Free Republic

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – A woman accused of releasing bees on Sheriff’s deputies to stop an eviction at a Longmeadow home this past October was in court on Wednesday. Woman given bees back after alleged attack during Longmeadow eviction Rebecca Susan Woods of Hadley appeared in Springfield District Court Wednesday morning. According to the Hampden County Sheriff’s Office, on October 12th, Woods pulled up to an ongoing eviction on Memory Lane in Longmeadow in a blue Nissan Xterra. Woods left her dog in the car and immediately went to the bee hives being towed by her SUV, and tried to...

Curious if there are many FReeper beekeepers. If I get a decent response, I would like to start a weekly beekeeping Ping list. In order to make this list successful, participation on everyone's part is vital.

On Sunday morning, the South Carolina honey bees began to die in massive numbers. Death came suddenly to Dorchester County, S.C. Stressed insects tried to flee their nests, only to surrender in little clumps at hive entrances. The dead worker bees littering the farms suggested that colony collapse disorder was not the culprit — in that odd phenomenon, workers vanish as though raptured, leaving a living queen and young bees behind. Instead, the dead heaps signaled the killer was less mysterious, but no less devastating. The pattern matched acute pesticide poisoning. By one estimate, at a single apiary — Flowertown...

n a newly published study, scientists from Washington University School of Medicine show how nanoparticles carrying melittin fuse with HIV, killing the virus and leaving surrounding cells unharmed. Nanoparticles carrying a toxin found in bee venom can destroy human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while leaving surrounding cells unharmed, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have shown. The finding is an important step toward developing a vaginal gel that may prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. “Our hope is that in places where HIV is running rampant, people could use this gel as a...

Go to work, come home. Go to work -- and vanish without a trace. Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why. The phenomenon was noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees also have been reported in Europe and Brazil. Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging...