Finally get somewhat caught up

I fell behind on everything this week but got somewhat caught up today. I wrote half of my column that is due Friday and did the writing I should have done on Monday. Now I just need to have dinner, work out, take a shower, answer about thirty emails and I'll be able to relax and read some of the Tabitha King book I'm reading...

Here's a nice bee, writing, reading and charity related tweet. mary_russell I’m pleased to exercise my small amount of influence in the world to help families support themselves with beehives http://snipurl.com/gsrar

This gave me the willies

Today I was looking for data about bee behavior as they start to settling into the new hive once they've successfully swarmed. I was reading along, la, la, la, everything's fine, when I read this, which made me scream like a schoolgirl:

Expired Queens (Re-Queening): Beekeepers often times replace or "Re-Queen" their colonies for any number of reasons including here in the South attempting to control Africanized Honey Bee takeover. When a new Queen is introduced the old Queen must be removed. There is no better scent than an actual Queens scent. When re-queening simply pinch off the head of the old queen and drop her into a jar with just enough alcohol to cover the queen. After you have a few queens soaking in your jar place a few drops of the liquid in your trap. It doesn't get any better than the real thing.

It was the simply pinching the head off part that freaked me out. I'm not suited for the job of beekeeper. I have trouble even gardening because I feel bad for the weeds and anything I have to thin out.

EDITED to add link, which I forgot. http://saulcreekapiary.com/swarm%20trap%20use.htm

That's quite a reputation my friend

Today we turn away from honeybees a bit and look toward the honey badger, which had quite a ferocious reputation in the last century.

1947 Stevenson- Hamilton (the first warden of the Kruger National Park, South Africa) added to the increasingly formidable reputation of honey badgers by reporting that they killed ungulates (buffalo Syncerus caffer, waterbuck Kobus ellipsiprymnus and wildebeest Connochaetes taurinus) by castration and the resulting fatal haemorrhage. By the 1960’s this had become a common feature of species accounts and the naturalist George Sweeney took it a step further by recounting the story of four tribesmen who encountered a honey badger, which “hamstrung one of the men, clawed another and castrated him with one clean bite”. Some species accounts were then extended to include warnings that “it will attack a human adversary in the same way, swarming up the legs and, it is said, very often attempting to attack the genital organs” (Astley Maberley 1963). Although frequently recounted, no recent (post 1950) or first hand accounts of honey badgers castrating animals (or man) are available and this strongly suggests this is folklore. Certainly honey badgers were never seen to castrate an animal in the southern Kalahari.

I'm almost sad that it didn't really run about castrating much larger animals, but not as sad as the television producer I'm imagining who would have thought he/she could do a series that combined the best of Meerkat Manor and Battlebots...

Just in case you're not tired of bees yet

I give you a photo of a soaking wet bee.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50717535@N00/685678518

I'm nearly halfway through with my fifty thousand word count for November. Details here. (The title isn't really the title. It's just a working title.)

http://www.nanowrimo.org///eng/user/25188

Safely removing bees from a chimney

Here is a fascinating account by Paul Hooper who was asked to move a hive of bees that had been living in a chimney for more than twenty years! As he says the owner of the farmhouse was quite keep on keeping the bees alive so Mr. Hooper had quite a task in front of him.

Removal of the bees was achieved by sealing all but one entrance to the hive, and placing a one-way escape on that remaining entrance. A single box hive was placed such that its entrance was adjacent to the escape. During all this activity the bees were very busy, going about their normal business apparently oblivious to the changes taking place in their environment. At no stage during the entire seven week operation did any of the bees exhibit any aggression – until the box hive was finally closed up and removed from its perch on the chimney.

There are loads of nice pictures to go with the article. Well done Mr. Hooper.

It's hard out there for a bee

There are bees in the book I'm writing this November. They aren't the entire plot or anything but I suppose you could call them a plot point. I'm trying to figure out how far and how fast the bees go when they're swarming. That's when the old queen buzzes off with a bunch of her brood to start a new hive, leaving the new queen behind, in case you didn't know.

Of course if you type bees and travel into Google you get a bunch of hits for Burt's Bees travel sized blah blah blah, which is singularly not helpful.

Anyway, I'm just looking around this website, http://www.bees-online.com/BeeFaqs.htm, and I'm a bit dismayed. It sounds like the bee's life is not much fun at all.

Q. What is the expected lifespan of a honey bee?

A. Life expectancy depends on the time of year and the caste of bee. Queens can live up to three years. Drones die when they mate or if they have not mated by the beginning of winter, they are ejected from the colony to die. During late spring, summer and early fall, a Worker will live only about 6 weeks. When born, Workers serve as nursery workers for some 2 weeks. After that they collect nectar and pollen until they die. Workers born in late fall, will live some 4 to 5 months, so that they can keep the Queen warm during the winter months.

Get out drones! Out, we have no use for you and we need all the food we can get our little feet on to survive the winter! And out go the drones to be eaten by skunks or freeze or whatever. Then the poor workers, worked to death at an early age. But that's not all. Look at this statistic.

The average honeybee will make one-twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its
lifetime.

How sad is that? Poor honeybee making about as much honey as stays stuck on the spoon when you fix your tea and then that's it, game over. It's tragic.