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🐝 This Month's Features:

June Product Highlights

This month, John Russell has been hard at work communing with the bees and making preparations for what we will unveil in July once summer is truly underway. Until then, please allow us this opportunity to give one last hurrah for dandelions and a shoutout to propolis just 🐝cuzz!!

Have you SEEN the dandelions out there?? They've run amok here in Winnipeg and the bees could not be happier! Never heard of propolis? Read about this amazing substance produced right here in Manitoba by our honeybees in our blog (click here!)

Click or tap to view:

Dandelion Honey

Propolis

News and Miscellany

Wildfires And Bees (click here for the article at cbc.ca)

• Wildfire smoke may hinder bees' ability to navigate and pollinate
• While smoke is used by beekeepers to calm hives, it can interfere with the insect's sense of smell and vision.
• When bees don't venture out of their hives, they're unable to pollinate local greenery.
• Northern Alberta has a great deal of bees and so the area here is hard hit with smoke

Bee Brains (click here for the article at theconversation.com)

• The world looks very different to a bee than it does to a human but bees are intelligent, likely feel pain,
• remember patterns and odors and even recognize human faces.
• They can solve mazes and other problems and use simple tools.
• Research shows that bees are self-aware and may even have a primitive form of consciousness.
• When sleeping, memories are consolidated and there are some indications that bees might even dream.
• A honeybee’s sense of smell is 100 times more sensitive than ours, and can see in ultraviolet.

Fake Honey (click here for the article at wellandgood.com)

• After olive oil and milk, honey is the third most-faked food in the U.S. (North America, actually....)
• Despite large local production, a lot of low quality honey is imported due to its low pricing.
• long overseas supply chains create a lot of opportunities for unscrupulous actors to dilute, tamper with, or outright fabricate a fake honey.
• The best way to make sure that you’re getting real honey is to buy directly from a beekeeper
• There are claims that fake honey makes up 70 percent of the U.S. honey supply. The Honey Authenticity Network says it's more like 33 percent.
• There truly is no way of knowing.

Honey Bees ‘Whoop’ When Bumping Into Each Other (click here for the article at laughingsquid.com)

• A vibrational pulse produced by honeybees’ wings, long thought to be a signal to other bees to stop what they are doing, might actually be an expression of surprise.
• Martin Bencsik at NTU made some peculiar observations when recording the frequency of honeybee wings.
• Watch this short video on recovery, and once again experience how after hundreds of years of research they always find a way to surprise.

Did You Know?: Swarm Season Edition!

• The swarming process is part of the natural reproductive life cycle of honey bee colonies. Colonies are stimulated to swarm during spring when warmer weather, together with an abundance of nectar and pollen, provide ideal conditions for the colony to increase rapidly.
• If you find a honey bee swarm in your yard or home, don't panic and don't try to kill them. Either wait for the bees to peacefully move on, or contact a pest removal specialist or local beekeeper immediately to safely remove the swarm without threatening your home or the honey bees
• Swarming is a natural process through which honeybees reproduce and pass along genes to the next generation. Though often viewed as counter-productive for the beekeeper, if honey is the goal, it is in fact a sign that the colony is healthy and flourishing.
• Swarms rarely stay in one place for more than a day or so, so chances are the bees will take off on their own if left alone,
• If you encounter a swarm, Do not flap your arms or shoo them, this will cause them to see you as a threat. Do not hose the swarm with water, this will cause them to attack. Do not attempt to remove them yourself. If you have some bees approaching you, hold your breath, and move away quickly. Call a beekeeper, your local beekeeping association, (Red River Apiarists' Association website) or the provincial apiarist (Derek Micholson writeup on the Manitoba Veterinary Association website)
• Find more info in our very recent blog post right here: The Season of Swarming!

Let us know how we did!

We want to build a newsletter worthy of your interest. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about The Buzz or absolutely anything else, we'd love to hear about it! Find our contact info here or simply give us a ring at 204-612-2337. See you next time!