You may have seen in the news over the last year or two about an “Asian hornet’. Officially called the Yellow Legged Hornet (YLH), partly as a helpful descriptor (they’ve got yellow legs!) to make their key features more memorable, but also to distinguish it from other Asian hornets such as the Giant Asian Hornet which is causing problems in North America. The YLH has been causing problems in France since 2004 but didn’t manage to cross the channel until about 10 years ago when there were a...

There’s a myth I’ve heard a few times, that bees shouldn’t be able to fly as their bodies are too big for their wings. Obviously, this isn’t the case as we see bees flying all of the time, so what’s going on? This myth is so pervasive that it’s the opening shot of “The Bee Movie” from 2007…but in all honesty that doesn’t surprise me as that movie gets so much wrong about honeybees, the main thing being that all the workers are female, not male as depicted in the film! But the wording from the...

Spring is upon us, with the snowdrops, crocus and daffodils out and cherry blossoms about to bloom. Inside the hives the population is still entirely female, the singular queen with her many thousands of female worker bees raising the brood (baby bees) and boosting the food stores after a long and wet winter. Within the next month or so, the queen will start laying male eggs and the adult drones emerge 24 days later. One of the first drones of the year Drones have an interesting life and that...