Hobby Thread - April 25, 2026 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. It is that time of the year, a spin of the Wheel of Hobbies (TM) came up with honey bees as a theme for this Hobby Thread.

[Top photo: Western Honey Bee, Andreas Trepte]

What are you hobbying?

As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. I understand that some people pay attention to military hardware, tactics and strategy as a hobby. Discussion of current military events permitted but must be made in the form of hobby commentary. Pants are optional. As always, puns are welcome and encouraged. Puns are a hobby of sorts, right?

Play nice and do not be rude. Do not be a troll and do not feed the trolls.

Anyone among the Horde involved in beekeeping and making honey? Bees are very active in the spring gathering pollen and nectar. They need pollen and nectar to feed the brood in the colony (pollen for larvae and youngsters, nectar for adults). Spring is also the time to repair and build the hive after the winter.

Do you (or have you) kept bees? Seems like the people that are into beekeeping are REALLY into beekeeping and stick with it for a long time.

Do you have a spiffy and stylish beekeeper outfit? Can you explain why beekeepers cover their whole body and then pull frames out of a hive with bare hands?

Do you use honey in your food preparation? Do you put honey in your tea?

Do you use honey for home health remedies?

Do you use beeswax products? Lip balm, candles, polish, etc.

Did you dress up like a bee for Halloween? Have you done crafty things with bee inspiration?

Young TRex had an allergy to bees which caused a life-long discomfort with flying things armed with stingers. Will need Horde help on this one.

Random honeybee trivia gathered from around the interweb:

They have five eyes. Two large compound eyes for detecting shapes and movement, plus three smaller simple eyes on top of their head for light intensity and navigation.

The waggle dance is their GPS. Forager bees perform a figure-eight "waggle dance" inside the hive to communicate the exact distance, direction, and quality of food sources to other bees.

Honeybees have an extraordinary sense of smell. They have 170 odorant receptors, giving them a sense of smell about 50 times stronger than a dog. They can even be trained to detect explosives or landmines(!).

One queen, thousands of eggs. A healthy queen can lay up to 2,000-2,500 eggs per day and may produce over a million eggs in her lifetime.

Tiny honey producers. A single worker bee makes only about 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her entire lifetime (usually 4-6 weeks as a forager). It takes roughly 2 million flower visits to produce one pound of honey.

Hexagonal perfection. Bees build honeycombs with hexagonal cells, the most efficient shape for storage and strength with minimal wax. They produce beeswax from special glands on their abdomen.

They see ultraviolet light. Honeybees can't see red but can see UV patterns on flowers invisible to humans, acting like landing strips that guide them to nectar and pollen.

Thermoregulation experts. A colony keeps the hive at a steady ~93–95°F year-round. In summer, they fan their wings for air conditioning. In winter, they cluster and vibrate to generate heat.

Worker bees have specialized careers. Female workers change jobs as they age: cleaning the hive, nursing larvae, building comb, guarding, and finally foraging. They are all female (except drones).

The ultimate sacrifice. When a worker bee stings (to defend the hive), her barbed stinger gets stuck and rips out, fatally injuring her. The queen has a smoother stinger and can sting multiple times.

Beekeeping for beginners:

Beehive parts explained:

How do bees actually make honey? What's all this about a second stomach?

How to "read" a frame. Lots of up close detail.

Why do bee keepers use smoke?

Spin the frame to extract the honey and re-use the wax hexagons:

A flow hive? Never heard of a flow hive:

Its not all about the honey. Don't forget about the beeswax:

What's the buzz with all the yellow spots on your car? It is bee poop!

Bee DIY crafts:

Did you know that counterfeit honey is a thing? Honey is the third-most-faked food in the world, behind milk and olive oil. The FDA tests honey each year.

What makes honey counterfeit? Adding undeclared cheaper sweetener ingredients like corn, rye, or sugar beet syrup.

In 2021-2022, the FDA collected and tested 144 imported honey samples and found 10% of those samples to be "violative." In the 2022-2023 assignment, the agency collected and tested 107 imported honey samples and found 3% of those samples to be "violative." The 2025 number was 4% (same for both domestic and imported). Data here.

The exact amount of fake honey in the world is up for debate. An analysis by the Honey Authenticity Project, an association of activists and industry members, places the number of fake or adulterated honey at 33%. A 2018 study of honey for sale in Australia found that 27% of the products tested were faked or had other ingredients mixed in.

Are you wise in the ways of "honey laundering?"

"Honey laundering" became widespread when Chinese laboratories began modifying high-fructose corn syrups to make them look like pure honey.

The sugars in these syrups - known as C4 sugars - became popular for honey counterfeiters in the 1970s, with the invention of high-fructose corn syrup, according to Richard Anderson, director of Siratech, a private lab in Texas that detects fake and adulterated honey.

But they were soon easily detected in tests, so honey counterfeiters modified their methods to use syrups developed from plants with C3 sugars, like rice, beets, or cassava.

The adulterated syrups can be used to dilute a smaller batch of real honey. They can also be fed directly to bees, replacing flower nectar, Anderson told Insider.

Earlier honey authentication tests analyzed the pollen inside honey and traced them back to their source. But some honey launderers have gotten smart, treating honey so that it's difficult to trace.

Remember the big "HoneyGate" scandal in 2013?

Timely (April 24, 2026):

First Lady Melania Trump Unveils New Beehive on South Lawn

First Lady Melania Trump announced the expansion of the White House honey program with the addition of a newly installed and fully functioning beehive on the South Lawn. Hand-crafted by a local artisan in the image of the White House, the beautiful, new hive will add two new bee colonies to the existing two colonies that already produce the signature White House honey.

The new hive is expected to increase annual honey production by an estimated 30 pounds, allowing for even greater use in preparing White House culinary dishes, serving as official gifts from the President and the First Lady, and supporting charitable donations of healthy foods to local food kitchens.

Public Service Announcement: by popular demand, next week's Hobby Thread will be car repair.

Think of it like our very own Car Talk (with Click and Clack), Under the Hood or Motor Medics. We can expand to anything with a motor - truck, RV, motorcycle, quad, etc. Bring your ills and mechanical gremlins. Ideally, the experts among the Horde can join to offer their wisdom and advice. If they don't, the rest of us can make wild and uninformed guesses.

Either way, the advice will be free. (That also means it may be worth exactly what you paid for it.)

Credit to RandomDave and ARiK for the suggestion.

Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did an castles theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.

Notable comments from last week:

Words of wisdom:

"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).

If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute your own. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.

posted by Open Blogger at 05:30 PM

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