The Buzz About Bees: Why They’re Dying, and Why We Should Care
Dr. Judy Wu-Smart is an Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). She leads the UNL pollinator health program which seeks to understand the underlying stressors in bee health and their interactions with environmental toxicants. She also has taught beekeeping workshops and pesticide certification courses.
Overview
Have you heard the buzz about bees? Did you know that there are over 20,000 bee species worldwide — and a few thousand in North America? What is the difference between bees that are social vs. bees that are solitary? And why are our bees struggling to survive? Come learn about the complexity of bee behaviors and different life history traits that allow them to be our most efficient pollinators. Join Entomologist and Apicultural Specialist Dr. Judy Wu-Smart as she highlights the diversity of wild bees, talks about bee stressors, and discusses the importance of both wild and managed bees critical for sustaining agricultural food production and our natural ecosystems.
As the father of a commercial beekeeper i thoroughly enjoyed the entire presentation but especially appreciated Ms.Wu-Smart’s efforts to promote a positive attitude towards honey bees. (To add to her efforts I’d like to offer the following: if you’re not near the hive a honey bee will not sting you if you’re calm and it doesn’t get caught in your hair nor wander under your clothes and get squished. Merely ask someone to part your hair or unbutton the clothing and it’ll fly away. In fact you might enjoy watching the bee feed on a drop of something sweet you’ve put on your skin and then fly away. (To sting you is suicide and useless if it’s not to protect the hive. And for the bee eating out of your hand a honey bee with a full stomach won’t sting or it won’t be able to do its job of bringing the sugars back to the hive.)
If you’d like to start beekeeping and not have to pay ~$200 for a colony you could spend ~$150 on a bee hive and during swarm season (spring thru early summer) place some lemongrass oil in the hive (~$10 for hundreds of doses). Free bees and you’ve prevented that swarm from invading someone’s attic!
Or, you could send a wedding invitation to Samuel Jackson. (He gave a honey bee hive and colony to Scarlett Johansson as a wedding present)