It's the 30th of January and 50F outside. The flowering quince is...flowering, the bees are flying, and pollen is coming in. Crazy. Two years ago at this time I shot the winter photos at the top of the page.
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Drone brood
Festooning
Fanning
Lighting the smoker
Capped honey
Brood nest
Harvest
Comb honey
Different types of honey
threeColumn
UVA Bee School is an informal seminar
at the University of Virginia
on the mathematics of honeybee behavior and the practice of
beekeeping. It's part academic pursuit and part social
activity, honoring the University's unique tradition of close
student-faculty friendship. It's led by Associate Professor of
Mathematics Christian Gromoll, and generously supported by the
Mead Endowment.
Honeybees survive by acquisition, defense, and efficient
allocation of various resources, to enable successful
overwintering and reproduction. This requires
sophisticated decision making, akin to that needed by
manufacturing firms, and beyond the capability of a single bee's
brain. But when each bee follows simple
sets of rules, the aggregate effect creates an emergent
intelligence for the colony as a whole, able to react to a
dynamic environment and achieve complex optimizations.
We're interested in understanding some of the
mathematical principles underlying the colony
intelligence of honeybees. We meet roughly every other
week from October through April to discuss articles
from the scientific literature on honeybees. We also
do some mathematical modeling of specific honeybee
optimization behaviors. Along the way, we learn some
aspects of honeybee biology and ecology, as well as
the history and practice of beekeeping.
We're also interested in getting to know each other,
and getting to know the bees. In the Fall and Spring, we
meet regularly at Professor Gromoll's home for
hands-on activities in the apiary. This includes an
opening breakfast in the Fall, and a dinner in the
Spring. We'll also start a new honeybee colony for the
group, and take a field trip to a larger apiary in the
area.
30 January 2012
Depths of winter...
It's the 30th of January and 50F outside. The flowering quince is...flowering, the bees are flying, and pollen is coming in. Crazy. Two years ago at this time I shot the winter photos at the top of the page.
29 January 2012
Bees in the math building!
A swarm has moved into Kerchof Hall, somewhere near the men's room. I guess they heard about Beeschool! Ryan Taylor, the Central Grounds Superintendant, called me a few weeks ago to ask if we could help them remove it. By then it was cold, so the bees were clustering and out of sight. The plan is to wait until spring and see if they survive the winter. If they start flying again, we'll see if we can help Facilities Management collect the errant colony and give them a new home. Stay tuned...
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