The yellow-legged #hornet's need for water is well demonstrated by its advance up the Guadalope River in north east #Spain. In the town of Alcaniz, 62 queens have been captured this spring. www.vozpopuli.com/indux/en/the...

Where There Are #Bees, There Is Life ... youngsters' painting competition to celebrate #WorldBeeDay. Lots of entries here: sanalsergi.duzce.edu.tr

Mallorcan researchers pulled off the seemingly impossible task of eradicatin the yellow-legged #hornet from the island and were presented with the #Slovenian #GoldenBeeAward award yesterday, World Bee Day.

The #honeybee queen that #fainted but then recovered after the attention of her workers.

#Bees help unravel secrets of the Roman fleet two millennia ago. #Pollen revealed where a 2,200 ship found in #Croatia had been. A combination of pitch and #beeswax helped keep it afloat. www.msn.com/en-in/news/w...

A Czech study has found that weak #broadband RF signals seem to affect the success of queens returning to hives after mating. They suggest that RF noise disrupts #honeybee orientation. www.muni.cz/en/research/...

Super article from National Geographic about the yellow-legged #hornet in #NewZealand. www.nzgeo.com/stories/were...

Jeremy Owen of Vita has volounteered to take supplies to #Ukraine. Can you help, please? www.justgiving.com/page/jeremy-...

Saddle sore. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Gatwick Airport receives 4 or 5 calls a year to deal with #swarms. A swarm might have trouble catching a flight of course, but insects like mated yellow-legged #hornet queens. Fortunately, the UK NBU has sentinel hives near vulnerable areas like ports. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

There's a strong nectar flow near Vita's offices and the #honeybees are having to queue up to offload at this observation #beehive.

The complexity of the effects of #Nosema ceranae - they vary widely according to other stressors present and timing. Often negative, sometimes neutral and even synergistic. #beekeeping #honeybee www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Earth Rise campaign to support 200 indigenous people keeping #stinglessbees in the #Amazon #Rainforest Peru has just been launched. Until 29 April any donations will be doubled by a third party. It's being run by Bees for Development. donate.biggive.org/campaign/a05...

Earth Rise campaign to support 200 indigenous people keeping #stinglessbees in the Amazon #Rainforest Peru has just been launched. Until 29 April any donations will be doubled by a third party. It's being run by @beesfordev donate.biggive.org/campaign/a05...

Small hive beetle (#SHB, Aethina tumida)) has been seen in #Thailand for the first time in 2025. Genetic and morphological analyses suggest they originated from a single source in Hawaii or South Africa, but not from neighbouring Asian counties. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Are you coming to the #BBKASpringConvention at harper Adams University this weekend? Be sure to drop by the Vita Bee Health stand. www.bbka.org.uk/Pages/Catego...

The best bargain - free #bees. Try Vita's #swarm lure. A pack of ten for not very much. www.vita-europe.com/beehealth/pr...

How do thousands of #honeybees fly in a #swarm without colliding and creating chaos. #Seeley showed how 'streaker' bees direct the swirling mass but what else is going on? Models suggests that each bee is in communication with up to 10 flying neighbours. physics.aps.org/articles/v19...

The onward march. The yellow-legged #hornet has reached the #Algarve in #Portugal. www.portugalresident.com/asian-hornet...

How do #honeybees not poison themselves with their own #venom? Workers have mechanisms to counter it, but #drones succumb. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

How are your #bees looking this northern hemisphere #spring? We are hearing reports of higher than usual losses. Do your colonies need a lift? Try VitaFeed Power to stimulate egg laying and accelerate colony growth. www.vita-europe.com/beehealth/pr...

A paper in a well-respected journal claims to have a novel, portable, low-cost microwave-sensing system to detect #fake #honey. As you might imagine, it's quite technical though. ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/doc...

Insects are the front line victims of invasive species. It's not just #habitat destruction, #climate change, and #pollution that are the issues. 52 studies in 6 continents show that the number of terrestrial #insect species is reduced by 31% on average. www.futura-sciences.com/en/bees-ants...

There's more #honeybee disease around than you'd think. The UK's National Honey Monitoring Survey analysis of DNA in 150 honey samples has revealed that 13% had #chalkbood, 11% had #nosema. Less than 2% had #EFB. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This looks good and is coming soon: youtu.be/Mej2usrRCl0

A #honeybee satnav of sorts. Every honey bee finds its own flight path to forage and sticks with it -- a #drone, a UAV one -- has shown that. www.earth.com/news/every-h...

Video of yesterday's webinar about invasive #hornets in Europe. Presentations by Vita partner Prof Alex Papachristoforou and Prof Xesús Feás. www.youtube.com/watch?v=_voH_DjYq9s

See you at the #Ulster Beekeepers' Conference this weekend? ubka.org/events/confe...

A fascinating series of #macrophotography showing the progressive and natural #wing wear of #honeybee wings in Bee Culture. beeculture.com/a-beekeepers...

A question so many people ask: what effect does hive #insulation have? In Punjab in #Pakistan they tested several types of wooden hives. One was insulated and it "exhibited superior colony growth across all assessed variables". link.springer.com/article/10.1... #beekeeping #beehives

Free webinar: #hornet experts speak about combating them. Prof Alex Papachristoforou (a Vita partner) on #VespaOrientalis and Prof Xesus Feas on #VespaVelutina. ebaeurope.eu/new-webinar-...

For those who can access BBC Radio 4, there is a 45-minute feature "The #Honey Trap" on #fakehoney, including a visit to #Apimondia and interviews with academics and campaigners.

Do #honeybees fly at night? It seems so. Two colonies in #Brazil show different foraging time preferences, but it's 24/7. www.researchgate.net/profile/Arth...

45 yellow-legged #hornets and 32 nests found in Auckland, #NewZealand. "Biosecurity NZ believed it was unlikely they were outside of the city." www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

#QueenCamilla's breakfast, as revealed by her son: "porridge every day - plain, aside from a little of her own honey ... [The #honey] is delicate and mild, as fine stirred into a good Darjeeling tea as it is mixed with porridge or yoghurt." www.kentlive.news/news/health/...

The dark arts of deception. Larvae blister #beetles emit a scent like a flower so that solitary #bees are attracted to them, they hitch a ride on the bee back to the nest and there consume the bee eggs. www.science.org/content/arti...

Young #bees learn to avoid contaminated #pollen. Researchers have shown consumption reductions of 10-20% when pollen has been laced with #glyphosate or imidacloprid (a #neonic). Researchers think this is a learned response. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Pollen deficiency = hangry bees. Colonies deprived of #pollen became more defensive and immature bees likely reared in a way that influenved their gene expression and behavior as adults. So make sure your #bees have good nutrition. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

When they were trying to eradicate the #varroa mite from #honeybee colonies in #Australia, fiprinol was put in bait stations to eradicate colonies in Emergency Eradication Zones. The results were mixed. contd...

A new and short paper from #Australia outlines the small hive beetle's #SHB lifecycle and the threat it poses to #honeybees. www.entsocnsw.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/GAE-53-79-81-Varroa-and-small-hive-beetle.pdf

New paper on how the Japanese #honeybee defends against #VespaMandarina: it collects fungi and plants from the environment and puts it around the hive entrance. It's thought to help stop mass attacks by #hornets. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#NewZealand has recorded 39 queen yellow-legged #hornets, 26 of which had begun nest building. They are all in 'Zone A' near #Auckland. 780 traps are in place. The government has committed $NZ12 million in the campaign for the next six months. www.apiaristsadvocate.com/post/hornet-...

We've heard of #bees nesting in odd places, but never this: bee fossil nests have been found in the bones of mammals -- their vertebrae remains to be precise. And these nests weren't one-off nests, they were multi-generational! royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

The effects of deformed wing virus (exacerbated by varroa): - start foraging younger - shorter lifespans - poorer nectar foraging - more likely to forage for pollen. In short -- disruption and poorer nutrition. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#Honeybee personalities: individuals performed better at some tasks than others. So it's not just a big #brain thing. journal.iaabcfoundation.org/24872/

#Australian beekeepers place more trust in chemical methods to treat the #varroa mite. Biomechanical controls are considered too time consuming and impractical, especially for commercial #beekeepers. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Study of 89 managed and 164 feral #honeybee colonies in #Oklahoma, USA. #Nosema ceranae - more common in managed colonies. 27 v 2.4% Spiroplasma melliferous - 2.8% v 0% doi.org/10.3958/059....

A good overview of the yellow-legged #hornet story in the #UK and the resources needed to try to combat it: www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

At what temperature do you store your #honey? It depends on the honey, but in these #Brazilian honeys, general refrigeration caused more changes than storage at 28C or -20C. And in the honeys tested, refrigeration led to fastest crystallisation. www.scielo.br/j/aabc/a/Ccd...