LITTLE WATER COLLECTORS

That water is essential for human life and activity is obvious. Perhaps less obvious is the need for water by other creatures, including even the smallest.

For example, one may recall seeing a gathering of butterflies at the edges of mud puddles. Typically, they may include small "blues", sulfurs, white cabbage and even swallowtails. Interestingly, butterflies do not drink water because they have to have water. They seek water for its mineral content--thus, the minerals in muddy water. After drinking, they expel the water and keep the minerals, which are essential for their lives. In a miniature way, these butterflies are water treatment facilities.

Honeybees offer a more complex example, because they actually collect water and haul it back to their hives. Foragers seek water from many different sources, including mud puddles, as well as edges of ponds, rain drops on leaves and bird baths. Honeybees use collected water in several ways. Water is an essential ingredient for making food for larvae. The recipe includes pollen, nectar and water ingested by bees and internally processed for the food for brood.

Water is also used for cooling within the hive. Think of the device car owners in the 1950s would hang on the outside of a windows of their cars, which cooled the interior by wind blowing through and evaporating water in the device. Bees spread water within the hive and evaporate it by fanning their wings to produce cooling. Bees also use water to make liquid again stored honey that may have crystalized. Again, in a miniature way, honeybees are water distribution systems.

That bees frequently are seen collecting water at bird baths suggests that they do not necessarily need "clean" water. Regardless, one should be encouraged to maintain bird baths relatively clean. However,water gathered by bees from cropland may become tainted with pesticides, which could become an adverse contributor to colony health.

Interestingly, while bees collect water, they do not like to get their feet wet and dislike rain. As new beekeepers soon learn, one should avoid opening a hive on a rainy day, as bees can be particularly unhappy in wet weather. Maybe, in that respect, bees and humans share a similar attitude. ©Daniel J. Kucera 2017

CLIMATE EXERCISE

Climate change fans appear to be drilling down to some fine details. A recent newspaper (remember those?) article reported on a new study suggesting that more mild winter months will cause people to get more exercise outdoors--an apparent benefit of global warming.

I'm not sure. Warmer winters could mean less snow, thereby reducing time for exercise by shoveling snow. It also could encourage people to get out and sit in their cars and drive more, particularly to stores, and to restaurants to eat more.

Frankly, I am likely to stay indoors regardless of winter temperatures in order to watch other people exercising in televised football, basketball, and hockey games. I would have mentioned golf, also, but is that exercise?

Warmer winters could also mean more indoor exercise, chasing after more spiders, ants, stinkbugs, beetles and other crawling varmints running around my feet due to reduced hibernation.

Maybe the real benefits of winter warming are in the lower gas and electric bills for heating and lower credit card bills for coats, sweater and boots. It may not be good for the economy but will be for the wallet.

According to the article, the limiting factor for people spending time outdoors is a high temperature of 84 degrees. I'm not sure about that either. My limiting factors are mosquitoes, biting flies and ticks. Warmer weather suggests more of them, which again likely will cause me to stay indoors, watching televised games--even golf, if necessary.

So, what is the point of all this climate exercise conjecture? You decide!


© 2017 Daniel J. Kucera

SEND IN THE DRONES?

For several years, media have reported on the collapse of honey bee colonies. Apparent thriving colonies suddenly die or disappear from their hives. Numerous possible causes for such growing loss of bees have been advanced, such as disease, mites, pesticides, herbicides harsh weather, etc. However, no primary cause has been identified for what commonly has been referred to as colony collapse disorder. Such losses of colonies are of serious concern, of course, because honey bees are primary pollinators of much of our food supply, affecting everything ranging from orchards to back yard garden plots.

In addition, bee losses are stressing apiaries which produce new colonies for beekeepers who are in the business of furnishing bees for pollination of crops across the country. Often, major suppliers of new colonies are sold out in the the Fall for deliveries the following year, unable to keep up with the demand from beekeepers who have sustained losses.

Research into the cause of colony collapse is ongoing. Meanwhile, the public have embraced an effort to repopulate honey bees by establishing new hives in urban areas such as the White House and rooftops of city high-rises as well as in back yards.

Recently, I read a published report which discussed an effort by a scientist in Japan to develop an artificial pollinator that could fly on to a blossom, grab some pollen and fly to another flower--an artificial honey bee, if you will. He fitted a small drone with horse hair and a gel to mimic the fuzz on a bee. His drone was able to pollinate lilies by collecting pollen from one flower and dropping off some of it at another flower. According to the report, he believes that a fleet of drones , guided by GPS and artificial intelligence, could pollinate along with bees.

Interestingly, honey bees already have drones. Drones are the male bees. They do not work, gather no pollen or nectar, make no honey, and do not even feed themselves. Their only function is to mate with a new queen bee should the need arise.

The use of artificial pollinators, even if their development and use could be perfected on a mass scale, could be problematic. Honey bees do not collect pollen to be charitable. They collect pollen because it is essential as a food ingredient for brood production. In a way, it is their bread. If artificial pollinators were able to compete with natural pollinators for pollen on any large scale, honey bee colonies may well experience still another limiting factor on their continued success and existence.

Send in the drones?