BEE BULLETINS

Watch CBC-TV’s:
The Nature of Things - To Bee or Not To Bee

“Could bees be an early warning sign of a larger problem with our ecology?
Are they the canary in the coal mine for the health of planet earth?”

photo: A patch of star thistle in the foreground, a patch of goldenrod in the background among apple trees, pear trees, grape vines, wild asters and other wildflowers. Also note the beautiful clover and dandelion plants making the lawn greener. (Click on image to see enlarged.)

These are some photos that I took this summer of my father’s backyard. He always plants patches of bee friendly flowers throughout his property. This year, as a research project and for fun, he tagged flowers in a patch of star thistles at the start of their bloom and recorded how many consecutive days each individual blossom would remain open. These amazing looking patches of plants demonstrate a massive untapped potential waiting to be harnessed wherever manicured monoculture lawns prevail.

Some reasons why people should be planting gardens or patches of nectar and pollen producing flowers include:

• they require far less maintenance than the average lawn
• they can be used to produce fruit, vegetables, herbs, etc. for consumption
• they are far more eco-friendly than a manicured lawn
• they are fun to observe and interesting to study
• they look awesome

photo: Star thistle tagged so that bloom duration can be measured.

photo: Golden honey plant flowers.

photo: White asters.

photo: Purple asters.

photo: Closeup of a honey bee on goldenrod.

Photo by feverblue on flikr and used under this Creative Commons license.

This article describes a study from the Journal of Human Evolution that compares a complex tool set invented by chimpanzees to acquire honey with Stone Age human tools. It makes me wonder: If we went back far enough, did the common ancestors of humans and chimpanzees use tools to obtain honey or did this behaviour emerge separately in both species?

When you consider estimates that humans branched off from our common ancestor with chimpanzees 5–7 million years ago (source: Wikipedia) and that honey bees have been thriving for at least 40 million years, it is hypothesized that honey bees have been a major influence in shaping the evolution of the human species and societies (eg favouring tool use, feeding on honey bee pollinated foods, developing agriculture, etc). Vice-versa, with feral colonies disappearing at an alarming rate, the role of beekeepers with integrated pest management and the role of bee breeders in selecting honey bees for disease resistance, gentleness, honey production, hygienic behaviour, etc has probably never been more important, influencial, and essential in establishing the future of the honey bee.

The following original publications are available at www.apidologie.org:

Szabo, T.I. and Lefkovitch, L.P. 1988. Fourth generation of closed population honeybee breeding. 2. Relationship between morphological and colony traits. Apidologie 19(3): 259-274. [article]

Szabo, T.I. and Lefkovitch, L.P. 1989. Effect of brood production and population size on honey production of honeybee colonies in Alberta, Canada. Apidologie 20(2): 157-163. [article]

Szabo, T.I. 1990 Morphometric characteristics of Apis cerana from Sri Lanka. Apidologie 21(6): 505-509. [abstract] [article]

Szabo, T.I. and L.P. Lefkovitch. 1992. Heritability of colour patterns in a closed population of honey bees. Apidologie 23: 151-159. [abstract] [article]

A complete bibliography of refereed research and miscellaneous bee related articles authored by Dr.Tibor I. Szabo is now available on this site.

photo:  A marked queen bee from selected stock and worker bees exhibiting hygienic behaviour by emptying all 25 cells in a 5×5 24 hour pin-prick hygienic test.