We are in October but the hard cold hasn't hit yet and on sunny days like this one was, the bees are frantically busy, lining up for a feed, like Grand Central Station at the ticket counter.
Local honeybees collecting pollen and nectar from chamise. Unusual, as this is the second blossoming of the chaparral this year. Sage also. Typically they bloom only once, in spring. #bees#nature#honeybees
Article on the importance of bees -'America's bee problem is an us problem' (here's a short blurb from it - the link for the full article is below -- and it is a GREAT read):
"They are the phantom backbone of our agricultural system: The bees pollinate the crops; the beekeepers shuttle them from field to field, coast to coast.
They directly contribute to a third of America’s food: apples, peaches, lettuce, squashes, melons, broccoli, cranberries, tree nuts, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, plums, clementines, tangerines, sunflowers, pumpkins, alfalfa for your beef, and guar for your processed foods. Ninety-eight percent of organic vitamin C sources, 70 percent of vitamin A, and 74 percent of lipids; $17 billion worth of crops annually from honeybee pollination alone. The demand for their services has tripled in the past 50 years and shows no signs of abating."
As deadly, unrelenting heat scorches Arizona, some entomologists are growing concerned about the increasing number of dead honeybees – a species vital to our #ecosystem, especially #FoodProduction.
By Jared Formanek, CNN
Published Aug 3, 2023 4:09 PM EDT
"'It’s a very major concern,' Shaku Nair, an entomologist with the University of Arizona, told CNN, 'Honeybees can forage up to 113 degrees. As of July, we’ve had many days over 113 degrees, so bees are taking a bad hit right now.'"
"Across much of the country, the #food system also struggled. In #Texas, farmers reported smaller yields as their #corn and #cotton crops struggled to survive soaring summer temperatures. In #Arizona, beekeepers spotted dead #honeybees outside hives. Even underwater, off the coast of #LongIsland, #kelp farmers recorded another year of shrinking yields."
#water is a source of essential #nutrients for #bees and this explains their preference for ‘dirty’ water sources containing organic matter, algae etc.
Indeed #honeybees have the ability to and will change their preferred source of #water to an alternative in order to…
3/11
…compensate for nutrient deficiencies in their diet at various times of the year.
#honeybees prefer sodium-rich water for most of the year but in autumn as pollen supplies lessen they prefer water which contains magnesium, calcium & potassium - micronutrients found in…
4/11
Victoria Fuller (American, b. 1953)
Spelling Bee, 2014
craft fur, epoxy clay, acrylic, resin, mylar, chloroplast
from the Project: Nature exhbition at the Susquehanna Art Museum
New comb on the front frame: on the left is honey and pollen, the middle is mostly worker brood with a few larger drone cells, and the newest comb on the right is all larger drone comb which the queen started laying in today 🐝🐝🐝✨#BeeKeeping#HoneyBees