bees

PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University Provost Dan Bernardo didn’t break a sweat as a few thousand honey bees formed a beard on his face for a good cause Friday afternoon.

COUPEVILLE, Wash. – When bees make hexagons in their hives, the six-sided shapes fit together perfectly. In fact, we’ve actually never seen bees make any other shape. That’s what I found out when I visited my friend Sue Cobey, a bee researcher at Washington State University.

By Linda Weiford, WSU News PULLMAN, Wash. – A new law that defines Washington’s commercial beekeepers as farmers will enable the state to better reap the benefits of healthy bee populations while boosting a critical profession, according to a bee expert at Washington State University.

By Rachel Webber, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences PULLMAN, Wash. – As the decline of honey bee populations garners international attention, David Crowder and Eli Bloom are turning to a different breed of bees for pollination services.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Let’s say you’re a bee and you’ve spotted a new and particularly lucrative source of nectar and pollen. What’s the best way to communicate the location of this prize cache of food to the rest of your nestmates without revealing it to competitors, or “eavesdropping” spies, outside of the colony?

Photos by Robert Hubner, WSU Photo Services PULLMAN, Wash. – A “Bee Care Tour” by international Bayer chemical company kicked off at Washington State University Thursday with educational displays and presentations for the public, researchers, farmers and beekeepers.

Varroa desturctor. The name evokes evil entities and comic book mayhem. But there is nothing funny about the Varroa honey bee mite. The tiny beast — an inadvertent stowaway on bees smuggled into the U.S. sometime before 1987 — now infests honey bee colonies across most of North America and is responsible for widespread destruction […]