Stuck on propolis

I've had a plea:

I just came across your wonderful blog and am hoping that you may be able to help me. Though I realize that cleaning probably isn't your field of expertise you may have heard of similar disasters. My propolis-loving houseguest accidently dropped and shattered her bottle of the stuff in my bathroom. One of my newly painted white walls is now yellow as are a good portion of the floor tiles. The smell is overwhelming. I know that propolis stains terribly and am concerned that I won't be able to paint over the wall stain, does propolis contain oils? Any cleaning advice? Thank you in advance from a honey-lover.

Any offers? I have no experience in such gooey matters, but I did read this on the web:

I often use ethanol to clean the propolis on my hands, and I have known people use alcohol to 'digest' the propolis and drink the stuff, supposedly to get some stuff of medicinal quality (in China, of course).

Not recommended!

See a bee fly

Ever wondered how a bee manages to fly -- see here, but it's a BIG file (5mg).

First of all physicists said bees couldn't fly. Then they found out about lift through vortices flowing along the wings as they flapped. Now they've found that the wings roll and flap back into their own wake -- creating higher forces than flapping in still air. And then there is “added-mass force” which I'm afraid I don't understand at all -- but you can read all about it here.

Iceberg sings like a swarm

The speeded-up sound of an iceberg sounds like a swarm of bees or a orchestra tuning up say scientists.

“Once the iceberg stuck fast on the seabed it was like a rock in a river,” said scientist Vera Schlindwein. “The water pushes through its crevasses and tunnels at high pressure and the iceberg starts singing. The tune even goes up and down, just like a real song.”

I wonder what it says if you play it backwards.

Almonds 2006

The build-up to California's growing almond pollination crisis is beginning again in time for the January/February season. The Almond Board of California says 40% of colonies were damaged by varroa last year -- and yet the demands (and pollination prices) steadily increase.

There are 2 million colonies of bees in the US and by 2012, it is predicted that they'll all be needed in California's almond groves.

Death's head intercepted

Death's head hawk moths have been ambushed at the US border. According to this US report the moths attack tomatoes, potatoes and sneak into hives to steal honey.

The moths came from the UK -- brought in as pets -- where its pupae are traded on the Internet. I can't say I've seen them bothering my hives.

Exotics in Norfolk

An English couple stand accused of selling Chinese and Argentinian honey as Norfolk Honey (Norfolk is a county in eastern England). Another beekeeper blew the whistle and pollen analysis plus their own “meticulous” and incriminating records don't bode well for their chances. They are accused of supplying 17.7 tons (about £70,000 of $30,000) of falsely labelled honey to small traders in Norfolk between 2001 and 2003.

William and Lynn Baker (who do have a few hives) have pleaded not guilty. The trial is expected to last four weeks.

See Update.

If you like the buzz of bees ...

BBC has made some remarkable recordings of insect sounds for a new programme Life in the Undergrowth. The slurp of a worm disappearing underground and victorious ants singing on their way back from a win against termites are wonderful -- if you are quick you can hear it here.

Bees befuddled by global warming

Global warming is harming Europe says the World Wildlife Fund who quote an Italian beekeeper as one example:

Giuseppe Miranti, 26, an Italian organic beekeeper, said warmer temperatures are making flowers bloom outside their regular season, which changes the behaviour of his bees. It prevents him from producing honey made from the pollen of a single type of flower — the highest-quality honey — and keeps parasites that attack bees alive longer. “To get my job done now, I have to combat nature itself,” he said.

The bland leading the bland

There doesn't appear to be much happening in the bee world at present, so it's time for a rant.

Why oh why are some beekeepers so conservative when it comes to tasting new honey? Now, you'd think that a group of beekeepers would be falling over themselves to taste honey from the other side of the globe. I took some to a bee meeting last week and there was only moderate interest. And the response of some of those who tasted it? “Oooh, I don't really like it, it's got a very strong taste. I prefer my own.” And it's not the first time I've met that reaction. Anything different is met with suspicion.

It wouldn't really matter except I think that it's that sort of reaction that stops honey becoming the new wine. I wonder if Germans on first tasting robust red wines dismissed them with such haste.

Beekeepers would do themselves a lot of favours if they were at the fore in developing new terminology to describe honey flavours. Then maybe others would become more interested. < /rant >

The wisdom of Homer

After Marge Simpson has flight-fright and refuses to fly for a holiday to sunnier climes, Homer soothes her:

“It's OK Marge. We don't have to go away -- we'll wait for the killer bees to come to us.”

Turkey confronts counterfeiting

Turkey claims to be the second largest producer of honey with 70,000 tons per year, second only to China. According to Eva Crane's 1984 collated figures, Turkey produced 30,000 tons and was third after China and Mexico, just sneaking ahead of Argentina.

Doubling output in two decades is quite an achievement, but Bahri Yilmaz, head of the Turkish Apiarists' Union, is complaining about poor regulation enabling counterfeit honey to be sold abroad.

“This illegal honey is being exported with a 'Turkish honey' label. All the honey is sent back to Turkey when various chemicals are found in it," said Yilmaz.

Yilmaz said there were beekeepers' unions in 62 countries with some 17,000 members. He said some 40,000 people in Turkey were professional beekeepers. Some 180,000 families earn a living from beekeeping, according to him.

... the European Union (EU) imported some 200,000 tons of honey each year. "But Turkey can only export some 18,000 tons to Europe. If the honey producers are supported, this production can expand to become a source of very important economic income."

Bees for vets promise not kept

The Ugandan Beekeeping Association is complaining that a government promise to help Ugandan war veterans start beekeeping to supplement their incomes is not being followed-up.

It never rains but it pours

Having whinged about their drought, Aussie beekeepers are grumbling about the wet. The harvest is so good, trucks are getting bogged down trying to get it home.

Honey globalisation

India is expecting its honey exports to fall by half following the lifting of the Chinese honey ban by the EU.

The honey exports, which fetched around Rs 200 crore in foreign currency in the fiscal 2002-03, is likely to tumble to Rs 100 crore this fiscal, trade sources said.

India produces a total of 70,000 tonnes of honey every year, of which 25,000-27,000 tonnes are being exported to more than 42 countries including the EU, the Middle East and the US.

Neurons that fire together wire together

A memory trace in a living animal after it has encountered a single, new stimulus has been detected for the first time. The animal is of course the honeybee, and the memory is an odour.

Neuroscientists have looked into a living brain to explore short-term memory as never before. Roberto Fernández Galán, a leading author on the report and a postdoctoral research associate at Carnegie Mellon University explained:

“We are the first to observe this phenomenon at the network level. We are also the first to detect a distinct signature, not only of a sensory short-term memory, but one that developed after a single exposure to a previously unknown stimulus, so that there is no context. All previous studies in this field have observed only a sustained, non-specific increase in neural activity after a living animal is repeatedly exposed to a stimulus. These investigations haven't retrieved a signature of a stimulus, whereas we have.”

Their finding supports Hebb's theory of learning that

“neurons that fire together wire together,” thereby strengthening their connections. According to the theory, a stimulus activates some neurons while inhibiting others. Once this stimulus is removed, traces of that excitation/inhibition pattern -- so-called Hebbian reverberations -- should remain.

End of season wrap-up

This weekend I removed the remains of the Apiguard and in one case Apistan strips from colonies in two of my three apiaries.

All looked well -- even that colony that had been badly affected by varroa. Apistan acts quickly and the colony may recover -- although I don't really want it to since I have sufficient colonies and I certainly don't want to prolong the genes of a colony which may be extra-susceptible to the mite.

Show me the way to ...?

This story is worth it for its dateline alone:

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, NOV 13: Stockpiling in quality processed honey has upset bee-keeping business in Kerala and south Tamil Nadu. Farmers fear that cheaper Chinese honey imports have captured the wholesale market, leading to a glut.

Shocking stings

Anaphylactic shock (anaphylaxis) is a odd phenomenon and strikes individuals -- even beekeepers -- at unexpected times. Here's a story from New Zealand. I'd love to hear of more experiences -- please email me.

Bryan Page, 50, wasn't concerned Friday when a swarm of bees hit his windshield in Masterton. He said he's been stung many times over the years with no reaction, but this time it was different, the Wellington Dominion Post reported.

One bee flew into the cab and stung him on the neck. He said he pulled over, and pulled the stinger out and continued on, but began feeling “a little different.”

He decided to head for his doctor's clinic, about four miles away. He has no memory of crashing the truck right outside the clinic.

Doctors had to give him two shots of adrenalin to keep his heart going, the newspaper said.

Doctors said they're not sure if he now has a lifelong allergy or if it was a one-time reaction, but Page said it was a wake-up call.

“It has made me appreciate life a little more,” Page said. “I haven't even got a will, so that's the first priority.”

The cost of Katrina and friends

Florida's agriculture industry losses caused by four hurricanes this year are estimated to be $2.2 billion (slightly more than last year). Honeybee industry losses are put at $2.5 million -- more than 5,000 colonies were lost.

Bees smarter than the best computers

Bumblebees can interpret colours in complex light conditions (like dappled lighting) -- something that the best computers can not yet accomplish. Researchers at University College London think this that an understanding of this will help in making robots more sophisticated.

Bee gene research

A new bee research facility has just opened at the University of Illinois. Nothing about disease or varroa, though. It will focus on genes and their influence upon social behaviour. Professors Gene Robinson and Charles Whitfield will head up the $1 million lab.

There will be 50 hives onsite which are being moved in from two miles away -- and yes they did know to move them further afield first to avoid spatial confusion of the bees.

That 104th use of beeswax again

It wasn't just the ancients who were at it. West coast Ireland was too (and, who knows, might still be). I'm talking about using beeswax to fashion a cervical cap of course.

Waxing lyrical

I hadn't come across this tale from Laurens van der Post's The Lost World of the Kalahari. This excerpt has appeared in a new literary book on birds, The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany by Graeme Gibson as reviewed in The Guardian.

... a honey hunter is led by a curiously loud-voiced species called a honeyguide to the location of wild-bees' nests. Eventually, greed causes the hunter not to leave a share of the honey for his bird partner, and the creature takes revenge by guiding the man not to a bee's nest but to a puff adder that bites and kills him.

It is a classic Postian sermon about the dangers of neglecting our dues to the realms of nature. The only problem is that the honeyguide doesn't eat honey. It eats the grub-filled nest and -- most remarkable of all -- the wax comb itself, a substance indigestible to almost all other animals. In other words, the bird-human partnership is a perfect symbiosis. Now there's the stuff of an interesting myth: human desire and nature are at one.

Unlikely outcome

A woman crashed her car into an electric sub-station in Johannesburg yesterday -- and was stung to death by a swarm of bees. The gory details.

Honey on hospitals' menus

More on the manuka v MRSA story: Dr Rose Cooper (who I mentioned in March) has been awarded a £28,000 grant to fund research into how manuka honey can combat the MRSA superbug. Dr Rose Cooper is based at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff, and the grant comes from the British Society for Anti-Microbial Chemotherapy for 12 months' research. (Hat-tip to Martin.)

The MRSA superbug is rife in many British hospitals where it takes an estimated 5000 lives a year.

Invasion

An interesting -- if misleading -- wildlife documentary on TV tonight highlighted the plight of a hornbill's nest in a cavity in a tree. The cavity was of course perfect for a swarm of honeybees which duly invaded despite the resident bird trying to pick of each scout bee as it came to assess the residence. It makes you wonder what other creatures bees might dispossess.

The set-up was a bit too obvious though -- a dead hornbill chick was shown left stranded in the nest. Actually it looked like it had been dead for weeks. And the commentator twice insisted that a swarm would come if just one scout made it past the bird into the cavity. Well, we all know that lots of scouts need to visit before the swarm as a whole will be interested.

Scam 419 -- now it's getting personal

Doubtless, you've all received a Scam 419 email at some time. Well, I've just received one -- it's getting personal!

DEAR SIR:

MY LATE FATHER WAS FORMER CHAIRMAN OF BEE KEEPERS ASSOCIATION OF ZIMBABWE.MY LATE FATHER CONTRIBUTED MUCH TO THE SUCCESS OF BEEKEEPING IN ZIMBABWE THROUGH THE SUPPORT OF PAST GOVERNMENT WHO COMMITED HUGE FUNDS ON BEE KEEPING,WHICH WAS IN THE CARE OF MY FATHER AND WHICH HE SUCESSFULLY GOT A GOOD RESULT,HE AND HIS COLLEAGUES OBTAINED HONEY IN ABURDANT THEN, BEFORE MY FATHER'S DEATH.NOW, I NEED YOUR ULTIMATE AND FULL SUPPORT TO BEGIN THIS PROJECT IN YOUR COUNTRY BECAUSE,NEW AGRICULTURAL MINISTER NEVER SHOWN INTEREST IN THE PROJECT AND IT HAS COLLAPSED.

I HAVE BEEN OBTAINIG HONEY TOO AND IT'S IN PERFECT CONDITION OF THESE QUALITIES:

1. NOT WAXED
2.MOISTURE - MAX. 18%
3.DIATASE - MIN. 15%
4.ANTIBIOTICS - LESS THAN 10 PPB
5.GLYCEROL - MAX. 200PPM
6.YEAST - " 200.000/10 gr HONEY
7.STARCH CONTENT - MAX. 10%
8.COLOUR - AS PER AGREEMENT

OBVIOSLY,I WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT, THE FUNDS COMMITED IN MY LATE FATHER'S CARE THEN WAS A HUGE AMMOUNT ,WHICH I DISCOVERED LATER AFTER HIS DEATH THAT,HE SUCESSFULLY DIVERTED PART OF THE FUNDS INTO A SAFE KEEPING.AND I BELEIF WITH GOOD COORDINATION FROM YOU WE CAN BOTH USE THIS FUNDS TO INVEST IN BEE KEEPING PROJECT AND I WILL BE GLAD IF YOU CAN ASSIST ME IN DIVERTING THIS FUNDS TO YOUR CARE BEFORE NEW ADMINISTRATION'S AWARENESS.

AS SOON AS I RECEIVE MUTUAL RESPONSE FROM YOU WE CAN DISCUSS FUTHER ON THE DETAILS.
PLS. SEND YOUR REPLY TO THIS MAIL

No evidence against beekeeping company in Iraq

There is no evidence of wrong-doing by the New Zealand beekeeping company Ecroyd Beekeeping Supplies, in the Iraq Oil for Food Programme says the New Zealand Government.

“JB Sales and Ecroyd sought and received the proper approvals and exemptions required under the UN sanctions regime and New Zealand law to export to Iraq.

“One of the companies (Ecroyd) told MFAT officials in 2002 that they had been asked to pay an additional 10% tax. After consulting with the UN, MFAT informed the company that this was illegal and they should refuse to pay it.

“Therefore, significant further information would be needed from the Independent Inquiry to establish whether there were any grounds to pursue a prosecution against either of these two companies under New Zealand's anti bribery laws. Volcker himself acknowledges that companies may not have been aware of illicit payments,” Mr Peters said.

Beekeeping caught up in Iraq's Oil for Food scandal

A Kiwi beekeeping company has been accused of benefiting illegally from Iraq's Oil for Food programme. The Independent Inquiry Committee investigating corruption in the $US60 billion Oil for Food programme has named 2400 companies -- among them the well-established Ecroyd Beekeeping Supplies in Christchurch which it says supplied $US273,000 of honey extractors and pesticide with the New Zealand government's endorsement.

The New Zealand Government is investigating, but the suggestion is that the company is innocent.

Ecroyd owner Stuart Ecroyd said the beekeeping equipment was sent about three years ago. It had been “signed off” by then Foreign Affairs Minister Phil Goff. The ministry also intervened when the shipment was held up at Jordan and $70,000 was demanded for its release. Once the ministry got involved, the problem was “sorted out” within days.

The equipment was ordered and paid for by the UN, not the Iraqi government, he said. “It was all pretty high-level stuff, so we sure as hell didn't think there was anything dodgy going on.” Foreign Affairs spokesman James Kember said both firms had applied to the UN for exemptions to trade sanctions. The ministry had assisted with their applications and gave government approval.

See Update -- no evidence against Ecroyd.

Californian zero-tolerance import regulations eased

In an attempt to improve the Californian almond pollination problem, a pilot programme is being introduced that will ease the inspection regime for bees entering California.

... beekeepers and government agencies developed a ... voluntary apiary certification program to attract more out-of-state beekeepers by minimizing time and complications with border inspections. With the new pilot program, out-of-state beekeepers would not be held for a secondary inspection once they reach their destination within the state. They would be able to unload into the orchards to allow the bees to get busy with pollination.

The inspections will now focus primarily on stopping the accidental importation of the red fire ant along with the beehives.