"The market is being flooded by cheap, imported adulterated honey and it is undermining the business of genuine honey producers. The public are being misinformed, because they are buying what they think is genuine honey.”
Lynne Ingram, Chair of the Honey Authenticity Network UK

#Honey #Bees #Honeybees #Apiculture

Nine in ten honey samples from UK retailers fail authenticity test | Food | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/nov/09/nine-in-ten-honey-samples-from-uk-retailers-fail-authenticity-test

How to Help #Bees When It’s Hot Out

by Beth Slatkin
September 1, 2017

"Hot weather can be tough on our local wildlife, including wild bees. #Honeybees, for example, need a steady supply of water to make honey and feed members of their hive, and on hot days, water sources are especially critical. But where to go? Rivers, creeks, swimming pools, and even bird baths can be risky for bees trying to quench their thirst.

"Here are a few simple ways to help our #pollinators cope with the heat wave in store for the Bay Area this weekend:

"Create a 'bee watering station' out of wine corks

"'For bees, a supply of water is as important as pollen and nectar forage in the summer,' says Treehugger gardening columnist Ramon Gonzalez. But bees don’t like to get their feet wet, so make sure there’s a safe, dry perch available. You don’t need to spend much money or any fancy equipment, says Gonzalez. 'Simply take a bucket, pail or trough and fill it with water. Float an ample supply of wine corks in the water to give bees a landing pad so they can drink their fill.'

"Use your marbles [this is what I do]

"This one’s even easier: Place marbles in a shallow bath of water. A small saucer filled with pebbles and topped off with cool water can also do the trick.

"On extremely dry, hot days, all bee foraging—except for water—will cease, according to Kathy Keatley Garvey of UC’s Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Experts estimate bees may bring back nearly a gallon of water a day to their hives to to keep eggs cool and to dilute the gelatinous food provided by the nurse bee so that queens, drones, and larvae can swallow it.

"To learn more, read Kathy’s BugSquad blog.

"And remember to keep cool and hydrated out there!

https://baynature.org/article/helping-bees-beat-heat/

https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=14566

"A growing number of scientists are sounding the alarm about urban beekeeping, warning that it may be doing more harm than good – and that if we truly want to support #biodiversity in our cities, we should skip #honeybees in favour of diverse pollinator gardens rich in native plant species."

#rewilding #gardening #bees #bumblebees #pollinators #savethebees #butterflies #bats #moths #birds #biodiversitycrisis

https://www.rewildingmag.com/the-trouble-with-urban-beekeeping/

Yesterday I saw something I'd never noticed before—honeybees on milkweed with lots of little yellow-and-black things, similar to maple keys, stuck on their feet! It turns out they are called pollinia and are sticky packages of pollen that are part of the milkweed flower. Flying insects visiting the milkweed pick up these structures and carry them to other plants.

I only saw them on honeybees, not the bumblebees, but they have absolutely been recorded with pollinia (see e. g. <https://www.texasento.net/pollinia.htm>), so I must not have been looking at enough.

This also explains why I sometimes find dead bees stuck in milkweed flowers. I just assumed they died of old age or something while on the job…but they had gotten stuck and were unable to break free!

More reading:
- https://eyeonnature.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/snared-by-a-milkweed/
- https://collection.ento.vt.edu/2016/08/05/milkweed-pollinia-revisited/
- https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=43378