🐝 🐝 🐝 Bees 🐝 🐝 🐝 all over Cordoba : spring is in the air !

Welcome at The Bees : a trip up the hills near Cordoba to serve the bees there last wintermeal

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Medio march I joined José to one of his many bees-populations that live up in the hills north of Cordoba, Spain. All 🌼 🌼 flowers 🌼 🌼 are awake now so the bees will no longer need the fastfood they get during the wintertime. That is why today was the last 🍽️ winter-feed-food-tour.

During the wintertime the bees lack sufficient food outdoors and then, in every hive, 1 honeycombe is replaced by a special fluidcontainer. That container is then (often) filled with liquid food, to help the bees survive. Since some 35.000 bees live in each hive (so 70.000 in a doublestock hive) the bees drink "all" that fluid in less then 1 day. For that reason there are also plasticbags in the hives that contain solid food, which is there backup.

Bees 💚 take care 😋 of Us !

Bees collect nectar and pollen being those the food for themselfs and there babies. By doing that they by accident also take care of the pollination of plants. Just 🍏 try 🍓 to 🫘 imagine 🌶️ how 🍷 empty 🥧 (and 🍚 expensive ) 🥐 your 🥗 favorite 🥔 supermercado 🍅 will 🥖 soon 🍿 be 🍺 without 🥪 the 🍪 help 🎂 of 🍫 our 🥞 friends 🫒 the 🥕 bees 🍞. So 🍯 it is 🍬 obvious the bees 🍝 take 🥑 care of 🥝 Us !

Cucambers 🥒

But let's not be negative then we do not need bees anymore anyway. Then already since several years ago the Syngentas, Unilevers and Monsanto - Bayers offer genetically engineered resistant seeds to farmers If they only do business with them . And Our Politicians have actually allowed patents to be taken out on this.

This has luckily lately been corrected for the better, for as long as it lasts, (but) only 862 lawyers to go. Those patents would be necessary to "justify" the huge investments , which of course have not been canceled out against the also stipulated huge subsidies and tax avoidances.

Terminator technology ☣️

However, so sorry and very unfortunately, a mistake was made during the making engineering of these seeds. So-called "terminator technology" got into the seeds, ofcourse completely by accident 🤬 and fully unintentionally. This technology causes plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers, seedpotatoes and about 1 million other species to destroy their own fruits.

In other words, you can not use the seeds of all their plants for a subsequent harvest. You can still plant your own (there) tomatoes, seedpotatoes, cucumbers, etc., for a second year but they will then "remain invisible".

I have "invented" the dutch word ""komkwammers" for this system but that word can not be translated without loosing it's real meaningness. But something like "cucambers" or "come-camers" comes close.

So as you can hear in this video bees know how to Swing, but that has a consequence : they only live shortly. Bees that work outside the hives, so the nectarbees, seem to live only between 2 to 17 days and bees that live inside the hives, so do not fly out, are called workbees and live about 2 to 3 weeks.

At the end of the summer(food)season the queen will lay less and less eggs, and so less babies are born. That means less and less work to do and therefor the nectarbees and the workbees then can live up to 7 months. Luckily (?) evolution changed it's path when it invented menkind ...

And this is the favorite song of the bees : Minor Swing by the Sant Andreu Jazz Band 🖱️.

But how do bees manage to be so efficient (then they are) ? In other words, how do bees know what flowers to Visit and Not to visit ? Then they do know exactly where to stop ! At this bee-location are some 30 beehives so some 3 million bees live here. Where are they flying to and Why ?

Sir David Attenborough shows us how Clever Nature is. Bees are like electricians (as I am) but they do not need any instruments (where I would be "quite" helpless then). Enjoy this very special film. And Wonder ...

Plants have a small negative electrical charge, so they have an electrical field surrounding them. And the higher up in the plant the stronger that fieldstrength is. This kind of nature can not be detected by humans, but it can be felt by certain animals. The flower in this film has a simple electrode installed (just a needle actually) that picks up that (electricity of that) field. And that black box converts that varying field(-strength) into a varying sound that we humans can hear.

Bees have a positive electrical charge which is caused by there flying since they loose electrons then.

So plants have a negative charge and bees have a positive charge. This causes an electrical interaction when those two charges come into each others range, and that black box converts that change (of the flower) into a varying "human" sound.

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When the bee nears the flower the negative pollen of the flower "jump over" to the positive bee. So the pollen actually start hitchhiking. And then, as soon as the bee does land, so touches the plant, the charges equal out, as they always do. The positive bee is more or less electrically "grounded" by the negative flower and so the resulting charge is more or less neutral (zero).

So then the plant has another level of charge, caused by the visit of a bee. Bees detect that difference in charges and so know where Not to land to pick up food. "To late, no nectar here now, please return later".

During the process of producing new nectar the flower also produces a new negative charge. So some time after some visit of a bee another bee will be signalled "Yes nectar here, you are welcome".

Wild bees ???

According to José, the beekeeper, there do not live wild bees anymore here in the hills near Cordoba. He has seen them "vanish" in the years past and to his opinion that is caused by the use of pesticides. Wild bees pick up those bad chemicals because they try to make a living everywhere.

They are not offered the nice, wellkept and sterilised McBeehives located in the nice hills surrounded by nonsprayed flowers and trees. They visit the sprayed olive- and orangeyards and can't understand what is (not) going on.

Which actually means that the fertilisation of the flowers and trees here (in this huge area) is now fully depending on the bees of José.

At the same time honeybees seem to be enemies of wild bees and that might "simply" be a matter of competition for food. With some 70.000 honeybees in a doublestock hive and some 10 to 25 hives at one location, the wildbees will easily be outnumbered there ... Also since the honeybees will ofcourse be located at the bests foodspot in any area.

"The Last Bee" of the british poetrist Brian Bilston

After the last bee had buzzed its last buzz
the birds and the butterflies did what they could.
But soon on the fields few flowers were left,
nature was broken and the planet bereft.

Fake honey ...

Almost half of "authentic" honey in Europe is fake according to a recent study by the European Union. The investigation has uncovered massive fraud and shows that many consumers may be purchasing counterfeit honey that is being traded as authentic. Most fake honey comes from Turkey (93 percent fake) and China (74 percent fake).

The European Commission's Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the Joint Research Center (JRC), which led the investigation, tested 320 samples. And of these, 147 samples, about 46 percent, would be imported honey that has been diluted with sugar syrup. As a result, these products do not meet the requirements of the EU Honey Directive.

But what will the EU do about this ? They don't tell. As so often the report seems to be the goal, not any solution.

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These are my (your) 🏆 pricewinning panoramapictures. Just open the posters and count the number of bees on them. Then send me your answer and I will let you know what 😁 price you have won.

Travelling by nighttrain

And now, end of march, the bees (there hives) are moved over to other locations. They follow the season of the flowers so they can keep on producing that delicious honey for us. To assure all bees make that trip and no(t) one get's lost the hives are transported to the next locations during the nights since the bees then sleep. They more or less travel by nighttrain.

"Hey, what's this, we have not been here before ! Yammy ! " 💚 YesBees 💚 !

And here are more of them : the beautiful black bees in France 🖱️ and the bees in Morocco 🖱️.

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The YesBees-Team : José, his father and his brother in the workshop. José's wife is managing and running the shop that you can visit at the Calle de la Manifestacion, 18, 14011 Cordoba 🖱️. You can hardly imagine how many tastefull, nice products they make with Honey !

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And guess what ?! Only a few weeks later the first honey of this 2023 season was produced in the workshop of José.

Part 2 : the first honey of this 2023 season 🖱️

So Now you like bees, and from now on you always 😁 will !

You find the related cyclingblog here 🖱️

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