Today’s online version of the San Francisco Chronicle published another follow-up article about last week’s rampage of bees in Concord, CA. The gist is that seven bees sent to the state Department of Food and Agriculture for testing, and the results showed that they did not possess Africanized alleles. This finding has led some to…
Month: May 2016
Accident report
Saturday, 21 May 2016 — We had spent two hours tootling around the bay on Murray’s boat and had a late (and for me, second) breakfast at Aldo’s at about 11:00. We came out of the upper harbor and turned right onto 7th Avenue. Murray was driving his car, I was in the front passenger seat,…
Warming, and bees (redux)
Five days ago the residents of a suburban neighborhood in Concord, CA, got to experience first-hand what happens when a colony of Africanized honey bees takes over a hive of European bees. According to the most recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the original colony had been managed by a beekeeper for 15 years without any…
The buzz in the pantry
I suspect that, for most people, opening the pantry and hearing the buzz of bees would be an alarming thing. For us, though, it’s just a reminder to see if the queen wants any food. Why, you may well ask, do we have bees in the pantry? Because this year we have a few hives…
How can you eat sand?
Well, we can’t—at least, not very well. I suppose we can eat it in small amounts, but sand itself is one of the most nutrient-poor substances imaginable. Sand is, after all, ground up bits of rock. It would provide certain minerals, depending on the type of rock, but none of the essential macronutrients—carbohydrates, proteins, and…
Snapshots of Snapshot Day
Since 2000 the first Saturday in May is Snapshot Day in Santa Cruz. This is a big event where the Coastal Watershed Council trains groups of citizen scientists to collect water quality data on the streams and rivers that drain into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, then sets them loose with a bucket of gear,…
Not always a death sentence
I’ve already written several times about seastar wasting syndrome (SSWS) and you’ve probably seen your share of photos of wasted, melting, self-mutilating stars. However, you may also be wondering about the current state of affairs regarding SSWS, and whether or not sea star populations have recovered at all since the outbreak began three years ago…