Behind the Veil Buddha Bee Apiary

Nearly 20 years ago, Cedar Anderson set out to design an easier way to get honey from his beehives. Together with his father, Stu, he invented the Flow Hive—a revolutionary hive that lets beekeepers get "honey on tap." With over $13 million in pre-orders, his crowdfunding campaign is was one of the most successful in history. The innovative hive has drawn both admission and criticism from the beekeeping community. In this episode, Cedar walks us through the highs and lows of his journey.

Check out a GIF of how the Flow Hive works:
https://bit.ly/3NV2U6a

Learn more about the Flow Hive at: https://www.honeyflow.com/

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What does it take to create a virtual world for bees that lets us study how they learn? Gregory Lafon is at the forefront of using this technique to study honey bee cognition. In this episode, he discusses the challenges involved in building VR for bees and what we stand to learn. Gregory Lafon is a fourth-year PhD student at the University of Toulouse.

Read his full paper and see photos of the VR setup here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-00630-x

Help support the podcast by becoming a patron: https://www.patreon.com/buddhabeeapiary

The circadian clock is just as essential for bees as it is for humans. Bees rely on their sense of time to remember where flowers are, when's the best time to eat from them, and how to get home. But what happens if those flowers have pesticides on them?

Kamal Bell left his full-time job as a teacher to turn a 12-acre piece of land into a profitable farm and honeybee apiary. The goal? Educate young farmers and increase access to fresh produce for minorities affected by food deserts. In this episode, Kamal tells the story of how Sankofa Farms came to be.

Cassie Cichorz is the Asian Giant Hornet outreach and education specialist at the Washington State Department of Agriculture. In this episode, she tells the story of how her team used tracking technology to follow a hornet back to its nest—then what they did to eradicate it. If you’re in Washington and come across what you believe is an Asian Giant Hornet, you can report it to the WSDA by calling 1-800-443-6684.

Dr. Scarlett Howard is a postdoctoral research fellow at Deakin University in Melbourne Australia. She’s asking the question: can bees do math? In this episode, she talks to us about how she teaches bees about zero, addition, and subtraction.