American Bee Journal

When we think of bees, we usually think of social creatures. We often see drawings of bees circling a bulbous nest dangling from a tree. The bees look down at us and scowl or smile, depending on the artist’s worldview. In truth, bees have an enormous range of social behaviors. The eusocial (meaning truly social) species like honey bees cap…

How good are honey bees at pollinating compared to other pollinators?  When I speak with most people about pollination, they talk about honey bees as the prime example of a highly effective pollinator. But this contrasts with the opinion of many scientists. Many of the scientists I speak with consider honey bees to be OK at pollinating, but not nearly…

How many beekeeping books can you recall listing the ways honey bees replace their queen bees? Here is the list: swarming, supersedure, and emergency queen loss. This list needs to be updated now, because for probably about 10-15 years, maybe longer, the bees have had a fourth way to replace a queen (here in the mid-Atlantic). The additional way is…

Using bees to deliver targeted biological control agents to flowers could be the next big thing for precision agriculture Humans have been designing pollination robots since at least the 1990s, but try as we might, so far nature has produced the best pollinators we have. Bees have delicate dexterity, wonderfully small, fuzzy bodies that tickle the anthers just right, and…

Wintering success in beekeeping is dependent upon a multitude of factors. Good overwintering colonies start with good queens, a healthy, relatively mite-free worker population, and adequate honey stores which bees need during the coldest weather and to begin rearing brood after the winter solstice. Bees that age evenly over the winter, and disease-free early spring brood, are additionally important to…

The Spotted Lanternfly In North America, we are losing the war against invasive species. Inexplicably, we believed we could engage in a global economy, reaping all the best the world has to offer, and not succumb to the hitchhikers. But countless organisms, including unwelcome plants and animals, embraced the opportunity to expand their territory. Hardly a day goes by when…

As I write this, it’s the beginning of fall in New York. Goldenrods and asters are filling the fields with brilliantly colorful flowers, honey bees and bumble bees are at their peak abundance, and the temperature is just right to get outside and enjoy it all. It’s the most beautiful time of year in my opinion. At the same time,…

When studying honey bees, occasionally something happens that leads to new observations. Once I was mating queens in my observation hives. These colonies were in my bee house, a building holding 30 observation hives (see Figure 1). After the queens mated, I was planning to use these colonies in experiments on queen introduction later in the summer. The advantage of…