Bumblebee

There was quite a fracas in front of Green Hive the other day. This bumblebee must have wandered too close to the honey-filled hive. The honeybee hung on to the bumblebee and wouldn't let go. The fuzzy interloper's larger sized didn't deter the honeybee one bit. Based on the honeybee's position in the shot below, I suspect it was stinging, or trying to sting, the bumblebee. When a honeybee stings a mammal, its stinger dislodges in the victim's skin, causing the bee to die. But when a honeybee stings another insect, it can sting multiple times without losing its stinger (and its life)—or so I've read....In any case, the battle was a dramatic one, with much buzzing, struggling, frantic rolling about in the grass, and several failed attempts at escape by the bumblebee.
(Note the bits of yellow pollen on both insects. The bumblebee should have stuck with pollen-gathering, and steered clear of the honey cache.)

Finally, after much tussling, the bumblebee managed to fly off, with honeybee in tow. In the blurry shot below, the bumblebee is flying out of the frame with the intrepid honeybee hanging on upside down for the ride of its life. (You can also see the bumblebee's pollen basket stuffed with yellow pollen. It's impressive that the bee could fly off carrying the weight of both the pollen load and the mad honeybee.)