Surface Ripples in the Rain

You Had Just One Job To Do !!

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Bees Can Sense the Electric Fields of Flowers

via phenomena.nationalgeographic.com

"A bumblebee visits a flower, drawn in by the bright colours, the patterns on the petals, and the aromatic promise of sweet nectar. But there’s more to pollination than sight and smell. There is also electricity in the air.

Dominic Clarke and Heather Whitney from the University of Bristol have shown that bumblebees can sense the electric field that surrounds a flower. They can even learn to distinguish between fields produced by different floral shapes, or use them to work out whether a flower has been recently visited by other bees. Flowers aren’t just visual spectacles and smelly beacons. They’re also electric billboards."

Bag End Bonsai

via bonsaiempire.com

""A large hill (The Hill) lay to the north, and under its southern slopes Bilbo's father Bungo built the luxurious smial Bag End above the lane of Bagshot Row. This is the home of Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, where both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings begin and end."

The described scenery was more than enough inspiration for Chris to recreate it in miniature, with a stunning Bonsai as result. This article describes how this landscape was created."

A Little Rain on the Sun

via nasa.gov

"On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced a moderately powerful solar flare and a dazzling magnetic display known as coronal rain. Hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, and outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface. Music: "Thunderbolt" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of artist. Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio"

Silo Demolition - Sledgehammer Style

via biertijd.com

Watch Energy Transform From Potential to Kinetic !

Fewer bees in US a threat to world's almond supply

Fewer bees in US a threat to world's almond supply

February 17, 2013 by Gosia Wozniacka

(AP)—In an almond orchard in California's Central Valley, bee inspector Neil Trent pried open a buzzing hive and pulled out a frame to see if it was at least two-thirds covered with bees.

Trent has hopped from orchard to orchard this month, making sure enough bees were in each hive provided by beekeepers. Not enough bees covering a frame indicates an unhealthy hive—and fewer working bees to pollinate the almond bloom, which starts next week across hundreds of thousands of acres (hectares) stretching from Red Bluff to Bakersfield.

"The bloom will come and go quickly," said Trent, who works for the Bakersfield-based bee broker Scientific Ag Co. "The question is: Will the almond seeds get set? It depends if you have enough of a workforce of bees."

That has growers concerned as nomadic beekeepers from across the country converge on the state with their semi-trucks, delivering billions of bees to the orchards for the annual pollination. Most almond trees depend on bees to transfer pollen from the flower of one tree variety to the flower of another variety before fertilization, which leads to the development of seeds.

It's a daunting task: California's orchards provide about 80 percent of the global almond supply. And with almond acreage increasing steadily in recent years, the bees must now pollinate 760,000 acres (307,500 hectares) of trees. The number of bees needed is expected to increase as almond demand grows and orchards continue to expand.

Already, more than half of the country's honeybees are brought to California at the end of February for almond pollination, which requires about 1.5 million hives from out of state, and another 500,000 from elsewhere in the state. Honeybees are preferred for commercial-scale pollination, because they are social, build larger colonies than other bees, and their hives can easily be moved.

Bee brokers, beekeepers and almond growers around the state say there's a shortage of healthy honeybees for this year's pollination, especially after colony collapse disorder took a higher toll this winter. The disorder, in which honey bees suddenly disappear or die, wipes out thousands of colonies each year.

The shortage has some growers scrambling for bees—even sub-performers—as trees are about to bloom, driving up bee prices again this year, to an all-time high of more than $200 per colony.

"There's definitely a shortage of strong bee colonies," said Joe Traynor, owner of Scientific Ag, which connects growers with beekeepers. "There is a problem covering all the acres of almonds in the state."

Since it was recognized in 2006, colony collapse disorder has destroyed colonies at a rate of about 30 percent a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Before that, losses were about 15 percent a year from pests and diseases. No one has determined its cause, but most researchers point to a combination of factors, including pesticide contamination, poor nutrition and bee diseases.

This year, experts say, the die-off has been as high as 40 to 50 percent for some beekeepers.

"We have smaller populations in the hives and higher winter losses," said Eric Mussen, a bee specialist at the entomology department of University of California, Davis. "Bees across the country are not in as good a shape as last year. When you stress them far enough, the bees just give in."

This year, Mussen said, many bees did not get enough nutrition because a Midwest drought reduced forage. Conversion of pasture land to corn production for ethanol also reduced the number of flowers producing nectar.

To compensate for forage loss, beekeepers fed bees more high-fructose corn syrup and other supplements. But such substitutes don't provide all the nutrients pollen does, Mussen said. Malnourished bees are more susceptible to diseases.

Lance Sundberg, a beekeeper who hauled his hives for almond pollination from Columbus, Montana, lost 40 percent of his bees this winter due to the drought and mite problems.

"You have to buy bees elsewhere to pick up your losses, and not everything we have remaining after the loss is very strong," said Sundberg. "I had a tough time fulfilling my obligations to all the growers."

But at least he still has bees, Sundberg said. Some colleagues were not as lucky: they lost 75 percent or even 99 percent.

Traynor, the bee broker, said he's been fielding phone calls from desperate beekeepers and growers who are short several thousand colonies—but he has no more good bees to offer them. The shortage will only get worse in the future, he said, as almond acreage grows.

Having strong hives is critical, Traynor said, especially during rainy seasons, because bees have a short period of flight time when it's dry enough to pollinate. Fewer bees may not be able to reach all the blooms in time.

In recent years, the Almond Board of California, which represents more than 6,000 growers, has poured $1.4 million into bee health research. The group also worked on alternatives to reduce growers' reliance on honeybees, said Bob Curtis, associate director of agricultural affairs.

One is the so-called "self-compatible" almond tree, which can set nuts using pollen transferred among its own flowers, thereby needing fewer bees.

The group also is urging growers to plant forage to help sustain bees before and after almond pollination. And it's exploring using blue orchard bees, which are solitary bees that do not live in hives but nest in small cavities, to augment the honeybee workforce. But building up those alternatives will take time.

"It's tenuous right now," Curtis said. "We've got fewer bees. And if something goes wrong with the weather, some growers could be in trouble."

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

via phys.org