Animal testing: Turkish beekeeper finds thieving bears prefer premium honey

Ibrahim Sedef discovers to his cost that they don’t just settle for the bear necessities

Alison Rourke

Thu 29 Aug 2019 06.54 BSTLast modified on Thu 29 Aug 2019 21.05 BST

A beekeeper in Turkey who was harassed by a particularly persistent group of bears has discovered a profound truth: the animals have very expensive tastes when it comes to honey.

Ibrahim Sedef, an engineer from Trabzon, north-east of Ankara on the Turkey’s Black Sea coast, struggled to keep his bee hives out of the hands of local bears, despite building storage houses and metal cages.

Over three years he estimates he may have lost more than $10,000 worth of honey.

Food decoys, including apples, failed to divert the intruders.

So he decided to set up recording equipment to track the bears and inadvertently embarked on animal testing of a different kind.

Sedef set up four bowls; three contained different types of honey – flower, chestnut and Anzer – and one had cherry jam. He wanted to see which one the bears preferred.

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Honey bees can help monitor pollution in cities

March 11, 2019, University of British Columbia

Honey from urban bees can tell us how clean a city is and help pinpoint the sources of environmental pollutants such as lead, new University of British Columbia research has found.

In a study published today in Nature Sustainability, scientists from UBC's Pacific Centre for Isotopic and Geochemical Research (PCIGR) analyzed honey from urban beehives in six Metro Vancouver neighbourhoods. They tested for miniscule levels of lead, zinc, copper and other elements and carried out lead isotope analyses—akin to fingerprinting—to identify where the lead came from.

"The good news is that the chemical composition of honey in Vancouver reflects its environment and is extremely clean," said Kate E. Smith, lead author of the study and Ph.D. candidate at PCIGR. "We also found that the concentration of elements increased the closer you got to downtown Vancouver, and by fingerprinting the lead we can tell it largely comes from manmade sources."

Tiny elements, tiny measurements

Metro Vancouver honey is well below the worldwide average for heavy metals like lead, and an adult would have to consume more than 600 grams, or two cups, of honey every day to exceed tolerable levels.

"The instruments at PCIGR are very sensitive and measure these elements in parts per billion, or the equivalent of one drop of water in an Olympic-sized swimming pool," said Dominique Weis, senior author and director of the institute.

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Search for Welsh honey with antibiotic elements launched

14 July 2014 Last updated at 07:38

Scientists looking for a new antibiotic are hoping Welsh beekeepers will be able to provide a solution.

Beekeepers are being asked to send in samples of their honey to see if it contains antibiotic elements.

If any is found, DNA techniques will then be used to determine which flower is responsible.

The search will be led by one of the science and technology exhibitions at this year's National Eisteddfod in Llanelli.

Dr Arwyn Jones of the Cardiff School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences said: "It's an extremely exciting process and it would be wonderful to find antibiotic elements in honey on the eisteddfod maes.

"If we do manage to find something, it's possible we can create a special honey by leading the bees to plants with strong antibacterial elements."

New drugs

The eisteddfod exhibition looks at the role of the Barcode Wales in the fight against infection.

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Thousands of bees invade house

Tens of thousands of bees swarmed into the home of Zhang Liu in eastern China after he left the lid off a pot of honey overnight.

Zhang, from Nanjing, Jiangsu province, woke to find the massive collection had worked their way into his kitchen through an open window.

"I know they make honey, but I didn't realise they made house calls to get it back," he commented.

A local bee expert, who moved the swarm to a new hive, explained: "The new queen from a hive was looking for a new home and the swarm was resting on the journey.

"They would have sensed they honey and it would have confused their sense of direction."

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/bees_swarm_house_honey_pot

Bold bears ransack beekeeper farm in honey heist

A pair of sweet-toothed bears are on the run after breaking into a beekeeper's farm and stealing thousands of dollars' worth of honey.

The brazen bears sauntered into the Ballard Bee Company’s Washington rural HQ before escaping with an estimated $1,200 (£700) worth of sugary goods.

A fondness of honey among bears has been well documented in the tales of fictional teddy Winnie the Pooh, but going to such extreme lengths to get their paws on the golden syrup is a rarity.

'We had early trick-or-treaters at the farm today,' Ballard Bee said in a post on the company’s Facebook page. 'Sneaky devils.'

The light-fingered grizzlies left a trail of destruction behind them, breaking up two hives in last week's honey heist.

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/915280-bold-bears-ransack-beekeeper-farm-in-honey-heist#ixzz29f0SiCI6