Maybe you weren’t aware, but bees are big business: With bee colonies mysteriously vanishing, hive owners can make a good income renting out their insects to farmers who need extra help with pollination. Those beekeepers will be happy to hear that authorities in California have busted a man suspected of stealing almost $1 million worth of bees and equipment. [More]
bees
Honey Nut Cheerios Bee Goes Missing To Highlight Vanishing Bee Colonies
By 3.9.17
If you were to go down your cereal aisle and see all the cartoon bees on the boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios replaced with white voids in an effort to highlight the problem with the decreasing bee population, you might think it was some sort of protest art project instead of a campaign being run by one of the world’s largest packaged food companies.
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Swarm Of Bees Gets Loose In Parking Lot Of Walmart, Sends 3 Customers To Hospital
By 8.8.16
The Oklahoma Walmart Bee Invasion began with a routine transaction. No, Walmart isn’t selling bees now: two beekeepers met up in the store’s parking lot to complete the sale of three hives of around 10,000 bees each in a public place. Instead, the bees got loose, stinging people in the parking lot. Three people had severe enough problems that they were transported to the hospital. [More]
Garden-Care Company Ortho Phasing Out Chemicals Linked To Declining Bee Population
By 4.12.16
Ortho, a major player in the garden-care industry and subsidiary of Scotts Miracle-Gro, has tongues buzzing over the news that it will start to “transition away” from using chemicals in its pesticides that are believed to be harmful to honey bees. [More]
Maryland Passes Bill That Would Keep Pesticides Harmful To Bees Off Retail Shelves
By 4.8.16
Although some retailers have stopped selling pesticides that are thought to be harmful to bees, amid concerns over the declining population of honeymakers, Maryland will become the first state to have a legal measure barring the products. [More]
Bees Swarm American Airlines Plane, Delaying Flight
By 10.15.15
Back in June, we learned that a small wasp’s nest had the power to divert a plane full of passengers. Today, we discovered that a swarm of bees outside the aircraft has the ability to delay a flight. [More]
Ace And TrueValue Hardware Consider Maybe Not Selling Insecticides That May Harm Bees
By 9.11.15
Bees are important: they aren’t just cool-looking and producers of delicious sweeteners, but they’re essential to pollinate plants and to produce the food that those plants grow. Yet sudden deaths of bees have been linked to a new class of pesticides, neonicotinoids, which some experts say has a devastating effect on the nervous systems of bees. [More]
New York Homeowners Evicting 1 Million Bees Living In Their House
By 6.26.15
A house with 40,000 bees? Sure, that sounds crazy. But homeowners in New York have that story beat, after finding an estimated one million bees buzzing around in the siding of their home. [More]
Suspicious Buzzing Noise Leads To Discovery Of 40,000 Bees Under Floorboards Of NYC Home
By 5.19.15
No one likes unwanted houseguests squatting in their home, even if said residents are busy making something tasty. So when officials in New York City found a hive of roughly 40,000 bees living under the floorboards of a Queen apartment, experts felt it was best to evict. [More]
Tow Truck Driver Just Trying To Do His Job When He’s Swarmed By Cranky Bees
By 6.19.14
First of all, let’s just get the scene from My Girl that no one wants to think about out of the way now… Ready? A tow truck driver in Maine was just trying to go about doing his job like he’s supposed to, when he had the misfortune of having a run-in with a cranky swarm of honeybees. [More]
It Should Go Without Saying: Do Not Install Satellite TV Dishes Near Beehives
By 11.1.12
We are big advocates for safety here at Consumerist, and that goes not only for the everyday consumer, but also the workers on the job providing services for others. And while one might not think this warning needs to be voiced, we’ll say it anyway: Do not install satellite TV equipment (or really, anything) near a beehive without first making sure it’s empty. You never know when you’re going to anger the little buggers. [More]
Blue & Green Honey Might Look Pretty But Beekeepers Are Miffed At M&M-Related Coloring
By 10.5.12
At first I was like, “Ooh cool, honey colored like M&Ms!” But then after reading about how that’s not good for bees and the honey they make is unsellable, I was like, “Ugh, stupid M&Ms honey.” Apiaries in northeastern France are battling a disturbing trend of blue and green honey and blame the phenomenon on nearby biogas plant that’s processing waste from containers of the colorful candy. [More]
Man Fined $2,000 For Not Watering His Beehive
By 7.20.11
While New York may be trying to raise revenue by cracking down on city beekeepers, this looks like one sting operation that got its stinger broken off in the wound: inspectors fined a Queens man $2,000 for “not watering his beehive.” [More]
Keeping Brooklyn's Bees Out Of The Red Dye No. 40
By 12.1.10
Remember those bees in Brooklyn that were pumping out a bright red honey thanks to the presence of a nearby maraschino cherry factory (and its vast amounts of super-sweet HFCS colored with Red Dye No. 40)? Well that factory is now working with bee experts to figure out a way to keep the buzzers out of the syrup without calling the exterminator. [More]
Angry Bees Attack New York GameStop
By 5.24.09
A swarm of bees gathered yesterday outside the GameStop in Union Square, possibly to demand a higher trade-in value for their games. Store employees were trapped inside for hours and eventually hung a sign reading: “Look! … closed due to bee infestation.”
Giant Bee Swarm Overtakes Foreclosure
By 3.19.09
A shit-ton of bees have infested this foreclosed home in Florida, creating a hive the size of a small child on the exterior, and chasing and harassing the neighbor’s daughter. See, that’s them in this picture. According to the article, bees and raccoons are infesting foreclosures across Florida. Nobody can find the owners or banks that are supposed to own and take care care of them. [More]
Who's Watching Our Nation's Honey Imports? Pretty Much No One
By 1.27.09
The Seattle P.I. reports that “two-thirds of the honey Americans consume is imported and almost half of that, regardless of what’s on the label, comes from China.” The first problem with that is some Chinese honey is “tainted with banned antibiotics” such as ciprofloxacin and chloramphenicol. The second problem, according to U.S. honey producers who are upset about the lack of oversight, is that whenever contaminated honey is discovered, many companies just sent it back to the importer and never tell the FDA—which means it can be resold elsewhere, including to other U.S. packers.
EPA Moves To Ban Potentially Dangerous Pesticide From Domestic And Imported Food
By 7.25.08
The EPA has announced that it intends to ban a pesticide, carbofuran, from both domestic and imported food because of the danger it poses to “general population” particularly small children. The pesticide isn’t commonly used in the United States but is popular in developing nations and is sprayed on “crops including rice, bananas, coffee and sugar cane,” according to the Washington Post.
