Honey Bees Trained to Find Landmines in Croatia

Researchers in Croatia are training honeybees to sniff out land mines that remain in the country. Some 466 square miles possibly still contain mines planted during the Balkan wars in the 1990s. Honeybee expert Nikola Kezic of Zagreb University mixes TNT with a sugar solution so the bees learn to detect the explosives. So far, the bees seem to prefer the TNT-laced food, he said. 

How do-gooders threaten humble bee - Nature - Environment - The Independent

How do-gooders threaten humble bee - Nature - Environment - The Independent:

The Plight of the Honey Bee, from National Geographic

"Bees are back in the news this spring, if not back in fields pollinating this summer's crops. The European Union (EU) has announced that it will ban, for two years, the use of neonicotinoids, the much-maligned pesticide group often fingered in honeybee declines. The U.S. hasn't followed suit, though this year a group of beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups sued the EPA for not doing enough to protect bees from the pesticide onslaught." (Full Article Here)

Queen bumble bees on the move with warming spring temperatures

Make way for the queen!  Cold spring temperatures don’t deter BUMBLE BEE QUEENS from visiting flowers and beginning work on this year’s nests. These cold-resistant bees can forage for pollen and nectar when temperatures are still in the 40’s, thanks to their ability to regulate their own heat by vibrating their wing muscles. This familiar “buzz” is also what makes bumble bees such good pollinators of blueberries, cranberries, tomatoes and other flowers that require buzz pollination to release pollen from the anther. Watch this amazing video of a queen bumble bee (embedded below) and her ability to generate heat, captured with a thermal camera.

The fertilized queen is the only bumble bee to survive the winter. On sunny spring days, she seeks out an abandoned mouse hole or other cavity to begin this year’s nest, then forages for pollen and nectar to make “bee bread” to feed her first generation of daughters. Once these workers emerge as adults, they take over the foraging duties, leaving the queen to stay in the nest to lay more eggs. Later in the season, drones and virgin queens emerge and mate, with those fertilized queens surviving the winter to begin the cycle again next spring.

Of Ohio’s dozen species of bumble bees, the common eastern bumble bee (Bombus impatiens) is the most widely observed species in the garden. Several other species that used to be commonly seen are now threatened, with some (such as the RUSTY PATCHEDBUMBLE BEE) experiencing dramatic population declines. Carpenter bees are similar in size to some queen bumble bees, but have a distinctively shiny abdomen, while bumble bee abdomens are fuzzy. 

Learn more about bumble bee identification, garden plants to attract bees, and bumble bee citizen monitoring programs at: http://www.xerces.org/bumblebees/

OSU Provides Farmers with Tips to Help Protect Bees during Spring Corn Planting — Agronomic Crops Network

Protecting Bees during Spring Planting — Agronomic Crops Network:

BBC News - Neonicotinoid pesticides 'damage brains of bees'

Combination of neonicotinoids and a pesticide commonly used by beekeepers to fight mites may damage bee brains

Are Agriculture's Most Popular Insecticides Killing Our Bees? : The Salt : NPR

"Environmentalists and beekeepers are calling on the government to ban some of the country's most widely used insect-killing chemicals.

The pesticides, called neonicotinoids, became popular among farmers during the 1990s. They're used to coat the seeds of many agricultural crops, including the biggest crop of all: corn. Neonics, as they're called, protect those crops from insect pests.

But they may also be killing bees."

Are Agriculture's Most Popular Insecticides Killing Our Bees? : The Salt : NPR