Central Beekeepers Alliance

Bees trained to give early warning of plant disease

Remember, back in school, hearing about Pavlov’s dog that learned to drool when it heard a bell ring? That method of “classical conditioning” is how Dr. Andrew Sutherland, a researcher with the University of California Davis Plant Pathology Department, is training honey bees to detect plant disease in agricultural crops. Here’s the story, straight from [...]

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Are Honey Bees Hooked on Caffeine and Nicotine?

Have you noticed your honeybees buzzing around the coffee grounds in your compost pile on a warm day in early spring? it turns out, there may be a reason for this common behaviour — the bees might be seeking a hit of caffeine! Researchers at the University of Haifa-Oranim have learned that bees are attracted [...]

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The Secret of Hive Temperature Control: Heater Bees

Bee researchers have learned special "heater bees" act like a "living radiator" to carefully control the brood temperatures to determine what role the mature bees will fill in the colony -- and those empty cells aren't a problem but a necessary part of how the heater bees function.

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Animated Life of Bees

School kids are given a quick introduction to the life cycle of the honey bee in this charming animated video from Australia.

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New Honey Bee Documentaries

A program by David Suzuki recently aired on CBC January 7th entitled To Bee or Not to Bee. The documentary explores various possibilities for the declining honeybee population in several countries such as industrial beekeeping, poor nutrition from monoculture pollinations, and diseases.

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