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I've been keeping this blog for all of my beekeeping years and I am beginning my 19th year of beekeeping in April 2024. Now there are more than 1300 posts on this blog. Please use the search bar below to search the blog for other posts on a subject in which you are interested. You can also click on the "label" at the end of a post and all posts with that label will show up. At the very bottom of this page is a list of all the labels I've used.

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I began this blog to chronicle my beekeeping experiences. I have read lots of beekeeping books, but nothing takes the place of either hands-on experience with an experienced beekeeper or good pictures of the process. I want people to have a clearer picture of what to expect in their beekeeping so I post pictures and write about my beekeeping saga here.Master Beekeeper Enjoy with me as I learn and grow as a beekeeper.

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Sunday, April 10, 2011

Big Bee Tree as Research Aid


Remember the bee tree?  Well, the bees never moved out of the tree up into the provided boxes on the top.  Instead they have continued to live happily in the bee tree.

Katherine Darger is doing a research project at the University of Delaware on feral bees and their genetic make-up, with a particular interest in Africanized bees.  I'll learn more about it when she speaks to the Metro bee club on Wednesday night.  Meanwhile, she has arrived in Atlanta early to collect samples of feral bees in the Metro area to study for her research.

I volunteered the two trees I oversee for the company who removed the trees, preserving the bees.

Here's the original bee tree and the second rescued section from another tree:


























Katherine used a butterfly net to collect her samples.  She swirled it all over the place and ended up with quite a few bees in the net.  (This was 7:45 at night but the bees were still flying thanks to daylight saving time.






















She also collected by scooping the bees into an alcohol filled vial (these bees all died in the name of bee research).

























She also coaxed them into the alcohol vial from the collection in her butterfly net.











































In the end she went away with a good sampling from both trees.  I'm proud that the rescued bees can contribute to better knowledge about feral bees and their genetics.       

2 comments:

  1. As a geneticist I am very excited about her research. Way to go Katherine and Linda.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous10:51 AM

    Indeed! Nice ladies there, in Atlanta!

    ReplyDelete

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