Dudu Diaries

Category: Bees, Beetles, Culture, Ecology, Flies, Pollination | Date: Jul 16 2009 | By: dududiaries

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Category: Bees, Butterflies, Culture, Ecology, Flies, Forests, Hoverfly, Moths, Orchid, Pollination | Date: Jul 15 2009 | By: dududiaries

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Category: Bees, Culture, Ecology, Pollination | Date: Jul 14 2009 | By: dududiaries

Hello - I’ve been meaning to share parts of a booklet about the diversity and importance of pollinators in Africa. Here are some of the amazing creatures who work hard at keeping our farms and ecosystems running!

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Category: Beetles, Ecology, Forests | Date: Jul 10 2009 | By: dududiaries

Hello - on the road here - but thought I’d share these photos of a very cool beetle. This is a Click Beetle, who is named for the sharp clicking noise they make by snapping their wing-cases against their thorax (mid-section). It is meant to alarm and scare off any would be predators. This lovely chap was photographed at Kakamega Forest - the incredible comb-like antennae enable them to locate members of the opposite sex…More soon!

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Category: Bees, Culture, Ecology, Forests, Pollination | Date: Jul 03 2009 | By: dududiaries

Hello - many thanks for the comments from everyone. I thought I would share these fun facts about honeybees - they really are incredible creatures…

Did You Know These Cool Facts About Honeybees?

Honeybees originate in Africa – evidence comes from both from modern genetics as well as ancient rock art and the folklore of hunter-gatherer peoples.

Pure honey never goes bad. Jars with honey from the tombs of the Pharoahs have been opened after 2000 years and the honey is still perfectly delicious and edible!

A honeybee can tell her fellow bees where to find flowers through a special dance language – very few other animals can do this! Karl Von Frisch shared a Nobel prize with Konrad Lorenz and Niko Tinbergen for figuring this out.

It takes four honeybees working their entire lives to produce just one teaspoonful of honey.

All honeybees that forage and work are sisters and sterile – they spend their entire lives just working for the colony!

Honeybees start out life as nannies, looking after their younger siblings, then graduate to foraging from flowers, as they grow older and more experienced.

Here is a sketch of a honeybee and a traditional log hive that is the typical way of keeping bees throughout East Africa;

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