Bees can now get their hives renovated — and it could save their lives
CBC
A group of bees will be soon flying back to their hives after a long day of pollinating — only to find they've got a new front entrance on their hive.
And it's not just a fancy new front porch.
ProtectaBEE is a honeybee hive entrance that can help protect the pollinators from pests and diseases. It's red and appears to have nozzles for the entrance and exit to the hive.
Erica Shelley is the founder of Best For Bees and says the hive entrance was first created for bee vectoring — a process where bees walk through a biocontrol powder, which they shake off onto crops while getting pollen. The biocontrol powder protects crops and deals with the parasitic Varroa mite, which feeds on honeybees.
"That's still in development, it's a few years out," Shelley said.
But in testing the product, Shelley said they found other benefits.
"The red colour actually is not easily seen by other insects," she said.
"It actually is a protection against wasps and hornets and yellow jackets and even robbing bees from other hives and, it turned out, it actually protected against skunks and mice."
The device was created in partnership between Best For Bees, a research and development company for beekeepers based in Kitchener, and University of Guelph researcher Peter Kevan.
The device is already getting international recognition.
ProtectaBEE has now been recognized on a world stage. The device won a silver medal from the World Beekeeping Awards, which were handed out at the Apimondia International Apicultural Congress in Chile last month.
Shelley says there were about 20 entries from developers and inventors from around the world, large machines down to smaller innovative ideas.
"To have the world's experts look at your thing that you've invented and they've seen so many inventions come through over the years and then to award a medal to it, it was just that kind of honour," she said.
"It also means we're on the right track and what we're working on is something that has meaning and is obviously worthwhile."
People continue to flock to Banff National Park.
Two Toronto councillors have brought forward a motion to ban raising foreign flags at Toronto City Hall and civic centres.
Thousands of Maritime Electric customers in multiple communities across Queens County are without power Saturday morning.
Three weeks into the conflict in the Middle East, the joint U.S.-Israel onslaught has killed much of Iran's leadership, knocked out much of its ballistic missile capability, sunk nearly all of its navy and, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, has "militarily WON" the war already.
Sometimes to understand the weather, you have to fly straight into it.
When he was a student at what was then known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Andrew Scott had a professor who regularly said that painting was something that could be done until someone dropped dead, while rock n' roll had a best-before date.
Almost a year after a Miramichi woman spoke out about how dealing with an insurance-related company left her in financial ruin, a watchdog commission in the province is formally warning people to stay away.
Getting a job is not the same as it used to be, a young job seeker told CBC Toronto at an employment fair in Oakwood Village earlier this week.
A teenage girl is dead after she was struck by at least one vehicle Friday night in Vaudreuil-Dorion — a suburb located about 45 kilometres west of Montreal.
There was a time when Manitobans used to consider Saskatchewan a rural, underdeveloped backwater.
The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) found some reasons to celebrate the 2026-27 provincial budget, but it takes issue with the amount designated for the province's Water Security Agency (WSA).
The family of an Edmonton woman who died in Honolulu last year is pushing for Hawaiian authorities to re-open the case.
It was around this time in 2020 that everything changed.