Bees Not Beads

A beginner's account of beekeeping in Minneapolis and the start of a new business, Backyard Beez.

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Ranking the Pain of Stinging Insects, From ‘Caustic’ to ‘Blinding'

One passionate entomologist poetically describes and ranks over 70 species' painful stings.

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A Hardier Honeybee That Fights Back By Biting Back

The parasitic varroa mite has been wiping out honeybee colonies globally since the late '80s. Now scientists and beekeepers have teamed up to selectively breed bees with a unique, mite-fighting trait.

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This is what robbing looks like in the fall. It looks like I will lose this give as well. :(

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Downtown Mpls. Hotel Harvests Its Own Rooftop Honey

When you think of bees, do you think of downtown Minneapolis? The chefs at the Marquette Hotel do. They started keeping bees on the roof three years ago. Thursday was the day to harvest some of this year's honey, and check on the bees before winter.

They got a few things wrong (10 mile flying radius???), but otherwise i like it! i wish more buildings were doing this.

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The first 21 days of a bee’s life

We’ve heard that bees are disappearing. But what is making bee colonies so vulnerable? Photographer Anand Varma raised bees in his backyard — in front of a camera — to get an up close view. This project, for National Geographic, gives a lyrical glimpse into a beehive, and reveals one of the biggest threats to its health, a mite that preys on baby bees in their first 21 days of life. With footage set to music from Rob Moose and the Magik*Magik Orchestra, Varma shows the problem ... and what’s being done to solve it. (This talk was part of a session at TED2015 guest-curated by Pop-Up Magazine: popupmagazine.com or @popupmag on Twitter.)

The discussion of mites in this TED Talk is my biggest concern every Fall (and each spring if I am lucky enough to have bees survive the winter). Varroa will actually destroy my and many other’s hives in the North. While pesticides certainly don’t help, high mite loads weaken and crush a hive, not giving it a sure chance. 

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Thief steals bees, $900 worth of honey from Minnesota beekeeper

Some area beekeepers are taking security precautions after a number of beehive boxes and about $900 worth of unprocessed honey were stolen near the west-central Minnesota town of New London.

smh

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A couple of ribbons in the books! This is my fourth year entering and my fourth year winning in the Minnesota State fair’s Bee & Honey division! :)

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A fight to the death.

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Hornets and Yellow Jackets Are Vicious This Time of Year

I used to think of hornets and yellow jackets as the jerks of the animal kingdom. These stinging, flying wasps ruin countless picnics with their aggressive appetite for candy, fruit, and soda. They sting thousands of Americans every year, killing up to 100 people through anaphylactic shock. And one of...

Hornets and wasps are the worst, but should we really begrudge them? (I still think so!)

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When I get stung by a bee, a lot of people ask if it hurts. Most of the time it does not. This one that happened on my right arm was throbbing for much of the morning, but has since calmed down. These pics show what a normal arm (of mine) looks like and a stung arm after 24 hours looks like.

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A worker bee and a drone.

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How Bees Teach Us the Most Scientifically Efficient Way to Pack Things

Excerpted from Single Digits: In Praise of Small Numbers by Marc Chamberland. Out now from Princeton University Press. What do grocers and honeybees have in common? The obvious answer is that they are both adept at providing food for others. But there is a richer, more technical answer to this...

bees are the best.

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We all deal with the heat is different ways.

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A sight for sore eyes.

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Bearding in the first 90F day of the season.