Mosquito control products can be detrimental to honey bee health. The EPA is seeking comments on a new program that would release bioinfected male mosquitos to help reduce populations of mosquitos carrying the Zika virus. If effective, such bioremedies could reduce the reliance on pesticides.
report courtesy of the EPA
EPA is proposing to register ZAP Males®, a new microbial biopesticide that …
Adding phase change materials, like paraffin, to concrete could make roads that melt snow and ice
Drexel University
New research shows that paraffin wax infused into pavement may help roads melt snow and ice faster. If the beeswax slumgum from rendering old combs had similar properties, beekeepers might have a new market for their wares.
Researchers from Drexel University, Purdue University and Oregon …
By T. DeLene Beeland
CLEMSON, South Carolina — About two miles from the Clemson University campus, where 50,000 people gathered to gaze skyward during the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse, bee researcher Jennifer Tsuruda kept her eyes focused earthward to see how honey bees behaved when nighttime darkness momentarily interrupted afternoon sun.
The lives of honey bees are intertwined with the sun. They …
NOAA-led team uses an innovative network approach to explain polygonal patterns in clouds
University of Colorado at Boulder
Polygons are widespread in nature: Drying mud may crack into many-sided blocks, and bees shape honeycomb into regular, six-sided cells. Hexagons also appear in broad sheets of clouds across parts of Earth's oceans, and now a team of researchers has used a network approach …
You're invited to the 5th Annual Caribbean Bee College
At the University of West Indies, Cave Hill Campus in Wanstead, Barbados
November 1st - 4th, 2017
Hosted by the University of Florida Honey Bee Research and Extension Lab
Click here to register or for more information
Two Days of Training
November 3rd and 4th will be the main training days for beekeepers and bee enthusiasts looking …
Ungroomed sites correspond with flower pollen-sacs and stigmas
PLOS
After grooming, bees still have pollen on body parts that match the position of flower pollen-sacs and stigmas, according to a study published September 6, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Petra Wester from Heinrich-Heine-University, Germany, and colleagues.
Flowers depend on pollen for pollination, and flower-visiting bees collect large quantities of pollen …
Certain plant microRNAs slow development to keep workers small and sterile
PLOS
Working model for the cross-kingdom transfer of plant microRNAs in the regulation
of honeybee development. For larvae that are destined to become queens, royal jelly is
fed in copious amounts to drive the development of the royal phenotype. For
worker-destined larvae, substantial quantities of plant microRNAs are absorbed when
consuming beebread and pollen, which …