New bee blogger

There's a new bee blogger on the block who kindly emailed me. Phang is a new beekeeper, in a city somewhere in the USA (I haven't figured out where yet, but they've been having rather nasty weather recently). She is concerned about a factoid she has heard somewhere:

They say that every time the beekeeper opens the hive, about 150 bees die, and for a somewhat nonsensical city dweller this is the kind of number that rocks every decision about managing the colonies.

I've not actually heard that one before. I suspect that for some beekeepers the figure is very much higher (no pointing fingers!), but if you are careful, you should be able to keep the fatalities many fewer than that.

Instead of rather outdated honey shows, maybe really competitive beekeepers would like to start a competition to see you can handle their bees most gently -- the winner being the one with the fewest squashed bees.