Talk:Honey bee

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Contents

[edit] Separation of topics

The honeybee page should be separated into several separate pages. I'd like to combine the honey section with the honey page but don't know how to do this. Anyone willing to help? shoefly 12/28/2004

[edit] sharefin copyright

I deleted material that came from http://www.cairns.net.au/~sharefin/Cyclopedia/rural_economy.html -- Zoe

[edit] 2003 edit conflict

2 Apr - Apparently, JohnOwen and I were editing this page at the same time. I think I found and integrated your changes. Please update if I missed anything. Rossami

Not much, just link to beekeeper even though there's nothing there yet (nor at apiarist nor beekeeping, I checked). And I don't like seeing caps in the first half of piped links, it's a pet peeve of mine; so I did that too. ;) -- John Owens 00:07 Apr 3, 2003 (UTC)
apiculture

[edit] Wood pile hive question

I HAVE A HONEY BEE HIVE IN A WOOD PILE THAT HAS TO BE MOVED------I WOULD RATHER NOT KILL THEM,CAN ANYONE HELP WITH SOME INFO. THANKS WRONGWAY@ECENET.COM

Answered offline. The short answer. 1) Are you sure they are honeybees? 2) Do you want to become a beekeeper or just get rid of them? 3) Contact your local beekeeping association. (Most counties have one. Most extension offices or university agricultural departments know how to get in touch with them.) 4) Check out the archives of bee-specific websites such as the BEE-L listserve. http://listserv.albany.edu:8080/cgi-bin/wa?S1=bee-l Rossami 21:12, 10 Sep 2003 (UTC)

[edit] "Pyramids"-- relevance

The intro ends with a reference to Egyptian pyramids:

Honeybees have been domesticated at least since the time of the building of the Egyptian pyramids.

It sounds really misleading, like bees were used as glue to stick pyramid bricks together. What is the relevance?! If Egyptians used it, say "Egyptians practiced bee-culture". If people started using it during Egyptian time, say "Honeybee has been used by humans since 2100 BCE." Say what it's relevant straight-forwardly! --Menchi 05:26, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately, "used by humans since 2100 BCE" implies a precision that can not be supported by the archeological evidence. Beekeeping may have started far earlier than that - we just don't know. At the other extreme, "Egyptians practiced bee-culture" loses the meaning of the sentence by taking out all references to time - the Egyptians could have started yesterday and the sentence would still be true. The relevance of the sentence is that it defines beekeeping as an activity that has been going on for thousands of years; that the origins of beekeeping have been lost in time; and that the earliest known references to domesticated beekeeping are found in Egyptian ruins. I think the sentence above says all that in a very concise and easy-to-read manner. But I'm always open to improvements. Rossami 13:50, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Bee Problems

Feral North American honeybee populations were severely depleted by varroa mite infestations in the early 1990s. Feral bee populations are now recovering, having self bred for resistance to the mite. Improved cultural practices and bee breeds have reduced dependancy on miticides (acaracides) by beekeepers.

I think this paragraph overstates the current state of affairs on a couple of points. If it's alright, I am going to temporarily revert the paragraph until we can address some of the comments below. Rossami 16:24, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

  1. More than just the feral populations were hit. Kept colonies were hit just as hard.
    • That depends on whether the beekeeper was consciencious and up to date. The mites have pretty well eliminated the rural laissez faire old timey beekeepers who had bees simply because their parents and grandparents did. But younger and more suburban beekeepers tend to be club members and did a better job of keeping up with the issues. Indeed some areas have seen a little growth in beekeeping, mainly where they have a dynamic club.Pollinator 21:16, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  2. I have not yet seen any evidence that feral bee populations are recovering or that they have developed any resistance to the mites. Most of the research which I have read traces the "new feral" colonies to recently escaped swarms from commercial or hobbyist beekeepers. They often colonize the same places (and on the same comb) as the last colony so it can appear that a colony has existed in the same place for a period of time when, in fact, it has been several colonies in succession finding a cavity, inhabiting it and succumbing to the mites. As further evidence, if any feral bees had developed confirmed resistance to the mites, they would have been immediately domesticated by the beekeeping industry. No such resistant bee is available on the market, leading me to believe that this statement is not yet true.
    • There are some feral populations on the southeast US coast, according to my and other beekeeper swarm calls, discussions with loggers, observations of flower foraging, etc. But when I go inland, or northward, there are many places where honeybees cannot be found unless there are beekeepers in the area. I would guess that some bees in mild climates have been able to coexist with the mites, but that the addition of a more severe climate is too much.Pollinator 21:16, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC
    • I reinserted the feral recovery part. Our observation in our bee club (suburban inland S.F. Bay Area (California USA) was that upon arival of varroa, calls for swarm removal declined from several hundred a month to only a few. The last three years have seen an incredible restoration of our swarm calls during peak season (about now) to the 100+ range per month. These are feral swarms as our beekeepers are careful to avoid swarming from kept hives and most local beekeepers are members of the club. We have considerable urban and open space woodlands with much oak which forms favorable sites for cavity dwelling bees. Leonard G. 02:06, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
  3. While improved breeds and IPM practices can reduce the dependency on miticides, I think it is premature to say that they have reduced dependency. Those breeds and practices have not yet been adopted widely enough to truly reduce the dependence. Evidence - the sales of Checkmite and Apistan remain strong and there is great clamor for the pending approval of Apilife Var. When sales of those products drop off, I think we will be able to say have reduced dependency.
    • Good point. I'm sure there are some stocks in many commercial outfits though, that have some resistance, especially if they have been buying Russian and other resistant queens, or using some feral stock. It's just that commercial beekeepers are not able to take the risk of not treating, and losing all those which do not have resistance. Pollinator 21:16, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
    • I have been keeping bees without medications of any kind (4 years now) using top bar hives and wild swarms. Tanzanian hives are particularly mite resistant in my observation. For Kenyans, culling of drone brood gives sufficient control in my circumstances. Leonard G. 02:10, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I would like to see an addition to the article about this. --PaladinWriter 12:41, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

While this is a fine idea in the right context, PLEASE do not add material specifically about Apis mellifera to this page - do so on the Apis mellifera page. This page is NOT about the European honey bee. Dyanega 20:24, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How many bees in a hive?

The article first mentions thousands, later hundreds of drones usually living in a hive. Which number is correct? Puzzled, --219.207.92.201 13:28, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The number is seasonally variable. At the end of the spring buildup, which is the normal swarm season for wild bees, and the time many queens have to be mated, the drone population is very high. Some strong hives will have many thousands of drones, as much as a third of the population. Weaker hives usually don't produce as high a proportion, but will still have the most in late spring. During summer the number of drones dwindles down. By fall there may be only a few hundred. In the southern US, a strong hive may keep a few drones all winter. Weaker hives or hives in the northern US and Canada will throw out all the drones to freeze or starve with the first cold weather. I've seen hives keep drones most of the winter in South Carolina, then throw them out during a March storm, so this latitude is about the turning point for overwintering drones. When drone rearing begins in spring, queen breeders start their season. Some will try to move the date ahead a bit by stimulative feeding of the hives, but not many drones will be raised until there are sources of good natural pollen.
An old beekeeper I knew a half century ago used to consider the drones worthless parasites in the hives and he would sit at the entrance of his hives and stab drones with toothpicks. My own experience has been that bees that are not allowed to have the normal component of drones do not thrive. I call it a loss of morale... Pollinator 14:55, Nov 10, 2004 (UTC)
Both and neither. It depends on:
  1. the race of honeybee (Some produce more drones than others)
  2. the health of the hive (A healthy colony about to swarm generally produces more drones than a colony in distress. The big exception is a colony which has lost its queen and develops a laying worker who can only lay drone eggs.)
  3. the time of year (In the height of summer when the colony is at its strongest, there could easily be thousands of drones in the hive. In the winter, that number drops down to almost none. Conventional wisdom used to be that all drones were kicked out and allowed to die each fall. Recent research has shown, however, that some races do keep some drones alive through the winter under some conditions. Research is continuing to determine if this is a universal occurence which was previously overlooked or if there is some unknown causal reason.)
  4. local climate (From the bees' point of view, winter comes much earlier in Alaska than in, say, Florida. There is some current research trying to correlate honeybee lifecycles to the concept of growing degree days.)
among other things. Hope that helps. Rossami 15:01, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC) (Looks like Pollinator was answering the same question. Darned edit conflicts)

[edit] edits by User:68.219.225.139

In a series of edits today, anonymous user 68.219.225.139 deleted most of the content of this article leaving two short (though coherent) paragraphs. I believe a great deal of good content was lost during that edit. I'm not averse to streamlining this article if it needs it but such a sweeping change should probably be discussed here. Thanks. Rossami (talk) 22:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I can't see any reason for the big deletions. The paragraphs look like they need to be included.Gzuckier 16:17, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] added wiktionary link though I am unsatisfied

I added a wiktionary link to honeybee. That wiktionary entry notes the alternative spelling "honey bee". Unfortunately, I think this is an unsatisfactory solution to linking the spellings since, for most of the publications that matter, at least in the US, the spelling "honey bee" is preferred. The two spellings are nearly dead-even say the editors of merriam-webster. but they arrive at their count via a brute force count from publication, papers, etc... they don't weed out based on the publications that "matter".

Regardless, the spellings are apparently both used often, and I would love a nice concise way of stating that. One of the maintainers of this entry nuked my effort at this and suggested using wiktionary and linking to it. Unfortunately, I think that is inadequate and ultimately hides the other spelling.

Maybe this issue is not all that important, but, well, maybe it is.

My 2-cents. -Tonica Tue, 17 Jan 2006 22:23:00 -0500

[edit] Foraging distance?

How far will foraging honeybees range from the hive? -- 18 Feb 2006

I did a study on this once to determine pollination effectiveness. On cucumber and melon fields the bees ranged .6 mile (one kilometer), with a sharp drop off in the number of foragers that ranged further. However, the distance very much is in proportion to the richness of the food supply. In an area with many abandoned fields that were covered with goldenrod, the bees were only ranging less than .2 mile, getting all the food they could handle, so not venturing further. In desert regions they have been observed to travel much further to flowers around springs or in irrigated fields, but hives do not thrive if they wear out their workers' wings going too far for food. Pollinator 02:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is it wing wear which kills honey bees after 500 miles of flight?

I recall reading that the flight muscles lose the ability to process glycogen, and this is the reason workers die after the flight-intensive segment of their life.

[edit] Explanation for dark green honey

I am a honey farmer in South Africa and recently I came across four hives with dark green honey. There is no diffence in taste except for the colour. Do you perhaps have an explanation for this rare occurance. Willie de Klerk

It could be an unusual floral source that is not commonly worked by the bees. I've seen seasons where the bees seem to work flowers that I've not seen them on normally. Do you have any university bee researchers or a government extension service for beekeeping that could do a pollen analysis of your honey?
Another possibility, is someone in the area open feeding. A friend of mine did some graduate research with Nestle's Quick (he had bought a salvage load - in this case strawberry) which is mostly sugar, with flavoring and dye. He open fed the mix in drums, and all the bees in the area made "red honey." Pollinator 14:58, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] impending restructuring

Just to give folks a heads-up; there is a great deal of this page which applies ONLY to Apis mellifera. Given that Apis mellifera already has its own page, this is an unnecessary amount of redundancy, in addition to filling up the page so that any proper comparisons between species is buried in the mass of text. At some point in the near future (i.e., not today), I expect to export much of this present page's content (the parts that

aren't verbatim duplicates) to the mellifera page, and restructure this page so it very briefly synopsizes each of the four primary species and takes readers there for details; the remainder of the page will be devoted to information on the evolution of the genus, its fossil history, and other general information about the genus as a whole.Dyanega 04:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bee SEM, TEM or STEM

Any chance we can get one of those electron microscope (scanning, transmission or scanning-transmission) images of a honeybee on here? It would show much more detail than these photographic pieces. Unfortunately I do not have access to a non-copyright image, any other scientists who might have an image they are willing to donate?--WikipedianProlific(Talk) 00:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] honeybee vs. honey bee

Boingboing.com today ran a story on honey bees, and included info from a "professional apiculturalist" Cliff Van Eaton who insists that, and I quote:

"A well-trained honey bee scientist wouldn't spell the name "honeybee", even though you'll find it mistakenly spelled this way in a number of dictionaries (as well as on the MS spell checker), and even in Wikipedia. The biological convention is that the name of an insect is separated into two words when the insect is what the name implies. So "honey bee" is separated into two words, since its a bee that collects honey, whereas "butterfly" is one word since it isn't a fly that produces butter."

Thus, in accordance with what was said above on Jan 17, 2006, under the paragraph "added wiktionary link though I am unsatisfied," I think the main article should be located at "honey bee" and have "honeybee" redirect to it. I think it also makes sense to have a short blurb about the spelling differences in the article, too. If others agree, I will make the changes. Blazotron 23:07, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I came here from the BoingBoing article as well, and while I don't claim any kind of entomological expertise, your proposal makes sense to me. Hopefully some others more knowledgable in the world of insects can also voice their thoughts either way. --PeruvianLlama(spit) 23:42, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I've made the move (to conform to general scientific usage). Feel free to restore if there are objections. -- AmbientArchitecture 01:25, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sting subsection

A subsection titled "Sting" was added to the page on 5 Oct. It was immediately tagged with multiple requests for citation. Personally, I don't think that most of the citation tags were justified but I also don't think that the section added much to the article. Since this is clearly a disputed section, I am removing it pending discussion here. Rossami (talk) 22:54, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Most honeybee workers contain a barbed sting that they use to defend their hive or in self-defense.[citation needed] Symptoms in humans being stung include a sharp pain at the site of the sting. This usually goes away after the sting is removed.[citation needed] However, some humans develop allergic reaction to bee venom and must be treated at once. Queen honeybees also sting, but only in self-defense and when rivalry between other queens develop. [citation needed] Their sting is curved and is not barbed. [citation needed] Their sting is less painful than worker bees.[citation needed] See Schmidt Sting Pain Index.

I agree with Rossami's analysis and don't have a strong opinion about whether the content should be retained. Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Beekeeping

I've put this article in WikiProject Beekeeping to help organisation and improvement of articles. I'm just trying to rustle up interest - if anyone is interested in being a member, please just sign up on the main project page - you can do as much or little as you like! Martinp23 17:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Time to put Apis mellifera information on the Apis mellifera page

This is not, I repeat NOT, the Apis mellifera article. It is a simple, straightforward thing for editors wishing to contribute content about A. mellifera to add this content to its page, instead of this article, which is collectively for all the members of the genus Apis. I apologize if there was a "tradition" of just sticking anything related to A. mellifera here, but this is not appropriate when that species already has its own main page, and several other pages for each of its subspecies. Part of the purpose of an encyclopedic reference is to educate, and part of the education about honey bees is that there are many different species. Each one has its own WP article, and I respectfully request that editors use the appropriate species' articles for future contributions. If you wish to help eliminate the confusion, then please consider editing those links that point to this article instead of the A. mellifera article as they should. Thank you, Dyanega 00:37, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

While you are technically correct, please also remember that we have a long tradition of naming articles based on the common understanding, not necessarily the technical name. Most readers when looking for an article on "honeybees" will be looking specifically for information on apis mellifera. They don't know the species name and will be very confused when they find so little information here and no clear pointers to the correct article. (And the vast majority of such readers are going to overlook the little disambiguation link you left at the top.) I agree that this article has needed cleanup for a while but I don't consider the current state of the article to be an improvement. Rossami (talk) 03:10, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Then there is a conflict in how the page is titled. If you want "honey bee" to direct ONLY to A. mellifera, then THIS article needs to be retitled as Apis (genus), and "honey bee" turned into a redirect page, and nothing more - with the redirect going to Apis mellifera. You are, of course, welcome to do so, though I suspect there will be people who find that also unacceptable. To me, your invocation of "common understanding" is the logical equivalent of insisting that the page Elephant should not refer to all elephants, but instead refer solely to the African Elephant, which is most assuredly what "common understanding" of the name "elephant" is (at least among English-speakers). True, people in Asia might first think of the Indian Elephant, but also just ask someone in Asia who raises Apis cerana what they call their bees. If people looking up "elephant" in WP have to click on a disambiguation link and no one complains, then I see no reason why people looking up "honey bee" cannot do the same. What your complaint has pointed out, howver, is that the page is not presently structured so as to make it obvious that readers are looking at a page that refers to many different types of honey bee. I'll make that change now, and hopefully that will resolve the issue. Dyanega 19:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] There is a definitive classification - nuluensis and laboriosa are not species

I have included the reference to Engel (1999), which is the most recent revision of the genus; just because older or non-scholarly works treat nuluensis and laboriosa as species does not mean they are still considered as such. Dyanega 19:39, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello Dyanega, please look at this two Links [1] and [2]. I think both (dated in 2002) are scholarly sources. I'm not sure, but I have doubt that subspecies are correct. Unfortunately I have not the Engel paper. --MikePhobos 19:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Addendum: Sorry I was to fast, first I've to provide and read the reference Engel, M.S. (1999) --MikePhobos 10:24, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
You should note that the reference you give is to a paper which did not cite Engel's work; if they were unaware that Engel had relegated nuluensis to a subspecies, then they cannot be expected to treat it as one. It is, in fact, an understandable error on their part. Simply because it post-dates Engel does not mean it takes precedence, especially as it is not a taxonomic publication. Dyanega 00:35, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
Hello Dyanega, thanks for your answer. Exactly that's my problem (as a layperson, a beekeeper not a scientist). Is there a taxonomic committee or something like that, which is authorised to establish what's right or wrong? --MikePhobos 06:34, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
No, there's no committee which decides what's right or wrong - in this case, it boils down to the fact that some papers deal with classification, and others do not. Engel's paper is the most recent paper on honey bee classification, and no one has yet published a paper challenging any of his conclusions. There could be one tomorrow, for all I know, and maybe I'll change the articles at that point - but for now, Engel's is the accepted classification. Sometimes ideas, like politicians, run unopposed. Dyanega 17:42, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, now I've appended chapters named "Systematik" (means taxonomic) to the relevant articles (Apis, A. laboriosa and A. nuluensis) of the german wikipedia, to describe this new results from Engel. I' did this a little bit more conservative than you. At the moment I've not changed the taxonomic names. My problem is furthermore to get and read the Engel paper (1999). And to pay may be 80$ to the publishing house is to expensive for me. --MikePhobos 11:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of bees

There was an article in recent issue of Science journal (one of November 2006 issues I think) about origin of bees. Genetic data showed that (contrary to what is commonly believed and what is claimed in this article) bees actually originated in Africa, not in Asia.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.113.113.18 (talk • contribs).

Can you provide a specific reference? -- Donald Albury 12:10, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

References to the origin of BEES are not pertinent; this article discusses the origin of HONEY BEES. Dyanega 18:43, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

How about adding some thing about how they are nonnative invasive species to the Americas that have displaced native pollinators and there effects on the pollination of native plant species.Hardyplants 01:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

This is discussed already, in the article which is relevant: Western honey bee. No other species have been introduced anywhere, so it would not belong here in the Honey bee article. Dyanega 21:14, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Feral pest in Australia

Is it worth adding some info about how the feral honeybee is now a severe threat to many hollow nesting birds and mammals in Australia? Gemfyre 06:49, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

It might be, if this was a page about Apis mellifera, which it is not. See the comment immediately above this; if you wish, add it to the Apis mellifera page, in the section where it talks about how it is a feral pest outside its native range. Please do not add information that only applies to A. mellifera to THIS article. Yes, I know everyone assumes that there is only one species of honey bee, I should cut them some slack, but that's like having the WP article for bird filled with information about the chicken, when chicken already has its own article, simply because there ar more chickens than any other species of bird. Dyanega 09:36, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
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