Bee Zaagar - Apiary and Beekeeping News

Accident frees 1 million bees in Texas

LAKE WORTH, Texas - July 08, 2005 - A truck accident left authorities in north-central Texas battling up to 1 million bees freed from boxes containing honey and hives in the crash.

A truck driver had trouble negotiating a curve near the Lake Worth bridge northwest of Fort Worth, Texas, about 11 p.m. Tuesday, Lake Worth Police Chief Brett McGuire told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Officials closed Lake Worth Boulevard twice while trying to subdue the bees, with firefighters using foam to force the insects back into the boxes that fell off a flat-bed truck and broke open.

A state-certified beekeeper was called in Wednesday and -- along with his children, ages 12 and 15 -- rounded up the boxes and put them back on the truck. The beekeeper, David Lister, told the newspaper there were 25 boxes and each had a hive of about 40,000 bees.

They were just swarming everywhere for about a 300-foot radius, Lister told the newspaper.

McGuire told the Star-Telegram: We had several officers, public works folks and firefighters that got stung just in the course of doing business. We're still trying to clean bees out of cop cars.

Herbridean islands abuzz with discovery of rare bees

JAMES REYNOLDS

15 Jul 2005 - TWO colonies of a very rare bee have been found on an RSPB Scotland reserve on North Uist.

The discovery of the northern colletes bees (Colletes floralis) was made by chance by the local warden during routine checks around the site.

The northern colletes is a variety of so-called "mining" bee which burrows underground to store its honey. It favours sandy banks and dunes, covered in herb-rich meadows. It is believed to be the first time the bee - which is only found in the Hebrides - has been found this far north.

"This is really exciting news," said RSPB warden Jamie Boyle. "Three years ago I was delighted to find a colony at the south end of North Uist, but that was obliterated by the storms earlier this year, when the habitat of the bees was just washed away. To find another colony this far north on the island is really encouraging."

The bee is so rare that it is one of the species listed on the UK's Biodiversity Action Plan, and one that environmentalists are working hard to conserve