Return of Long-Lost Bees Creating a Lot of Presidio Buzz

The sudden appearance of buzzing insects around Brian Hildebidle’s feet as he surveyed a dune restoration project in the Presidio last week startled him and prompted alarming visions of volunteer workers fleeing from angry yellow jackets.

The stewardship coordinator for the Presidio Trust was about to run when he noticed the insects were a grayish color and swirling in a strange pattern close to the ground.

“I was really curious because I had never seen that flying pattern,” said Hildebidle, who leads volunteers on weekly weed-pulling and planting expeditions and is quite familiar with the park’s bug denizens.

The insects, which he said numbered in the hundreds, turned out to be silver digger bees, a rare sand-loving species that had not been seen in San Francisco in significant numbers for the better part of a century.

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Commercial Honeybees Threaten to Displace Utah’s Native Bees

Although a beehive adorns Utah’s state seal, honeybees are not native to the “Beehive State.” They arrived in Utah with Mormon settlers, who held the honeybee in high regard for what they considered its industrious nature and collective spirit, virtues they saw embodied in their own community. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader Brigham Young initially named the region “Deseret,” the Book of Mormon’s word for honeybee.

Less celebrated is the state’s notable native bee diversity. In Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument alone, more than 650 native bee species have been identified. By comparison, just 750 documented native bee species exist in total east of the Mississippi River. 

Now, a push to store commercial honeybees in Utah’s Manti-La Sal National Forest could threaten its native bee diversity. Located about 100 miles north of Grand Staircase, the national forest is home to hundreds of native bee species, including the declining western bumblebee. Scientists worry that a large influx of honeybees could bring resource competition, disease and ecosystem impacts.

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Vaccine for Honeybees Could Be a Tool to Fight Population Decline

At a time when some beekeepers are struggling to keep their colonies alive and pollinating, the prospect of a vaccine for honeybees has offered a flicker of hope.

The scientists behind the project say the vaccine is designed to protect honeybees from microbial diseases that can decimate bee populations. If the technology can be adapted to fight a multitude of infections, experts hope it can provide one solution for the array of problems facing bees, which pollinate about one-third of food in the United States.

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An Inside Look at How the Varroa Mite's True Diet was Discovered

Varroa destructor, a mite that feeds on honey bees, is the greatest single driver of the global honey bee health decline. For years, scientists and bee keepers were told that the Varroa mite feeds on hemolymph (the bee’s blood) based on scientific research done long ago. However, for our research team led by Samuel Ramsey, Ph.D., this did not make sense, as the mite’s digestive system and mouthparts just did not seem like they were structured properly for blood feeding. Their closest evolutionary relatives were not blood feeders either. As pointed out by insect-rearing expert Allen Cohen, Ph.D., even their excrement was all wrong for them to be blood feeders.

So, how and on what exactly do these mites feed? Our discovery is documented in a paper published in late January in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Scientists Say Bees Can Do Basic Math

Does math give you trouble? Here's some encouragement: Despite their miniature brains, a new study says honeybees can learn basic arithmetic. If they can do it, so can you!

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California’s Alomond Harvest has Created a Golden Opportunity for Bee Thieves

The economics of stealing beehives is a lot like the economics of stealing any high-value item, such as jewelry or electronics, with the main difference being accessibility. During the almond harvest, hives in California’s orchards rarely are protected by alarms or even fences, and equipping individual boxes with GPS trackers is prohibitively expensive for most. To ensure the best pollination results, beekeepers usually place their boxes just off remote roads, hidden by trees, miles from so much as a streetlight. It’s perfectly common for thousands of dollars’ worth of bees to sit largely unattended for weeks at a time.

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Invasion of the ‘Frankenbees’: The Danger of Building a Better Bee

Beekeepers are sounding the alarm about the latest developments in genetically modified pollinators

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Fungus Provides Powerful Medicine in Fighting Honey Bee Viruses

A mushroom extract fed to honey bees greatly reduces virus levels, according to a new paper from Washington State University scientists, the USDA and colleagues at Fungi Perfecti, a business based in Olympia, Washington.

In field trials, colonies fed mycelium extract from amadou and reishi fungi showed a 79-fold reduction in deformed wing virus and a 45,000-fold reduction in Lake Sinai virus compared to control colonies. Though it’s in the early stages of development, the researchers see great potential in this research.

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Times Square Street Shut Down After Bees Swarm Hot Dog Stand

New York Post
By Sydney Denmark and Natalie Musumeci

Even New York City bees can’t resist the Big Apple’s dirty water dogs. A swarm of thousands of bees made their home atop the umbrella of a Sabrett hot dog stand in the heart of Times Square, prompting a police response and the closure of a city street Tuesday afternoon.

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Paris Bees at Work From Notre-Dame to the Luxembourg Gardens

The New York Times
Alissa J. Rubin

Paris has seen a marked rise in urban beekeeping, with more than 1,000 hives atop landmark buildings as well as in community gardens across the city.

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