Chapel Hill Bees

Catherine, a 2008 Carolina grad, showed a few of us around her beekeeping operation a few weekends ago. It was a blast, and I learned all about sustainable beekeeping (which is what Chapel Hill Bees is all about). It was nasty, pre-tornado-y weather, so the bees were not happy and wouldn't let us chill with them in their custom designed and built hives, but we did get to check out a hive that Catherine keeps with plexiglass on the side so that the bees can be observed in action without being disturbed. COOL. If someone has ever told you that bees are industrious, hard-workin' little things, they were not lying.

We went inside and checked out some cool beekeeping gear, including a bee suit made especially for warm climates that Diana later refused to take off. To her credit, it did fit like a dream. The weave of the fabric doesn't allow the stinger to attach to the elastic human skin. She also showed us a beautiful smoker that was passed down to her.

About sustainable beekeeping - since Catherine's main objective in keeping bees is not honey production, she is able to use practices that are more sustainable and healthy for the bees. For instance, she doesn't need to give the bees very much sugar syrup to supplement their diets since she is not taking their honey away from them. Also, this is the last year that she wil be getting bees delivered in the spring to start hives. In the future, she will simply be able to split big hives to create two smaller ones. Catherine doesn't harvest beeswax either, so she the bees are able to use their comb for much longer. Catherine also uses plain frames in her hives so the bees can build their own comb, which makes them happier. There are a ton more ways that Chapel Hill Bees is a role model for sustainable beekeeping, but I can't remember them all! She also told us some really neat things about varroa and experimental techniques she is using to keep them off her bees. I'll have to go back sometime to ask more questions.

Also, on a related side note, every time you walk through the Coker Arboretum and you see/hear/smell/touch a bee, it may be(e) one of Catherine's! They can travel far for the goods, and we all know the goods are in the Arb.

NATIVE BEEZ!

Out of the approximately 20,000 bee species worldwide, about 4,000 are native to the United States. Nevertheless, non-native European bees are the most important crop pollinators in the US. Native bees are becoming more important as the number of managed bee hives decreases and the crop acreage increases.
Native bees offer a free pollination service and are very good at their job. About three billion dollars annually of crop production can be attributed to the pollination work of native bees. They are also more effective pollinators than honey bees. For example, 250 blue orchard bees (native) can pollinate an acre of apples. It would take 1-2 honeybee hives, each with 15,000 to 20,000 individuals, to pollinate this same acre of apples. Native bees are also heartier, with a greater tolerance for cold and wet weather than managed hives. Native bees are also efficient crop pollinators because of crop specialization (which I will talk about in greater detail at the end of this post because it is my FAVORITE thing about native bees) and buzz pollination. Bumblebees are particularly good at getting pollen from flower anthers because of buzz pollination, where they vigorously vibrate their flight muscles to shake the pollen out of the flower anthers. Buzz pollination is especially important for some plants, such as blueberries, cranberries, tomatoes, and bell peppers, which all have pollen released from pores in the anthers (like salt from a salt shaker) and require the help of buzz pollination to fertilize.
Now for some basic native bee biology: native bees come in many sizes, from the tiny sweat bees (< ¼ inch) to bumblebees (> 1 inch). The also vary greatly in color – they can be black and yellow, brown, solid black, or even metallic green and blue. Over 70% of native bees excavate and live in underground nests. Most do not sting – in case you needed yet another reason that we should be friends with the natives.
Now for the coolest native bee stunt: plant-specific pollination. Native bees often forage for particular flowers, often squash, berries, and orchids. These plants, when pollinated by native bees, experience increased efficiency in pollination as well as larger and more abundant fruit. Now I know who to thank for my favorite alpine Maine blueberries!
The pollination of the vanilla plant is an interesting case study of native bee pollination, namely because humans are the primary pollinators of vanilla today. Vanilla is a variety of orchid. A healthy vine produces 50-100 beans per year. It takes 5-6 weeks for fruit to develop and 9 moths for the bean to mature – basically, the growing process is intensive and necessitates constant monitoring. There is only one insect capable of pollinating the vanilla blossom – the Melipona, a bee native only to Mexico. Without pollination, the blossom wilts and falls to the ground, which means no vanilla bean grows (duh). So, when the vast majority of vanilla growing moved from Mexico, home of the Melipona, to Madagascar, not home of the Melipona, humans started pollinating each vanilla blossom by hand. This is done with a twig (or, I don’t know, a Q-tip?) to lift the flap so the overhanging anther can tough the stigma to self-pollinate. Obviously, this is a labor-intensive and inefficient process. Growers can only pollinate 5 or 6 flowers form the 20 growing on one stem at one time in order to avoid disease and ensure that the beans mature at the same time. Oh, how life would be easier for the vanilla growers if the Melipona lived in Madagascar!
Check out nativebee.html for more information (this is also the source for this blog post).

Before the Summer

Before the summer begins and we all find that free time we have been looking for all year, I would like to share with you some fun bee-related activities.

A few bee movies:

Bee Movie

The Secret Life of Bees

Watch bee youtube videos:

Imma Bee Video - that is actually sort of serious...

Bee Beard

Bee Bikini

Make a 100% bee wax candle:

DIY Bee Candles

Google image a trip to Florence:

Barberini Family Statue in Florence

OR ROADTRIP

Winnie the Pooh

We can't have a honey bee class and not talk about Pooh Bear! Who loves honey more than Pooh!?

Winnie was actually the name of a real black bear that British World War I troops brought back with them from the town of Winnipeg in Canada. Winnie was put in the London Zoo in 1919 and was the favorite animal of Christopher Robin, the son of A.A. Milne. Christopher Robin then named his stuffed toy bear Winnie the Pooh.

A.A. Milne, an author, was then inspired to write a series of stories about Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh. The names of the other characters, Pooh's friends, were also the names of Christopher Robin's other stuffed animal toys. Winnie-the-Pooh, the first in the series, was published in 1926. Over the decades, as we know, the books have remained very popular and become the favorite stories of many children, including Walt Disney's daughters.

In 1977, Disney released the first feature-length film, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. By 1993, Pooh Bear was only second to Mickey Mouse as Disney's most recognized character, and by 1996, he had become the most popular.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=---7zysc77Y

http://www.just-pooh.com/history.html

Honeycomb (not the cereal)

Some facts about honeycomb:

• made of beeswax
• made of hexagonal cells that slope slightly upwards towards the open ends
• theory on why it's hexagonal: uses the least material to create most amount of volume
• ends of the cells are trihedral (they have 3 planes) sections of a rhombic dodecahedra with the angle between the planes measuring 120 degrees; this angle minimizes surface area for a given volume
• Euclid, the ancient Greek geometrician, also found that the hexagonal shape increased efficiency
• when different sized cells are made (drones have bigger cells than workers), the shape can bee distorted
• bees use the comb to store honey, larvae, pollen...it's their home!
• the first man-made honeycomb was mentioned by Homer and thought to bee made 3000 years ago out of GOLD by Daedalus, a Greek craftsman and artisan
• 2000 years ago, the Chinese started making paper honeycomb decorations
• Galileo studied structures of hollow solids, such as bird bones, honeycombs, and stems in plants, and found that they're very light yet resistant to bending and breaking

“The comb of the hive-bee, as far as we can see, is absolutely perfect in economizing labour and wax.”-Charles Darwin

Should some pesticides be banned to protect bees?

This is a link to a Grist article I thought was intriguing:

http://www.grist.org/industrial-agriculture/2011-04-06-should-pesticides-be-banned-protect-bees-USDA-scientist-pettis

So for everyone not fortunate enough to be in bee class, I have an alternative: Fruitless Fall: The Collapse of the Honey Bee and the Coming Agricultural Crisis by Rowan Jacobsen.

The book is basically a condensed version of the class. Jacobsen does a great job covering bees in every aspect--he discusses biology of the honey bee and the insect's importance in the agricultural world. Fruitless Fall almost has the suspense of a mystery novel, the juiciness of a romance novel, and the facts of a textbook. Jacobsen gives a historical view of colony collapse disorder and comments on the status of the disorder and current bee research.

Jacobsen uses analogies to write in language that anyone can understand (even if you haven't been taught by Jesalyn!!!) without seeming like he's presenting dumbed-down science which is truly the worst. Here's an example which talks about the evolution of flowers to attract pollinators:

"Once you start a giveaway, it's hard to stop. Today, most flowers offer nectar, and nectar is the main draw for most pollinators. It's a good deal for the flowers, because carbohydrates are cheap to manufacture, while protein is expensive. Stuff your diners with unlimited bread rolls, then skimp on the steak.
But with so many different pollinators looking for the same stuff, and so many flowers offering it, problems arose. The whole point had been to mail a package directly from one individual to another of the same species. But if everybody is using the same postal service, and packages are unloaded at random at each stop, then very few packages are being delivered to the right address.
What would you do in such a situation? Well, you'd get a private courier service [...]"

If that doesn't make you want to pee your pants (in a good way), I honestly don't know what will. Reading Fruitless Fall is basically a less-fun version of being in bee class, and though that may sound like an insult to the book, it's not because nothing can compare to bee class. So read the book. You can get it from the UNC biology/chemistry library (once I return it).

Mind your own beeswax!

The things you need to know about beeswax.

Our idea of the purpose of beeswax is very different from that of the bees. Worker bees use beeswax to build honeycomb, which stores honey and is also where larval bees are housed.

Beeswax is composed of fatty acid esters and long-chain alcohols (for all of you orgo nerds out there). And it’s not easy to make – 10 pounds of honey yield a single pound of wax. Worker bees have 8 wax production glands on their sternites (abdominal segments 4-7), which atrophy with age and number of flights. Wax scales are clear, and become white as the bees chew it up to transform it into honeycomb. The wax yellows with the addition of pollen, nectar, and propolis. The color of beeswax can range from nearly white to brownish, depending on the purity of the wax. Wax from brood comb tends to be darker, having accumulated impurities.

Beekeepers cut off the wax caps of honeycomb with a hot wax knife (or some similar instrument) when harvesting honey. The darker wax requires rendering before further use to remove impurities. The leftover wax is, according to Wikipedia (uh oh), called “slumgum.”

Humans’ uses for beeswax are varied and some are quite ancient. When purified, beeswax is used both as a food additive and in cosmetic pharmaceuticals. Wax as a food additive or preserving agent is known as “E901 glazing agent,” and is most familiar as the wax coating around some cheeses. Beeswax is also an ingredient in many skin protectants and hair pomades. Beeswax is also used as an ingredient in surgical bone wax – go figure!

Beeswax is also frequently used to make candles. In fact, beeswax are the liturgical candles of the Roman Catholic Church. Beeswax candles are ideal because they burn cleanly, with little or no dripping and very little smoke. Beeswax also burns much longer than other common candle materials, such as paraffin. And most importantly, beeswax candles smell FANTASTIC.

Beeswax has many other niche uses, including as shoe polish, in Eastern European egg decoration, and early phonograph cylinders. Historically, beeswax was used in writing tablets, was “man’s first plastic,” and was even found in Egyptian mummies!

The uses of beeswax are many, and I will not enumerate each and every one, but I hope you have learned more about this sweet-smelling, multi-purpose gift from the bees! Go out and get yourself some on-the-comb honey and a storm candle in celebration!

Homebrews, History and Honey!

Continuing Michelle Obama's push for local, organic foods the White House added a hive to their garden in 2009 that produced 183 pounds of honey last year! Michelle has been making good use of the liquid gold by giving jars of White House honey as gifts to all sorts of important people and donating a significant amount to Miriam's Kitchen, an organization that serves Washington D.C.'s homeless.

After all that sharing there's still some to go around for the first family. They've been using their honey in a bunch of delicious sounding recipes for cookies, gingerbread, honey cupcakes, and more made by Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosse. Speaking of delicious honey creations everyone should check out this honey cake recipe; I'll let you know how it turns out.

Guess what else they're using the honey for... beer! Next on Obama's agenda is turing the White House into a microbrewery. Well not really, but he has started (and by he I mean the White House chefs) to make his own Honey Ale. He served it at his Super Bowl party and on St. Patrick's day. He's going down in history as the first president to ever brew beer in the White House.

Click here to for a short vid about the Secret Life of White House Bees http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/06/23/secret-life-white-house-bees

Click here for the npr article about Obama's homebrew http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/03/04/134271001/obama-to-serve-more-home-brewed-beer-at-white-house

I also came across this article that I thought was worth sharing. It covers some of the medicinal properties of honey we talked about in class. The video has a neat little segment on baking lemon-blueberry muffins with honey instead of processed sugar. And the recipe is at the bottom of the page! (If you haven't picked up on it yet I really love food)

Additional sources

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/04/01/presidential-buzz-white-house-garden-home-to-a-beehive/

http://www.organicauthority.com/blog/organic/michelle-obamas-bee-hive-is-buzzing-for-spring/

http://obamafoodorama.blogspot.com/2011/03/obamas-make-history-with-homebrewed.html

An Abbreviated History of Honey (and Medicine)

2600 BC -- Egyptian Medical Records list over 900 uses for honey, the majority of them medical.

2000 BC—One of the oldest written documents describing the medicinal uses of honey: a Sumerian written prescription for a honeyed healing agent to treat surgical incisions: includes honey, hot cedar oil, river dust to give the mixture a firmness

1500 – 500 BC – Vedas, Hindu Sacred Books, suggest taking honey to ease the ailments of the body

1600 – The Egyptian Ebers Papyrus: 147 of 700 medical treatment formulas use honey as the prime healing agent

1550 BC – The Egyptian Edwin Smith Papyrus (it was named after the man who bought it) lists 48 separate uses of honey as a healing agent.

1500(ish) BC – Shen Nong’s Herbal Materia Medica, one of the written bases of Chinese traditional medicine, centers honey as one of the main medicinal sources

400 BC – Hippocrates, known as the Father of Modern Medicine, recorded the many therapeutic properties of Honey

4 BC – Democritus, “the laughing philosopher”, 109 years old, credited honey for his health and happiness

5 AD – Marcellus Empiricus, of what is now Modern Day France, records that honey eases the dullness of eyesight and treats white eye spots

23-79 AD – Pliny the Elder, a Roman Pharmacist, writes of Honey cured maladies of throat, mouth, and body.

Same – Dioscorides, in De Materia Medica (Roman Medical Book), mentions the use of Honey for the aid of sunburns, ulcers, cough, lice, tonsil infection, and more.

Same—Roman centenarian Pollio Rumilius tells Julius Caesar that his secret for health is “Exterius Melle, Exterius Olio” – Inside, Honey. Outside, oil.

Bible – Honey is mentioned throughout, including a mention that Jesus was to be fed honey.

Qur’an – Muhammad says that Honey is a remedy for every illness of the body and the Qur’an is a remedy for every illness of the mind, and recommends both remedies for a wholly healthy life

Alexander the Great – embalmed in liquid honey (a method frequently used, since the antibacterial properties of honey cause it to suck out the bacteria that causes the decay of human flesh

[Hiatus of records after the fall of the Roman Empire]

924 – Leech Book of Bald by the English Monk Bald highlights honey as a salve and wound treatment

1446 – With the renaissance came a revival of the interest in medicine, and honey as such (as well as an interest in all things good –dance, art, music, you name it)

1623 – Rev. Charles Butler writes the Feminine Monarchie, a treatise on honey bee ways, mentioning many medicinal uses of honey.

1759 – Dr. John Hill writes, “The Virtues of Honey in Preventing Many of the World’s Worst Disorders”

In the 19^th century, the world entered a craving for modern synthetic medicine, and the treatments of thousands of years fell by the wayside, except for in the beekeeping circles and folktale remedies. Honey became used as a sweetener more than as a medicinal product.

In the late 20^th and early 21^st century, a revival of interest in honey’s medicinal properties occurred.

1991 – New Zealand Biochemist Dr. Peter Molan of the University of Waikato, interested in naturally antibacterial products, hears of rumors of Manuka Honey’s exceptionally good antibacterial properties, and his laboratory research shows unmistakable proof. Manuka Honey, from New Zealand’s native Manuka plant, has been researched extensively ever since.

1995- At the University of Waikato, an entire branch of the Biochemistry department is designated as the “Honey Research Unit”, and set aside to study many different aspects and properties of Honey, and nothing else. Manuka Honey is one of the main focuses, but other honeys are studied as well.

From the mid 1990s to today, Manuka Honey has taken the international spotlight. The Honey Research Unit has grown into a thriving research center, and Manuka honey has gone from a regular table honey--not even a very popular table honey due to its very strong flavor -- to a value-added commodity. People still eat it, of course, and not all Manuka Honey is "active" -- that is, displaying the extraordinary antibacterial properties (among other properties) that have come to be known as the "Unique Manuka Factor" or UMF. A standard measure of activity is being established, but for now, the UMF is labeled in basic levels of activity. Research is being conducted to understand why some Manuka Honey is active and some is not, what affects the activity level, and the extent to which the activity level increases in storage (which it does). Even though it has been nearly two decades since the first published Manuka Honey research, we are still only at the beginning. **

Continuing evidence of this honey’s properties has piqued international interest, and jumpstarted the therapeutic honey industry—not only in New Zealand, but worldwide.

This is a patchy history, and by no means contains all mentions of Honey’s medicinal properties. I think that one could devote their entire lifetime to making that timeline, and still not find everything! Every library I wander into has different books on bees or beekeeping or honey or traditional medicines, and each reveals a different secret—or two – or hundreds – about these incredible properties of what we take to be such a simple substance, sitting in our little plastic bear.

And of course, this account does not even take into consideration the properties of beeswax, royal jelly, bee bread, bee venom, propolis, or bee pollen, all of which have been used for equally as long, through as many different cultures, in thousands of different ways to accomplish as many different goals.

Norse Honeys by Diana and Vanessa

"The word honeymoon has its roots in the Norse word "hjunottsmanathr" which was anything but blissful."

So, basically, the Norse men kidnapped their future Norsepartner in marriage and went into hiding until the Norsepartner's family stopped looking for him/her. Each night for the first month of Norsemarriage, the couple drank honeyed wine, mead. The modern honeymoon is rooted in this Norse folklore, although if you are planning your own, we do not encourage a.) kidnapping your future Moderndaypartner, b.) keeping him/her in hiding until their parents give up looking, because that will probably never happen, or c.) risk getting botulism by drinking 12th century mead every night for a month. 

Mead is the original medicinal wine, and the NORSE INVENTED IT!  The antioxidants of the honey in mead afford it the same benefits as white wine, etc., etc.  Also, did you know mead retains the immune boosting benefits of honey?!

"In Norse mythology for instance the “mead of Suttungr” could convert a layman to a scholar."

In modern day English, that means mead can turn a star of Jackass 3D into this...

 "Mead was the drink of the Norse gods" - their Gatorade, if you will.

SoUrCeS

http://meadhoneywine.blogspot.com/2009/10/honeywine-also-called-mead-is-original.html

http://www.hudsonvalleyweddings.com/guide/honey.htm

History of Honey in Egypt

The history of honey dates back to 3000 BC. At that time Lower Egypt was called Bee Land while Upper Egypt was Reed Land. Honey was first recorded as being used in medicine for basic cuts and scrapes. The Ebers Papyrus of the Ancient Egyptians around 1550 BC uses honey as the primary medicinal agent more than 147 of its healing formulas. The bee is featured frequently in Egyptian hieroglyphs and was favored by the pharaohs, often used as a symbol of royalty. The ancient Egyptians used honey as a sweetener, as a gift to their gods and even as an ingredient in embalming fluid. Honey was used to preserve the pharaohs that were mummified as a symbol of royalty. Honey cakes were baked by the Egyptians and used as an offering to the gods. The oldest know contraceptive was used in Egypt around 1500 BC. The women used a barrier of crocodile dung mixed with honey.

Sources:

http://www.health-benefits-of-honey.com/historyofhoney.html

http://www.natural-honey.org/history_of_honey.htm

http://www.honey-for-health.com/history-of-honey.html

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~ulrich/RHE309/birthcontrlhist/

Honey Culture in China!

Check out this awesome information about how honey fits into Chinese culture!

"The daily habit of many Chinese people is to add a bit of honey to milk, eat it on bread, and also simply stir it into warm water every morning for breakfast."

"Instead, it is used for its nutritionally rich functions, including removing toxins from the blood and dispelling pathogenic heat. In traditional Chinese medicine, it is also used for enhancing yin, or cold energy."

"As written by Pharmacist Li Shizhen from the Ming Dynasty, which lasted from 1368 to 1644 in the text Compendium of Materia Medica, honey can be used to help with many ailments including the removal of pathogenic heat, pain reliever, a way to fight dehydration, and as a power anti-oxidant."

All of the information presented in this blog post is from: http://www.holisticchineseherbs.com/food/honey.html

Mayan Honey

Did you know?

Mayan Priests specifically bred stingless honeybees for religious ceremonies.

Honey was used as a sweetener, antibiotic and an ingredient for the Maya version of mead (Balche), a fermented drink.

• The hallucinogenic properties come from tan alkaloid in the bark of the Balché tree
  
• Toxic and hallucinogenic substances can be found in all honey, if bees collect nectar and pollen from certain types of vegetation.
  
• It is a combination of the two, since balché is made from both the Melipona honey gathered from the Balché flowers, and from the bark of the tree, brewed and fermented together.
• Modification of honey production produced "psychoactive" effects and the consumption was integrated into worship ceremonies. Honey laced with narcotics was common.

"Ah Muzencab" Deity for Bees, Honey, Beekeeping and Creation

The Mayan word for honey is the same Mayan word for "world"

The name of the native honey bee is called "Xunan-Kab"




Works Cited:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/06/0628_050628_maya_bees.html

Bee-lletpoints about Honey in Ancient Greece

* Ambrosia and nectar, the food and drink of the Greek gods, were made of honey. Zeus "was raised on honey."

* The Iliad refers to honey as the food of kings.

* Legend has it that every day, doves would bring ambrosia to Zeus to give out amongst the other gods.

* Attic honey - honey from the region of Attica (not your attic), which includes Greek capital Athens - was especially known for its nutritional and medicinal value.

* Hippocrates ("the father of medicine") wrote, "Honey and pollen cause warmth, clean sores and ulcers, soften hard ulcers of lips, heal carbuncles and running sores."

* Other ancient physicians used honey to treat diarrhea, constipation, and coughs.

* Sometimes, ancient Greeks applied honey topically to prevent bodies from decaying.

* It also according to legend made humans immortal.

* Sugar was unknown to Greeks so honey was used as their natural sweetener.

* Oxymel, a moixture of water, honey, and vinegar, was a common medicinal drink in ancient Greece, used to treat what we now call the common cold.

* Fermented honey was believed to have preceded wine as a common entheogen -- that is, a psychoactive substance used in a religious, spiritual or otherwise ritualized context.

(honey-health.com; greekmedicine.net; livestrong.com; greekproducts.com; mythencyclopedia.com; heml.mta.ca; en.wikipedia.org)

Bees in the News (plus BONUS industrialization rant)

One of my favorite Internet habits is to check the visual journalism blog of the New York Times, called Lens.  Their February 10th "Pictures of the Day" post featured the following image of a St. Haralampie celebration in Bulgaria, complete with mentions of honey, jars and beekeepers!

Screen shot of the blog post.

Aside from this being a beautiful, honey-toned photograph, the image is remarkable in that it captures a ritual that seems exotic and foreign to many onlookers in the United States.  That insects and their sticky product can be cause for religious celebration inspires curiosity in us and yields a perception of awe that is not necessarily rooted in empathetic understanding.  I believe that, especially after today's lecture on commercial honey and the industrialization of honey/pollination, it is important to note that our efficiency-driven, capitalist market view of the precious process that is honey production strips the bee of its dignity.  Instead we should revere the honey bee and (while we're at it) sanctify the craft of apiarists, as the Orthodox Christians in Bulgaria do with their patron saint of beekeepers.

As it stands now, bees are herded en mass like cattle to the almond orchards of California in an act that defies their natural instinct for flight and flower diversification.  They are a mechanism of production in a market with high demand, whose consumers perhaps do not understand the origin increasing costs.  I used to naively think that almonds were expensive because they were rare, when in fact, there are miles and miles of almond-producing trees whose price arises from the necessary inputs of the mono-culture crop.  

One of my classmates illustrated this point excellently using the allegory of industrial crop fertilizer being like mass pollinator bee rental.  When you have farmland with plants that are nearly genetically identical (i.e. only almond trees, no other plants), the ecosystem must work harder to maintain highly fertile production (since diversity = awesome), so you need (artificial, usually) fertilizer.  Likewise, if we have orchards of purely almond trees, there is no way bees can naturally fertilize them (they would get bored, weaken from lack of nectar/pollen diversity, etc.), so half the U.S. population of bees must be shipped in to sustain the current system.  As with the artificial fertilizer problem, however, this is not working.  Bees are dying, and the population must be sustainably brought up in the West instead of humans relying on shipping them across the country.

While it seems that capitalists and economists hate bees, the silver lining for me has been that I recently found out The Royal Economic Society of the United Kingdom has a BEE in their logo!  Check it out:

I couldn't find information about the exact meaning or purpose behind the logo itself, but I found that their July 2008 newsletter featured an interview with an Adam Smith expert that mentions bee imagery in a statue of Mr. Smith.  Here is the relevant excerpt (skip to brown):

JS: : Taking this last point, can we examine the statue in greater detail? I notice that you have embodied a number of artifacts or tools on sections of the statue which have individual significance as far as the work of Smith is concerned; eg the plough, the bee hive, the globe, Smith’s academic gown, the bales of corn and of course Smith’s covered hand over the globe — the ‘invisible hand’ of the market.

AS: Yes. If we take the hive first. The hive concept, which is borrowed freely from Bernard Mandeville’s ‘The Fable of the Bees’, is symbolic of numerous elements of Adam Smith
— a monumental figure On the 4th of July on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh the long-awaited statue to Adam Smith was unveiled. Below is an account of an interview that John Struthers of the University of the West of Scotland held with the Sculptor Professor Alexander Stoddart. Professor Stoddart is widely regarded as Scotland's most renowned monumental sculptor and is based at the Paisley campus of the university where he is also an Honorary Professor of Arts and Media. The statue was unveiled by Nobel Laureate Professor Vernon L Smith.14
Smith’s contributions; eg The famous pin factory and the concept of the division of labour — just like a bee hive full of hard work and productivity. The ‘workers’ are akin to the bees in the hive — industrious, proud, and working collectively — a venerable ‘maelstrom of economic activity’. This is where we get the term ‘hive of industry’ from. Around the hive are several banding tapes. These represent, respect for property, and respect for persons. In fact they represent the Rule of Law or respect for property rights which is now recognised as an essential part of Smith’s economic philosophy. Not a stifling or stultifying bureaucracy, but an enabling and benevolent authority or government — minimum government in fact.

Well, that's all I've been thinking of for now, folks.  Thanks for reading!

Diana

Information Sources:

Picture Post: Praise bee - a mass for St. Haralambos by Rob Sharp for The Independent

Happy St. Haralampi Day by Turlough for Propolis 

Royal Economic Society Newsletter Issue 142 (pdf)

Stand Aside, California Wine

Where does Cali get all its cash? Wine, right? Nope, it turns out that California's #1 horiticultural export is almonds! That's right, in this great piece in the Guardian, Allison Benjamin writes that in 2007 almonds earned the state of California, "more than $1.9bn, double the revenue from its Napa Valley vineyards." Ok, clearly almonds are a defining feature of California's landscape and economy.

And almonds needs bees. Bees come from far and wide to help California pollinate their colossal almond crop. But with colony collapse and the rest of the erratic weather shaking planet earth, bees are harder and harder to come by. Apparently this year is crazy than ever - the bee deficit is driving almond prices up. The Daily Green reported last week that the price of renting a colony for Cali is through the rough. "Three weeks ago if you asked $150 rent for colony you'd be laughed right out of the almond orchard. Today, $200 isn't an uncommon offer, and the line goes out to the parking lot for growers wanting to pay that amount."

How much does colony rental factor into almond prices? Check this out. The biggest almond producer in the world, Paramount Farming, was featured in the Economist. The president of the company reported that renting bees now makes up 15% of the total cost of the company's costs. If bees continue to disappear, we'll soon be paying something short of the price of gold for all our favorite fruit and nut crops.

Special Valentine Post: Bee Pickup Lines!

Gimme a buzz and I'll bee yours.


Bee mine.
Bee my love.
Bee my drone.
Bee my honey.
Bee my queen.




Pollinate me.


Honey, I'm stuck on you (CUZ I'M COVERED IN HONEY).


You're bee-utiful.


My heart beeats for you.


You're sweeter than honey (not true, nothing is).


Honey, you're the bee's knees!


Honey, your thorax is huge!


This might sting...


Every day with you is like a honeymoon.

Wanna do the waggle dance?


If you were a bee, I'd keep you!


You're so hot, you make my colony collapse!


I don't think you're ready for my royal jelly.


How 'bout we get together and cross pollinate?

Bees in Popular Culture & Media Presentation

Check it out HERE.

My presentation documents three main trends in popular media representation of bees:

- wordplay (bee v. the letter B v. the verb form "be" v. the occasion bee [e.g. spelling bee])

- bee, honey, pollination, etc. in analogies for romance or sex

- anthropomorphic representations of bees and bee life (and the inaccuracies or misunderstandings that result)

"They flyin' out of the box...he ain't got the queen yet"

Here’s a little gem I found on youtube about a Louisiana woman who found a swarm of bees (or as she says, “this brown stuff all over my driver’s side window”) on her car and called 911.

While this might seem like a pretty dangerous situation, as Jesalyn told us in class and like Danny talked about in his presentation, bees aren’t likely to sting when they’re swarming beecause they don’t have a hive to protect and defend. Like you can see in Diana’s post below, it’s possible to touch bees when they’re swarming, like the guy who just grabs the handful on the tree, but most people are afraid of them anyway. Who ever thought a trip to Marshalls could end so badly?!

Another reason that a bee might be reluctant to sting you for no reason is beecause it will kill her. A honey bee has a barbed stinger which will stay in the skin if you are stung and when she flies away, she’ll tear her abdomen. Here’s a video of that happening:

One crazy thing about bees is that, as we discussed in class on Thursday, the bees in a hive essentially act as one organism instead of fifty-thousand or so different creatures. Bees are eusocial and act out of the interests of the entire hive instead of individual interests. One reason for this collaboration is the queen bee and the pheromones she emits—like Joey talked about in his presentation, bees put out certain scents which help them communicate to accomplish all of their honey-making tasks and also to help defend their precious hive. For example, bees emit an alarm pheromone (which Jesalyn says smells like bananas) which will alert other bees if one is endangered and they will come to her aid. So basically, if a bee needs to, she will sting and die for her hive without hesitation. Pretty wild.

Here’s a third video about the waggle dance that maybe isn’t the most engaging but is still crazy. It’s about using vector calculus to communicate. Though that may not be entirely accurate, bees would probably do better in calculus than I did!