- Follow along with the adventures of an amateur pea breeder. Mendel comments: “go for it, girl”.
- And the corn (maize) genome is announced, apparently with recipes. Via.
- Namibians domesticate nutritious wild legume. Mendel comments: “what’s wrong with peas?”
- New Zealand (re)discovers square peaches. Mendel unavailable on this one.
- Honeybee evolution summarized.
Nibbles: Honey, seeds, bioprospecting, chocolate
- Haagen Dazs understands. No bees = no honey and no fruit.
- Over-excited about seeds. Jeremy comments, “It’s that time of the year”.
- South Korea bioprospecting in Costa Rica.
- A round-up of recent (bad) news on the chocolate front.
- Namibia: no country for vegetarians.
Something else for honeybees to worry about
Gene Expression posted a couple of great videos yesterday. The first shows some Asian Giant Hornets attacking a colony of European honeybees, and wreaking total havoc in minutes. The second, which I’ll reproduce below, shows what the native Japanese honeybee species can do to marauding hornets.
Amazing stuff. Incidentally, hornet larvae and pupae are eaten in Japan as a kind of sashimi. And synthetic versions of vespan secretions are being marketed as dietary supplements.
The Vanishing of the Bees
Colony Collapse Disorder gets a documentary. Maybe.
Most beehives in a single tree
Bee tree boasts 575 hives, seeks World Heritage Site status.