Peace Bees

03/28/2026

National Geographic 33 changemaker and National Geographic Explorer Samuel Ramsey is sequencing the genomes of every honeybee species to combat parasitic mites that threaten global food production. He has led expeditions in the Philippines and Thailand in search of their native pollinators, and further bee-seeking expeditions loom.

Read more about Ramsey’s global search for honeybee species: https://on.natgeo.com/r9q9AN

The National Geographic 33—inspired by our 33 founders—is an initiative honoring changemakers who are rising to meet the most critical challenges of our time, making meaningful progress and incredible breakthroughs.

03/19/2026

This is a friend, not a foe

Sorry about the ugly dirt tubes I'm building on your siding.

I know what you're thinking. Wasp nest. Colony. Stinging. Danger. None of that is true.

I'm a Mud Dauber. A solitary wasp. I don't have a colony. I don't have workers. There is one of me. I built this nest alone, and I have nothing to defend with a swarm because there is no swarm. You could stand two feet from my nest and I wouldn't care. I'm busy.

I'm building a pantry.

Each mud tube on your siding contains individual cells, and each cell is stocked with paralyzed spiders and one egg. I hunt spiders, sting them with venom that paralyzes but doesn't kill, carry them back to the tube, pack them in alive, lay an egg on the last one, and seal the cell with mud. When my larva hatches, it has fresh food waiting.

One nest means I've removed hundreds of spiders from the area around your house in a single season.

There are three types, and they don't all hunt the same prey.

The black-and-yellow mud dauber builds the classic tubes. She hunts crab spiders, orb weavers, and jumping spiders — the ones you find in and around your garden vegetation.

The organ pipe mud dauber builds parallel tubes that look like pipe organ pipes. She also hunts web-building spiders.

The blue mud dauber — metallic blue-black and iridescent — hunts black widows. She finds the widow's web, taps on the silk to mimic trapped prey, and when the widow comes out to investigate, she strikes. She paralyzes the widow and stocks it in a mud cell for her young. She specifically targets widows and their relatives. She doesn't even build her own nest — she finds an abandoned mud dauber nest, softens it with water, restocks it with paralyzed widows, and seals it back up.

🌿 How to read the nest:

- Sealed tubes with smooth mud caps — active. Larvae developing inside. Spiders still being delivered. Leave it alone
- Tubes with small round holes — the adults have emerged and left. The nest is empty. Scrape it off if it bothers you
- Open-ended tubes — still under construction. She's actively hunting and packing
- If a metallic blue-black wasp is working around the tubes, that's the blue mud dauber. She's the one hunting widows. Encourage her

🌿 What to do:

- If the nest is in a spot that doesn't bother you, leave it. Free spider control that works around the clock
- The sting — if it happens at all — is mild and comparable to a honeybee. But it almost never happens because she has nothing to defend. No colony. No queen. No reason
- Once the emergence holes appear, the nest is empty. Scrape it off or leave it for a blue mud dauber to reuse next year
- If you must remove an active nest, do it at night when the wasp is inside and less active — but consider that she's removing hundreds of spiders from your house this season

I look like something dangerous. I'm the opposite. Your porch has fewer spiders because I'm here 🌿

03/03/2026

Attention locals. Great opportunity for high school seniors. Alex won this and the national competition way back when. Every scholarship adds up. Good luck

ATTENTION ALL HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS IN ST. JOSEPH COUNTY-
See details on applying for for our Annual Stan Klaybor Environmental Scholarship below👇

02/12/2026

There's a colony in the hollow oak at the edge of your property. You haven't seen a bee since October. You assumed they died.

They're not dead. They've been vibrating for 98 days straight.

THE WINTER CLUSTER:

When temperatures drop below 57°F, honeybees stop flying, stop foraging, and form a sphere around the queen in the center of the hive. This sphere — called the winter cluster — is a living furnace powered by muscle vibration.

Every bee on the outside of the cluster vibrates its flight muscles without moving its wings. This generates heat. The core temperature of the cluster stays at 92-95°F — even when it's -10°F outside.

They haven't eaten anything since early November. They're burning through honey reserves at approximately 30-40 pounds per winter. Every ounce of honey consumed is metabolized into heat through muscle vibration — the same biological process as shivering, except they've been doing it continuously for over three months.

THE ROTATION:

The bees on the outer shell of the cluster — the ones exposed to the cold — slowly rotate inward. The warm bees move out. This rotation happens continuously, so no individual bee freezes. The cluster pulses like a single organism, breathing in and out over hours.

If the honey runs out before spring, the cluster shrinks. The queen reduces her metabolic rate. The outermost bees stop vibrating and die — sacrificing themselves to keep the core warm for a few more days. They die in formation, still holding the sphere.

WHAT KILLS THEM ISN'T COLD:

It's isolation. A wild colony in a tree hollow — insulated by 6 inches of deadwood — has a survival rate of 70-85% in normal winters. A managed colony in a thin-walled commercial hive box has a survival rate of 50-60%.

The dead trees you remove. The hollow limbs you prune. The snags you cut down for looking "unsafe." Those were insulated apartments built by 60 years of woodpeckers and rot. A 4-inch cavity wall is worth more to a bee colony than any commercial insulation wrap.

THE NUMBERS RIGHT NOW:

→ Approximately 30,000 wild honeybee colonies exist in natural tree cavities across the eastern US
→ Each colony pollinates an estimated 300 million flowers per season
→ Wild colonies are genetically more diverse — and more disease-resistant — than managed hives
→ Every hollow tree removed is a cavity that won't be replaced for 40-60 years

They've been vibrating for 98 days. They'll vibrate for 30 more. And then they'll fly out into a world that has fewer flowers than last year and fewer hollow trees than the year before that.

They're still alive in there. All 10,000 of them. Humming.

01/25/2026

12/15/2025

Did you know honey is an important part of Hanukkah?
Sweetness: Honey signifies wishes for a sweet, prosperous, and happy year, echoing the themes of other Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah (apples and honey).
Abundance: The Land of Israel is described as flowing with milk and honey, making honey a symbol of blessing and bounty.

08/17/2025

I came across this today—a close-up of a honey bee stinger!

🐝 A worker bee’s stinger is barbed. This means that when she stings, her stinger gets stuck in the skin, and she tears part of her abdomen trying to fly away—unfortunately, she dies afterward.

🐝Drones (male bees) cannot sting at all.

🐝Queen bees have smooth stingers, so they can sting multiple times. But queens rarely use their stingers on humans—they usually reserve them for fighting other queens to establish dominance in the hive. These battles can be lethal!

Honey bees are generally not aggressive. Their behavior often depends on how the hive is handled:
Rough handling, banging frames, or sudden movements can make bees defensive.
When checking your hive, always stay calm, slow, and steady in your movements to keep the bees relaxed.

07/31/2025

Not bee related but she was a beekeeper...our founder is moving to a different clinic. So exciting.

07/16/2025

06/18/2025