We are grandparents again. This time I named our newest alpaca baby after my grandmother. You see, I had a visit from my two uncles from the Netherlands this week. They are 90 and 94 years young. While we were reminiscing about their youth they mentioned that their mother's name (my grandmother) was Nellie.
Bingo. I had a name for my next baby alpaca. I will name her after my grandmother. She died before I ever got to know her. My parents immigrated to the United States and I only saw my grandmother once when I was three.
Now I get to see her,my namesake, every day :) Here are some photos of the rest of the gang.
Before I started studying bees I had no idea what a hive beetle was. I didn't care. Now I am greatly concerned because I plan to start my own hives in the spring and I definitely don't want those nasty creatures in my hives. I've seen up close what they do to the bees. Look at this video I took with the microscope of a hive beetle larvae eating a bee from the inside out...
"The small hive beetle is an exotic pest that originates from South Africa and was found in Florida in 1998. It has now spread throughout the eastern and mid-western United States, causing considerable damage to honey bee colonies." Most of the damage is done by the beetles' larvae, which feed on honey and pollen. Larval excrement also causes honey to ferment, making it inedible to bees. In highly infested colonies where larval feeding is extensive, bees tend to leave, causing the hive populations to collapse.
Scientists have designed a trap to beat the beetle: a box that sits at the bottom of the hive covered with a mesh that is large enough to allow beetles through, but prevents bees from entering. The trap contains pollen and honey sprinkled with yeast that causes it to ferment, releasing smells that attract the beetles, which then get stuck inside.
Poor bees with all the things out there that could potentially destroy these amazing creatures like cell phones, cars, people, lack of flowers and pollen, urbanization, colony collapse disorder, and now these pesky little creatures. They're becoming a huge problem here in SC and in my Bee Lab. Maybe some young budding scientist will discover a cure for the hive beetle.
This month we had our first insect lab on bees. In the past we have studied antlions, praying mantids, mealworms, and other delightful creatures but bees have always fascinated me and I wanted to have a lab on bees for years. This year I decided to take the plunge and dive into the world of bees.
What a journey! Bees are truly amazing. I ordered an observation hiveand got some very busy bees from Rick Humphries.
Rick has a lot of hives and has been doing this for some time. Watch Rick open the hive.
Rick offered to put some of his frames in my observation hive for the children to see, and hear...This all sounds pretty easy right? Enter Rick's dog... The bee suit eater dog... The dog that ate the bee suit the night before I had to teach the last three labs with 30 students... I arrived at Rick's house the morning of the lab only to find an empty observation hive and no bees to show my students. All I had was a child's bee suit that barely fit over me, never mind Rick's 6 foot frame. How could I go over to all those hives and pull three frames away from an angry bee hive? Well fortunately, Rick pulled on the ripped-up bee suit and went down there anyway to get the bees. Such bravery! Neither one of us got stung, although earlier in the week Rick got stung twice in the back. He didn't seem to mind much as that is all part of the process of bee keeping. Once in a while you are going to get stung.
from the Netherlands this week. They are 90 and 94 years young. While we were reminiscing about their youth they mentioned that their mother's name (my grandmother) was Nellie.
She died before I ever got to know her. My parents immigrated to the United States and I only saw my grandmother once when I was three.
Here are some photos of the rest of the gang.
