Hands off Bees in the Local News

Our local news blog, PhinneyWood, which covers the Greenwood and Phinney Ridge neighborhoods of Seattle (and nearby areas), just posted an article about Trish's backyard beekeeping and the hives she builds.

Thanks to Sarah who wrote the article, Doree who manages the blog, and everyone who is visiting the blog (and our Facebook page) as a result of reading the article!

The Positively Charged Bee

Trish sent me an interesting article about bumblebees and flowers from NPR. Here's a little quote: "'When bees are flying through the air, just the friction of the air and the friction of the body parts on one another causes the bee to become positively charged...' It's like shuffling across a carpet in wool socks. When a positively charged bee lands on a flower, the negatively charged pollen grains naturally stick to it."

There's always more to bees than we know!

If Only We Could Run Errands Like Bees

We've been running a lot of last-minute holiday errands over the past couple days, and this reminds me of our inefficiency compared to that of honeybees. I've seen articles before about the ways that bees maximize their time/effort when they gather pollen and nectar. I just read this article on the Denver Post's website, and I like how the author also mentions other cases where humans (and computers) can't match the natural abilities of animals.

Well, it's just one more reminder that we'd better help take care of bees because we're not going to be able to replace them!