Plant pollination yields seeds, the key to agriculture
Pollination is necessary for the sexual reproduction of flowering plants. Sexual reproduction provides a means of mixing the genetic material of individuals so that the next generation has...
View ArticleOn entoms, pesticides, and human extinction
Except for bees, my study of entoms has been sparse. Today I often wonder why I didn’t study insects—instead of agronomy—when I was an undergraduate. But when I look back at my courses, I remember. I...
View ArticleA night in the lecture hall: students, bees, and pesticides
Last night I had the opportunity to speak to a class of graduate students about bees, pesticides, EPA regulations, and the thesis-writing process. What astonished me was the interest shown by the...
View ArticlePollinators are not going to change, so we have to
It is easy to blame the loss of bee habitat on “them”—them being industrial farms, expansive orchards, sprayed fields, and freeways kept neat with herbicides. But in truth, our modern cities and...
View ArticlePollen can carry disease to native bees
While studying pesticides in pollen, I was always curious about the potential for pollen to carry disease organisms as well. Indeed, a new study that appeared in the December 22 PLoS ONE confirmed my...
View ArticleWednesday wordphile: floral fidelity
Although honey bees are polylectic, which means they visit many different species of flowering plants, they also exhibit floral fidelity, which means that a bee visits only one kind of flower on any...
View ArticleCarrot honey . . . really!
Carrot honey is indeed unusual—unusual because domesticated carrots, Daucus carota, are a biennial crop that develop their famous taproots during the first summer of growth. When you want to grow a...
View ArticleWild pollinators cannot replace honey bees . . .
At least not in the way we’d like. In the past few years a flood of articles has heralded native pollinators as “saviors”—groups of selfless, tireless, seldom-seen gladiators that are going to step in...
View ArticleAn unnatural dilemma
For the past few weeks, I have been gleaning tidbits from both natural beekeepers and the conventional kind. On one day, a speaker explained that Nosema would go away if we just stopped using...
View ArticlePlant pollination yields seeds, the key to agriculture
Pollination is necessary for the sexual reproduction of flowering plants. Sexual reproduction provides a means of mixing the genetic material of individuals so that the next generation has...
View ArticleOn entoms, pesticides, and human extinction
Except for bees, my study of entoms has been sparse. Today I often wonder why I didn’t study insects—instead of agronomy—when I was an undergraduate. But when I look back at my courses, I remember. I...
View ArticleA night in the lecture hall: students, bees, and pesticides
Last night I had the opportunity to speak to a class of graduate students about bees, pesticides, EPA regulations, and the thesis-writing process. What astonished me was the interest shown by the...
View ArticlePollinators are not going to change, so we have to
It is easy to blame the loss of bee habitat on “them”—them being industrial farms, expansive orchards, sprayed fields, and freeways kept neat with herbicides. But in truth, our modern cities and...
View ArticlePollen can carry disease to native bees
While studying pesticides in pollen, I was always curious about the potential for pollen to carry disease organisms as well. Indeed, a new study that appeared in the December 22 PLoS ONE confirmed my...
View ArticleWednesday wordphile: floral fidelity
Although honey bees are polylectic, which means they visit many different species of flowering plants, they also exhibit floral fidelity, which means that a bee visits only one kind of flower on any...
View ArticleCarrot honey . . . really!
Carrot honey is indeed unusual—unusual because domesticated carrots, Daucus carota, are a biennial crop that develop their famous taproots during the first summer of growth. When you want to grow a...
View ArticleWild pollinators cannot replace honey bees . . .
At least not in the way we’d like. In the past few years a flood of articles has heralded native pollinators as “saviors”—groups of selfless, tireless, seldom-seen gladiators that are going to step in...
View ArticleAn unnatural dilemma
For the past few weeks, I have been gleaning tidbits from both natural beekeepers and the conventional kind. On one day, a speaker explained that Nosema would go away if we just stopped using...
View ArticlePlant pollination yields seeds, the key to agriculture
Pollination is necessary for the sexual reproduction of flowering plants. Sexual reproduction provides a means of mixing the genetic material of individuals so that the next generation has...
View ArticleOn entoms, pesticides, and human extinction
Except for bees, my study of entoms has been sparse. Today I often wonder why I didn’t study insects—instead of agronomy—when I was an undergraduate. But when I look back at my courses, I remember. I...
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