Blue Sky Bee Supply Blog

A team of scientists from RMIT University, Monash University and the University of Toulouse III has trained honeybees (Apis mellifera) to match a character to a specific quantity, revealing the insects are able to learn that a symbol represents a numerical amount.Studies have shown that a number of non-human animals have been able to learn that symbols can represent numbers, including pigeons, parrots, chimpanzees and monkeys.Some of their feats have been impressive — chimpanzees were taught Ara …

With the Varroa destructor mite a pernicious pest of managed honey bee colonies across North America, beekeepers have a variety of control methods to choose from to reduce the mites’ impact on their hives. Which ones do they most prefer?To answer that question, researchers at the University of Maryland and the Bee Informed Partnership analyzed four years of data from surveys that asked beekeepers about their Varroa-management methods. Their findings, reported in a new study published in April in …

A bee gathering pollen and nectar from a helianthus flower.TUCSON, ARIZONA, March 20, 2019—Honey bee colonies foraging on land with a strong cover of clover species and alfalfa do more than three times as well than if they are put next to crop fields of sunflowers or canola, according to a study just published in Scientific Reports by an Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist and his colleagues.Managed honey bee colonies placed from May until October next to land in the U.S. Department of …

A University of Guelph study is the first to uncover the impact of neonicotinoid pesticides on honey bees’ ability to groom and rid themselves of deadly mites.The research comes as Health Canada places new limits on the use of three key neonicotinoids while it decides whether to impose a full phase-out of the chemicals.Published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, the study revealed that when honey bees are infected with varroa mites and then regularly exposed to low doses of a commonly us …

Honey bees aren’t the only pollinators of apple flowers: bumble bees, sweat bees, mason bees and many other species do, too—and the more the better, according to findings of a study recently published in the journal Science.A Cornell University-led team that included Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists found that apple orchards with diverse bee species yield more, high-quality fruit than orchards with fewer, closely related bee species. However, that production benefit hinged on what …