BEE’S CHANGE THE WEATHER

There’s a disturbance in the force! With thunderstorms on the Met Office’s predictions for Sunday, sensible Beekeepers leave their charges well alone.

It’s not clear why exactly – and there a several credible theories – but there’s considerable anocdotal evidence to affirm that a honeybee’s mood can change, unfavourably, when the mercury falls. It’s something I have (probably, allowing for my own confirmation bias) experienced before, and safe to say, bothering them with lightening in the forecast becomes something that wise veil wearers avoid a second time.

Although not obviously connected, there’s an interesting accidental finding from the University of Bristol, UK, regarding bees and atmospheric electricity. Meteorologists (lead by the superbly named Ellard Hunting) found honeybee swarms triggering their instruments with significant electrical disturbances of between 100 and 1000 volts per meter. That’s more than any passing storm cloud, apparently.

Amazingly, this massive bio-electrical discharge effectively changes the weather around a swarm as it passes, giving them their own technical micro-climate. Your weird bee factoid for the day then, bee swarms travel with their own electric field and can be tracked by EMF meters. That has to be worth a ‘wow’ surely? 
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