This post was written by the University of Florida

Bee Swarm

Photo: M. K. O'Malley, University of Florida

Bee proof your home and yard:

Remove potential nesting site

Inspect exterior walls and eaves

Seal openings greater than 1/8-inch or install screens (1/8-inch hardware cloth) over vents, rain spouts, water meter/utility boxes, tree cavities, etc.

During peak swarming season (spring through fall) inspect once or twice a week for any bee activity. If you see a swarm of bees that is focusing on one place for 48 hours or more, it is likely they have selected it as their new nest. Call a pest control company to have it removed before they become defensive.

Educate your family to follow general precautions and have a bee safety plan:

Listen for buzzing and look for bees entering or leaving an area, indicating a nest or swarm

Carefully enter areas where bees might be nesting (garages, sheds, old cars, etc.)

Examine area prior to using noisy power equipment (lawn mowers, blowers, chain saws, etc.)

Examine areas before tying or penning pets and livestock

Never disturb a swarm or colony of bees -- contact a pest control company or your Cooperative Extension Agent for assistance

If bees start flying around you, run away. Do not swat at the bees, this will encourage them to sting. Also do not freeze in place, this will also encourage stinging

If bees attack, don’t try to escape by jumping into water – the bees will wait for you to come up for air. Instead, run away and find shelter in a house or car. If there is no shelter, run through bushes or high weeds.

A honey bee will leave its stinger in your skin if it stings you. Get the stinger out by raking your fingernail across it. Don't pinch or pull the stinger out. Put ice on a sting to reduce the swelling.

For detailed information and pictures, please visit https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/in741

This great story comes via the USDA:

Deterring Ticks with Citrus and Millipedes

By Sandra Avant
March 8, 2013

Why do birds, monkeys and other animals rub themselves with citrus and creatures like millipedes? One likely reason is because certain plants and arthropods contain natural repellents.

Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute (SCBI) at the National Zoological Park in Front Royal, Va., examined citrus compounds and millipedes for effectiveness against ticks. John Carroll, an entomologist with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) at the Henry A. Wallace Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC) in Beltsville, Md., and SCBI researcher Paul Weldon tested the responses of ticks to more than 20 different compounds in citrus extracts. ARS is the chief intramural scientific research agency of USDA.

Ticks were allowed to climb on vertical paper strips containing lemon rind exudates and other citrus chemicals. Repellency evaluation was based on whether ticks crawled into treated areas, continued to move, turned around, crawled back down or fell. Experiments also involved putting ticks inside treated filter-paper packets. After one hour, the ticks were removed, placed on their backs and timed to see if and when they could right themselves and climb out of a low enclosure and onto a fingertip.

Carroll, who works in BARC's Invasive Insect Biocontrol and Behavior Laboratory, found that some ticks were unable to crawl out of enclosures or even right themselves. Of 24 ticks exposed to one citrus chemical, only one righted itself. Of the chemicals tested, one killed or disabled ticks exposed to it for an hour. Several other chemicals kept ticks from climbing onto a fingertip.

To get to the bottom of why some animals anoint themselves with crushed millipedes, scientists used similar techniques to test ticks' responses to three benzoquinone chemicals found in millipedes. One benzoquinone chemical killed ticks, one repelled them and all three benzoquinones hampered efforts of ticks to right themselves and climb. Higher concentrations of these chemicals were able to impair ticks' ability to climb for several months.

Read more about this research in the March 2013 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.

National Geographic has some amazing photos of spiderwebs covering countryland in Australia.  Recent floods have caused this unusual phenomenom to occur.  Take a look at the rest of the pictures over at Nat Geo.