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BEE POPULATIONS HAVE been plummeting in recent years – for a variety of reasons, including habitat loss, pesticides and diseases.
In other words, they need all the help they can get.
So perhaps a little air conditioning, to keep them cool as they work, wouldn’t go amiss?
A BT Young Scientist project from two Second Years at Desmond College, Limerick caught our eye at the RDS this week.
Their ‘Bee Cool’ device, as the lads put it in their entry, “aims to improve the efficiency at which bees work and increase the yields of honey being produced”.
Here’s the science, from David O’Brien:
“Once the temperature goes over 34 degrees the bees aren’t able to produce honey. So what they do is they bring one drop of water into the hive. They spit it out and flap their wings to evaporate it.
That’s taking up the time and effort that could be used making honey.
His project partner, Danny Moriarty, sums it up in 12 words:
You want them to make more honey, so they’ll make more money.
So how does the technology work?
In simple terms, once the thermostat hits 34 degrees it activates a fan. When it dips below 34 again, the fan deactivates.
Danny talks us through it:
So is this a problem in the beekeeping world?
It appears so. From the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences:
“Bees may become overheated if they are confined in the hive during hot weather and have no access to water. It is especially a problem when hives are being moved in hot weather for pollination or to follow honey flows.
“Overheated bees crawl rapidly and flutter their wings. When released from their confinement they will disperse by crawling in a disorderly manner.
When bees have died from overheating they are sometimes wet which is due to the bee regurgitating fluids in vain attempts to cool themselves.
The lads consulted the County Limerick Beekeeper’s Association as part of their research.
They’re hoping their creation will generate a buzz of interest (sorry) among beekeepers and honey producers around the world.
(Video by Michael Sheils McNamee)
So what if its a different time in the UK. We do enty of business with countries in different timezones. Some countries even have different timezones with in the one country so again it makes no difference if we’re on a different time to NI. I’d personally prefer to stay on summer time all year but Im not that pushed. Just as long as we get rid of changing the clocks.
Scrap it outdated and doesn’t serve a purpose anymore.
Continue with changing the clocks.
Anyone with toddlers will know, it’s an absolute nightmare trying to adjust their sleeping patterns after the time change. Also it’s preferable to have more daylight in the evening available to school kids. Not to mention the fact that roads would be safer because volumes of traffic increase towards evening.
@Paraic: I disagree. However, if we stay on summertime then when winter rolls around it won’t get bright until close to 10am which means kids walking to school in the dark. If this has to change then remaining on wintertime is the only option so it’s not dark when the kids are going to school and coming home from school.
@Ian Breathnach: kids already go to school on the dark as the hour time difference means it gets bright close to 9. Unless you live next door to the school your kids go to school in the dark in winter.
@Dave O Keeffe: The vast majority of kids live within 10 to 15 minutes of their school. It’s bright by 8.50am in the depths or the winter.
What time is it?
It’s about time
Stop. Hammer time…
This was tried before and people had a problem that it was dark at 9am when children were heading off to school.
@Aine O Connor: how did people manage 100 years ago when the time was changed and lighting wasn’t as good?
@Aine O Connor: indeed it was. It happened in 1969. It was changed back in 1970 for the very reasons you stated.
Groundhog day, we keep revisiting this time when socialists with fanciful ideas thinks a keynote speech awaiting by the world and worthy of flying his royal bum in a learjet to go 100 miles up the road.
Wish there was an ‘I’d like us to consider moving to Central European Summer Time’ box?
If we stay on winter time we will still get bright evenings but we wont have really dark mornings. Its hard enough to get out of bed and don’t think its safe to bring kids to school in the dark.
I look forward to the time change after Christmas. Can we change the time before the end of March, like in February or something and make a shorter winter?
Stay on summertime please, we know if the morning is dark it will get brighter but once it’s dark in the evening that’s it!! Most children are driven to school anyway and in urban areas they have street lights. We’ll manage just fine if UK is on different time zone to us, most of Europe is and we do business with them!!
@Teresa Birney Codd: finally someone talking sense
@Teresa Birney Codd: finally someone talking sense!!!
It’s cheeko time ….
What’s time to a goat ?
All those almanacs being printed right now…
It seems the problem is simply the change. Statistics of heart attacks make a clear jump upward the few days every year after changing to summertime when we suddenly have to awake and get up an hour earlier.
Some would claim that it evens itself out in the autumn when we are allowed to sleep an hour more, as the same heart attack statistics show less heart attacks that and following few mornings. For the ones that are killed by the time change in the spring it was tough luck as nobody told them and for the saved in the autumn just pure luck.
The take awayis that if we sleep too few hours not only can we become grumpy but also suddenly die from it.
Moreover both Thatcher and Ron Reagan bragged that 4 hours sleep was enough. Both ended their days without knowing what was going on, in Alzheimer’s. Now shown to be aggravated by too few hours of sleep.
have your say