We’re outta here!
I’ve got bees on the brain at this time of the year. Not only are we beekeepers worried about what they have available to harvest, as discussed last week, we are also thinking about where springtime swarming bees might find a new home.
Swarming is a natural process that honeybees use to create a new colony. Bee colonies are what is referred to as a superorganism. They are a societal insect that functions as a whole rather than as individuals. Termites and some species of ants behave the same way.
A healthy honeybee colony must have a queen, worker bees and drones, and each individual is aware of its role in the survival of the entire colony. I always say that they are the perfect model for how we should behave in a community, all working for the good of the whole, rather than purely as individuals.
In the early spring, as the queen begins to lay eggs to produce brood (baby bees), the colony assesses how much space they have for the pending growth of their population. If they determine that they don’t have enough room, they will prepare to swarm. Swarming is a natural process of dividing the colony, a way to create two strong colonies out of one.
When a colony decides it’s time to split, the bees tending the queen will start feeding her less, slimming her down to the point that she can fly. A productive laying queen is too heavy with egg production to fly, and they need her ready for the trip.
The bees will also begin producing a new queen by choosing eggs that are at the right stage of development and feeding them a large amount of royal jelly that will cause those larvae to develop into queens rather than worker bees. The first queen that hatches then kills the other pupating contenders. She’s the winner!
As the colony sees that the new queens are nearing their birth, around half of the colony will take off with the old queen, following the guidance of the scout bees that have been searching about for a possible new home.
That home can be a hollow tree, the wall of a building, an attic, etc. Any cavity that the scouts find that feels appropriate in size and safety for the housekeeping needs of a bee colony is fair game.
Why should you care about the expansion plans of your local bee population?
We need bees to be healthy and safe so they can pollinate a significant part of our food supply, not to mention our trees and flowers, so we need to all work together to keep them well homed, and the last thing you want is for a colony to take up residence in the side of your house. Trust me.
It’s important to know the things to watch for at this time of the year so that you can help connect bees with a keeper such as myself (and all of the Beeshees) so that they can be properly homed in a hive, which is the safest way to support their survival. Here are some things you should look for.
If you see a ball of bees in a tree or on a building or fence, don’t panic! These bees are just resting on their way to a new abode. If you see this, call a beekeeper and then keep an eye on them until the keeper can arrive. Don’t spray them with anything, but especially not pesticides.
There is no need to be fearful of swarming bees, they are especially docile in this process. Just stay calm, take pictures, share it with your kids so they can learn a healthy respect and care for this exciting process.
If you see a cloud of bees flying about in the air, seemingly in complete chaos, don’t panic! These are a swarm of bees in transit. It looks crazy, and yes, quite scary, but there is a method to their apparent madness.
Watch where they go and, if you see them beginning to land somewhere or enter a cavity such as those described above, call a beekeeper.
If they are entering an opening into a building, it is going to be more complicated to get to them and requires someone who knows what they are doing. But, your favorite beekeeper is a good place to start and, if you see you are going to need someone experienced with removal, contact the Rome Floyd Beekeeping Association through our Facebook page and we can get you connected with the right people.
If you see bees going into a hole in the wall of your house, or if you start seeing bees inside, sometimes dead along the windows, don’t panic! Call a beekeeper as soon as you can, because this may mean that you have scout bees checking out your gaps and a swarm might be close behind. If caught in time, a beekeeper can determine if they are scout bees and help you with how to plug the spot and set a bait box to draw the potential swarm to it instead. Knowing those signs can save you from the heartache of a much bigger problem of bees moving in where they are not wanted.
If you realize that you have bees living in a cavity of your home or business, don’t panic! If you try and kill the bees with pesticide you might get rid of the bees, but you will be left with a rotting, melting mess of wax, honey and brood that will create a much more destructive problem. Contact a beekeeper or the RFBA and we can help you figure out your best solution.
Together we can help keep our honeybee population strong and healthy, which means more flowers and fruits and vegetables, and more of that delicious local honey that is so good for us. Now get out there and scout those swarms!
♦ Legislation in Congress was the focus of several false claims this week with the $1.9 trillion dollar COVID-19 relief bill taking center stage.
A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
———
House members were not given bonuses in $1.9T COVID bill
CLAIM:
The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill awards a $25 million bonus to members of the House of Representatives.
THE FACTS: The “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021,” as the bill is titled, contains no allocation for bonuses or raises for House or Senate members. A Facebook post that circulated around the approval of the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill Wednesday promoted the false information, stating: “Did you know? Line 17 of the $1.9 TRILLION CV #Stimulus awards a $25 MILLION BONUS to House Reps?” It is not clear what “Line 17” means in the post since there’s a line 17 on nearly every page of the 628-page bill. There are several passages that cite $25 million in funding, but no mention of congressional pay raises or bonuses. The sweeping package, approved by a 220-211 party-line vote, would give most Americans $1,400 checks and billions of dollars would be directed to schools, state and local governments and businesses. “That claim is false. In fact, there is no funding for the House of Representatives or Senate in the bill at all,” Evan Hollander, communications director for the House Appropriations Committee, confirmed to The Associated Press in an email. The AP knocked down a similar false claim in March 2020 when a $2.2 trillion rescue package was passed.
— Associated Press writer Arijeta Lajka in New York contributed
this report.
———
Social media posts misrepresent bill expanding background checks for firearms
CLAIM:
Proposed federal gun legislation expanding background checks for firearms would create a “national registration of firearms” and put gun owners in jail for transferring or handing their gun to someone, even if they are in a dangerous situation.
THE FACTS: The bill, HR 8, prohibits using the legislation to establish a national firearms registry and includes exceptions that allow temporary transfers of firearms between family members, transfers between people for self-defense and for use at a shooting range. The bill, requiring background checks on all gun sales, passed the House this week after stalling in the Senate about two years ago. Democratic Rep. Mike Thompson of California, who chairs the congressional
task force on gun violence prevention, is the primary sponsor of the bill. Advocates say the legislation is intended to curb gun violence and keep guns out of the hands of people who are barred from owning firearms. Background checks are in place preventing people with criminal records from purchasing a firearm, but there are loopholes where people can buy guns through private sales, often called a “gun show loophole,” said Jake Charles, executive director at the Center for Firearms Law at the Duke University School of Law. Multiple social media posts described the legislation inaccurately, calling it a gun registration bill. Charles said that description is “completely false.” Not only does federal law prohibit a national gun registry, the bill clearly states: “Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed to authorize the establishment, directly or indirectly, of a national firearms registry.” One false Facebook post claims: “If enforced to the letter, H.R. 8 could put millions of gun owners in prison by outlawing the transfer of any firearm without a proper Brady Check. The term ‘transfer’ is nowhere defined, but it’s clear from the bill that handing your gun to a neighbor for as little as even one second counts as a ‘transfer.’ The bill claims to offer some socalled ‘exceptions,’” the post continues, “but these will be practically useless to gun owners. For example, if you hand (or ‘transfer’) a firearm to a friend because you hear a noise in your house in the middle of the night — and it turns out to be a false alarm — you’re a criminal. Under H.R. 8, since every gun transfer will go through a dealer, every gun owner will have a 4473, setting the stage for a national gun registry.” Alex Macfarlane, a spokesperson for Thompson, said several issues raised in the post were incorrect. “H.R. 8 does NOT require background checks to be conducted when a firearm is transferred to a family member,” Macfarlane said in an email. “The bill also includes a number of exemptions that would allow the temporary transfer of a gun under a variety of circumstances and purposes including: preventing imminent death or great bodily
harm, or activities like hunting, going to a shooting range, or while in the presence of the gun owner.”
— Arijeta Lajka
———
Posts misrepresent CDC study on mask mandates
CLAIM:
A new study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that mask mandates have a negligible impact on coronavirus numbers.
AP’S ASSESSMENT:
The study found that mask mandates were associated with statistically significant decreases in county-level daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates. Social media users and conservative websites this week shared a recent report from the CDC with false claims that it shows mask mandates don’t stem the spread of the coronavirus. “Here is your proof from the CDC itself that masks don’t work,” one Facebook user wrote. “Study released on Friday says masks resulted in only 1-2% spread reduction over 100 days. Basically useless.” The conservative television network One America News reported that the study showed masks have “negligible impact” and mask mandates “do not make any statistical difference.” Those
claims distort the findings, according to CDC scientist Gery Guy Jr., the study’s lead author. While the changes in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates in the report may seem small, they were statistically significant, he said. The CDC researchers examined U.S. counties placed under state-issued mask mandates, looking at data from March through December of last year. They found that within the first 20 days of implementation, mask mandates were associated with a 0.5 percentage point decrease in daily COVID-19 case growth rates. As time went on, reductions in growth rates increased to nearly 2 percentage points. Those changes in daily growth rates may sound small, but their magnitude adds up quickly, Guy said. “Each day that growth rate is going down, the cumulative effect — in terms of cases and deaths — adds up to be quite substantial,” Guy told the AP in a previous report. Several social media posts also claimed that the results of the study were “inside the margin for statistical error” and therefore not significant. That’s false, according to Guy. He said those social media users may have misunderstood a sentence in the study that read, “Daily case and death growth rates before implementation of mask mandates were not statistically different from the reference period.” The sentence refers to the period before mask mandates were implemented, not after. Guy said the research team examined this period to help rule out that there was not already a trend in place before mask mandates began.
— Associated Press writer Ali Swenson in Seattle contributed
this report.
———
Article makes false claims about MRNA vaccines and cancer
CLAIM:
A study by scientists at Sloan Kettering discovered Messenger RNA inactivates tumor suppressing proteins, meaning that COVID-19 MRNA vaccines can cause cancer.
THE FACTS: The 2018 study has no relevance to the COVID-19 MRNA vaccines. Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center confirmed the claim is false and misrepresents the findings of the study. An article in Natural News, which is known for circulating false information about vaccines, is spreading the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines could cause cancer. The claim that vaccines contain cancer causing ingredients has long been pushed by vaccine opponents. The story misrepresents a 2018 study to make the false assertion that the MRNA COVID-19 vaccines are “cancer-driving inoculations that, once the series is complete, will cause cancer tumors in the vaccinated masses who have all rushed out to get the jab out of fear and propaganda influence.” The false information was picked up by anti-vaccine websites and shared on Facebook and Reddit. “Looks like the “vaccine” is going to give people cancer according to Scientists at Sloan Kettering,” one Reddit user wrote when sharing the article. But the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, which conducted the 2018 study, said there is no truth to the claim. “This article circulating is categorically false, misrepresents the findings of our study and draws incorrect conclusions about vaccine risks,” the institute said in a statement. According to the institute, the 2018 study found that changes in certain MRNA molecules can inactivate tumor-suppressing proteins and thereby promote cancer — but there is no connection to the MRNA used in COVID-19 vaccines. “It’s important to note that MRNAS are a normal component of all cells and the specific ones discussed here are not involved in mrnabased vaccines, like the one developed against SARSCOV-2,” the institute’s statement said. Natural News did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
— Associated Press writer Beatrice Dupuy in New York
contributed this report.
———
Maricopa County ballots are secured in a vault, not shredded in trash
CLAIM:
Shredded ballots found in a Maricopa County dumpster ahead of a Senate audit appear to be votes from the 2020 election.
THE FACTS: Social media users are falsely suggesting ballots that Arizona state senators asked to audit were shredded in a Maricopa County Elections Department dumpster. The claim follows a legal battle between the state’s Republican-controlled Senate and the Republican-dominated Maricopa County board of supervisors over whether the Senate could access the county’s 2.1 million ballots and election equipment to directly audit the Nov. 3 election results. Last month, a judge ruled the Senate’s subpoena to access the ballots was valid. After winning the ruling, lawyers for the Senate asked that the ballots remain in the county’s possession since the Senate did not have a space for them. On March 6, Staci Burk, an Arizona woman who had previously filed an unsuccessful legal challenge to the election, posted photos of a man searching through a dumpster and a yellow plastic bag stuffed with shredded paper inside the dumpster. She also posted photos that showed the materials at a residence, and shredded papers with candidate names from the 2020 election. “Ballots shredded and in dumpsters behind the Maricopa County Ballot tabulation center. Physical evidence collected,” Burk posted on Facebook. Burk did not return a request for comment. The conservative site Gateway Pundit picked up the claim, suggesting that someone had attempted to shred ballots before the Senate could audit them. “BALLOTS IN ARIZONA COUNTY FOUND SHREDDED IN DUMPSTER, DAYS BEFORE SENATE AUDIT,” said one popular Facebook post. But county election officials say ballots from the election are securely preserved. Megan Gilbertson, the communications director for Maricopa County Elections Department, told The Associated Press that her office readied 2.1 million ballots to transfer to Senate custody and those ballots are still sealed and stored in the county’s vault that is monitored by a surveillance camera. “Maricopa County has not, and would never destroy voted ballots until legally authorized to do so after the 24-month retention period,” Gilbertson told the AP in a statement. “None of the ballots or other General election materials from the vault were in the garbage, and as a matter of business, the county can and does throw out trash.” Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer, a Republican, told the AP in a statement: “I can say with 100% certainty that the 2.1 million legally voted ballots from the November General Election are safe and accounted for in the Elections Department vault, under 24/7 surveillance.” Richer said his office shreds a variety of non-classified documents, as well as “deceased voter ballots since they could never be legally tabulated.” Those ballots were turned in by the relatives of people who died and were shredded if they were not signed before the voter’s death. Gilbertson confirmed to the AP that the Election Department preserves all ballots that were part of the official canvass, including those that were ultimately disqualified.