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Phillip and Jenny have four beehives in their backyard in St. John’s, Newfoundland. You’ll find plenty of beekeeping videos and information on their blog, Mudsongs. In this video, we see what they do with honey when its harvested. Link -via Bits and Pieces
The bird known as the greater honeyguide got its name because it will lead people to beehives. You may have also heard that honeyguides will lead honey badgers to beehives. There was even a wildlife documentary that illustrated this behavior. The problem is… its not true!
The myth of the badger-guiding honeyguide began in 1785 with a man called Anders Sparrman, who had heard the story from local people. He never saw the actual behaviour first-hand. Neither had anyone else. In 1990, three ornithologists – Dean, Siegfried and Macdonald – wrote a paper debunking the honeyguide/honey badger story. In it, they wrote, “Naturalists and biologists have been active in Africa for more than 200 years. During this period, to the best of our knowledge, no biologist or naturalist, amateur or professional, has observed a Greater Honeyguide leading a Honey Badger to a beehive.”
Since 1990, Spottiswoode says that there still isn’t any evidence for badger-guiding, “despite some extensive studies of honey badgers in perfect honeyguide habitat in Mozambique.”
And the documentary? It was staged! Science writer Ed Yong was just as surprised to find this out as you are. Link
The Kenyan honeyguide bird has an unusual and very remarkable behavior: it engages in an interspecies collaboration with humans to locate African bee colonies. In exchange for their guide service, the birds then share the harvest of the recovered honey.
Sir David Attenborough explains in this very interesting BBC clip titled Talking to Strangers.
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