A Day Down the Microscope
No suits, no smoke, just a bench and two microscopes: a bee taken apart wing by wing in the morning, and an afternoon learning to read the pollen fingerprint that tells you what is really in a jar of honey.
bee science
The Bees Knew. (The Science Just Caught Up.)
A new research paper reveals that honey bees may be running their own viral surveillance system. We break down what recapping behaviour means, why resistant colonies do it better, and what Bee Girl thinks it sounds like (spoiler: a sick bay).
When a Real Bee Scientist Talks, We Take Notes
What we learned from Stephen Martin’s incredible beekeeping adventures Right, so here’s the thing about being complete beekeeping beginners: when you get the chance to listen to someone like Stephen Martin—an actual bee scientist who’s spent decades studying bees around the world—you sit up straight, you take notes, and you try not to feel too … Read more
The Secret Lives of Varroa Mites (Or: How Bees Are Way Smarter Than We Give Them Credit For)
A Bee Happy Honey Deep Dive Okay, so Mum here. I recently sat through a lecture by Professor Stephen Martin about varroa mites, viruses, and how bees adapt to both. And friends? My brain is officially melted. In the best possible way. I walked in expecting the usual doom and gloom about colony collapse and … Read more
Think Before You Treat: What We Learned About Chemical-Free Beekeeping (And The Possibly Terrible Decision We Made)
Right, so full disclosure before we go any further: this is our first year keeping bees. Our FIRST year. We got them in spring, we’ve been learning as we go (with approximately zero idea what we’re doing), and we’re currently in our first winter praying we haven’t killed them all — and nervously second-guessing our … Read more
Why Our Bees Have Been Here Longer Than Basically Everything (And Why That Made Mum Cry a Bit)
A mother-daughter beekeeping adventure Right. Pull up a chair. Get the kettle on. I need to tell you about this talk, because it properly changed how we think about our bees. So there I was at the UBKA Annual Conference, sitting in the lecture hall with my phone out trying to record everything, scribbling notes … Read more