BeeLiving Apiaries

07/12/2021

BUSY LOCAL BEES! 🐝

While hiking on Flowerpot Island in Georgian Bay, Ontario, we heard a familiar and lovely buzzing sound: bumble bees!

They were happy working in a small garden created by the custodians of the local museum.

🥰🐝

05/28/2021

Many honeybees died over the winter and we're not talking about beginners anymore. We're talking about experienced beekeepers who lost thousands of hives...

We suspect it's pesticides... Who knows... Maybe we find one day and do something about it...

Otherwise we lose more than bees and honeybees...

We lose our future...

The Royal Geographical Society of London declared that bees are the most important living being on the planet.

04/22/2021

The queen bee is marked with the color of the year, as you can see below. Her Majesty may have been a trend setter...

04/19/2021

Researchers found that the wooden Langstroth hives are adding thermoregulation stress to the bees.

Perhaps it is time to change the design for something better instead of clinging to use the cheap stuff just because it works.

https://entomologytoday.org/2021/04/16/honey-bee-hive-boxes-drafty-inefficient-temperature/

Temperature swings tied to the design of the classic wooden hive box make extra work for honey bees in keeping a hive temperature steady.

04/18/2021

⚠️WE'VE ENCOURAGED OUR STUDENTS TO DECIDE WHATEVER THEY FEEL IS RIGHT FOR THEM AND THE ENVIRONMENT ON THEIR LAND🎋

📣This article clear says what we've seen over the years: WE NEED BALANCE. We can't have more honeybees unless we make sure there is enough food for all the bees we have.
Beekeepers should be aware of the implications on the environment too. On the farm I had I used to leave a special area for wild flowers to grow.

🐝Also, there shouldn't be more than 25 hives in a location and have in mind that honeybees, unlike other bees, travel far on an approximately 3 km radius area.

Some people were not satisfied when I created my first webinar insisting on the beekeeper, but I continue to believe that the issues and the solutions are within the human and that's where we should start with.

"Prof Dave Goulson, a bumblebee specialist at the University of Sussex, tweeted: “Just adding more honeybees is not the answer to declining pollinator numbers! … Come on , do your homework.”

A French study published in 2019 found that the spread of the European honeybee around the world threatens local biodiversity because they outcompete wild pollinators such as hoverflies, bumblebees and red mason bees.

“It’s not natural at all – it’s farming,” said Steven Falk, an ecologist and pollinator adviser. He said the announcement was worrying and the high street chain had got it “horribly wrong”.

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“I would like to see it held to account for the needs of wild pollinators, which means more habitat and fewer hives,” he said. “There’s growing evidence if you saturate the landscape with honeybees, it has a profound impact and puts pressure on the wild pollinators.”"

High street chain’s farm project could put pressure on wild pollinators, warn conservationists

04/08/2021

🌿WE ARE A CONSCIOUS BUSINESS CREATED BY PEOPLE WHO ARE WORKING ON THEMSELVES TO BE EVEN MORE AND MORE CONSCIOUS. WHY IS THAT?🐝

✴"Conscious business enterprises and people are those that choose to follow a business strategy, in which they seek to benefit both human beings and the environment." (Fred Kofman)

✴If we take the sacredness of what we are (human beings), of what we have in the environment (Nature, the air we breathe, the sky, the soil and all the creatures in it, on it, etc.) and of what we and the creatures produce (like the honey made by honeybees) plus the role we all have in this world and life... WHAT IS LEFT?

✴If we forget about the future and only think of PROFIT or UNILATERALLY thinking of a species (the humans) or another without looking at the overall impact of each and how to balance it all, WHAT ARE WE LEFT WITH?

As individuals, in our family and businesses, we are raising our own awareness and we are contributing to educate humanity towards more conscious choices, investments, life, work and business decisions to the benefit of all.

The advances in technology in some areas pose a lot of questions. How far do we use it, how far do we go and how?

Balance is needed always.

🌍We, the humans, are the stewards of the planet we are living on and feeding off. It is up to us if and how the next generations will benefit from what we do now.🌎

04/07/2021

📢ATTN: BEEKEEPERS AND HONEY CONSUMERS

⚗THERE IS "HONEY" WITHOUT BEES COMING SOON ON THE MARKET. YOU CAN'T CALL IT HONEY, THOUGH, ACCORDING TO PROVINCIAL LAW🧾. Maybe we have a live on this one day... there's more to know, think and understand and have more specialists on this...

I'm not talking about fake honey.

I'm talking about honey engineered with different processes to taste like that made by the honeybees🍯. It's a project that is going to come on the world market and will challenge commercial beekeepers mostly, beliefs, consumers, nutritionists, and much more.⌛

It's done having in mind the vegans and the local bees.

✴Is it really going to reach its goal?
✴ How?
✴And up to what level?
✴What is the price for the honeybees and pollination, for the big farmers and agriculture, taking into account that we STILL NEED honeybees to pollinate big crops or orchards like almonds and others, food that local bees are not interested or not interested in such a high level...?

⚖🌎🌏🌍We DO need a change in the food chain for climate change, to protect species, to protect animals, protect the planet and more. Sustainability is a huge thing. We need wisdom and be aware of the challenges. And the business owners need to pay attention to what is going on and adjust to what the future brings.

***Quote:

"It is molecularly identical, so it should be the same," says Mr Nagarajah. "But if we have to choose a different name, so be it."

One intriguing possibility of fermentation-based animal products is the chance to create products that are better than the real thing."***

IS IT? COULD IT ACTUALLY BE BETTER IN TERMS OF HEALING PROPERTIES? EFFECT ON THE BODY? Is 'molecularly identical' enough to say that A PRODUCT IS IDENTICAL OR BETTER THAN ONE CREATED NATURALLY?

🔎NOTE: We know how the PR work is done for companies. From all the articles and interviews you see online take all with a grain of salt.

PR and marketing are done also having in mind getting the consumer used and attracted to an idea so it is easier to get into the market. It's a way to create a need and a niche or a market share in the same time.

The article below is more open and longer, with more information, not as short as news releases on Yahoo and others (which are usually identical). I'm not saying it's objective. But it tells you more than you will find in others.

I'm curious what consumers will say after comparing real honey - the one from a Flow Hive or extracted from the hive - with the one engineered and so called 'honey without bees'. Technology is advancing. We need our hearts and minds united and see from all sides of those involved in an area so we do create a better world.🌍🌏🌎❤
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56154143

Firms are using fermentation to produce honey and milk and say they can match the taste of the real thing.

04/06/2021

😅Some 🐝-fun with 🎶🎼

04/03/2021

Beware of the Asian giant hornet!

"The murder hornet's real name is the Asian giant hornet, and their native range encompasses most of that continent, from the Russian Far East all the way to Sri Lanka. Murder hornet's prey consists of other medium-to-large sized insects. A relatively small number of hornets can decimate a beehive, and while bees in Asia have developed defence mechanisms, western honey bees have none. Berube and Holubeshens knew that if the hornets spread, it could be disastrous for Vancouver Island's bee population."

The pain was like ‘red hot thumbtacks’

03/30/2021

🥰Guess who's my helper for building my AZ hive? 😉

03/30/2021

👉This is the book I recommend to learn more about A-Z beekeeping and A-Z hives. I've been following it and what others did to build my own A-Z hive that I'll work with starting this summer. 📖

It's easy to work with such a hive, you can put it in a shed, trailer, etc. I'll share over time from my experience with it.

BTW, you don't find A-Z (or AZ) hives supplier in Canada.

A-Z Beekeeping with the Slovenian hive

03/27/2021

Another children story book with bees!

03/20/2021

😃📣 HAPPENING NEXT WEEK from APIMONDIA, the International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations!

👉Apimondia Open House - 27th March 2021👈
President Jeff Pettis announced it on the official webpage. It is going to be on Zoom. For details go to: https://www.apimondia.com/en

03/18/2021

When bees come to enter a hive, how do the guard bees know they are forein to kick them out of the hive? Guard bees use the smell of other bees’ cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs), compounds that form a waxy, water-resistant layer coating diverse in insect species, to identify individuals that try to infiltrate from different colonies. Differences in CHC composition were thought to depend on genetics, but researchers have shown that day-old bees can be integrated into a foreign hive with few cases of rejection.

Read more in this article:
https://www.the-scientist.com/notebook/honeybee-microbes-shape-the-colonys-social-behavior-68236

Recent research shows that the insect’s microbial community is central to protecting the hive from invaders—both big and small.

03/15/2021

😮Beautiful! Did you know that about bees and colour?👇

"Bees have photoreceptors that are sensitive to ultraviolet, blue and green wavelengths, and they also show a preference for “bluish” colours. The reason why bees have a preference for bluish flowers remains an open field of research."

"About one-third of our food depends on insect pollination. However, world populations of bees and other insects are in decline, potentially due to climate change, habitat fragmentation, agricultural practices and other human-caused factors.

The capacity of flowering plants to produce blue colours is linked to land use intensity including human-induced factors like artificial fertilisation, grazing, and mowing that reduce the frequency of blue flowers. In contrast, more stressful environments appear to have relatively more blue floral colours to provide resilience."

https://theconversation.com/the-mystery-of-the-blue-flower-natures-rare-colour-owes-its-existence-to-bee-vision-153646

Through a bee's eyes, blue flowers are more common than you'd think — and they could be used to monitor environmental health.

03/14/2021

Gabriel Petrut - Building my own AZ (Slovenian) hive. Starting experimenting with it this summer in Ontario.

03/13/2021

Join Gabriel Petrut, beekeeper, instructor, mentor at BeeLiving Apiaries to hear and discuss different situations and most probable causes of honey bee death in winter. Feel free to ask questions.

You can join the Facebook live video or on Zoom where you can discuss directly with him.

03/08/2021