The Hive:

The hive is a warm and friendly place where a lot of activity will continue to occur as we bring together information, resources and contacts to enhance your business and your lives - as well as our own. Please feel free to submit to us ideas, thoughts, resources and ideas as we hope to grow the Hive and keep it buzzing for a long time.





The music on this website is "Flight of the Bumblebee" a famous orchestral interlude written by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov for his opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan, composed in 1899-1900. The piece closes Act III, Tableau 1, right after the magic Swan-Bird gives Prince Gvidon Saltanovich (the Tsar's son) instructions on how to change into an insect so that he can fly away to visit his father (who does not know that he is alive).

Buzz on Companies                              Buzz on Marketing
Buzz on Honey                                  Buzz on Bees

Buzz on Companies:
Every now and again you work with a company or an individual that just knocks your socks off. They inspire us to be better business partners and bring real value into our companies and our lives. Here we would like to highlight such companies and welcome you to suggest some of your own. These are not websites that we have designed but hey - we won't hold that against them - they are great companies to work with and we hope you will give them a try - who knows, a signature design by bumblebee might yet come to be!

RDS Delivery The best messenger company in NYC! With great service from anyone you speak to, to great technology to make the process professional and easy - to one of the finest people I've ever met - their owner, Larry Zogby!

EADV When it comes to telephones and data - Eastern American Data Voice offers the latest and the best - family owned, you get passionate, prompt and personalized service - George Schmidt puts passion, skill and talent into the solution - we just love our new VOIP system! Thanks!

James Corbett Studio Ladies and Gentlemen, you have not had a cut and color done right until you have had the James Corbett experience. The easy going and comfortable surroundings make you want to just hang out forever - but be careful, with all the yummy hair supplies, makeup, candles and jjewelry to buy you can be enticed to wear out your credit card. All in all - you walk out looking fabulous, feeling fabulous and having forgetten what ever it is that might have been a bother before.

NY Enterprise Report More than just a small business survive and thrive guide, this magazine has created a community of entrepreneurs who genuinely want to help others get ahead. The more you become involved with the magazine, you will find that the publisher, Rob Levin creates events that are a must for networking in this tough little town. If you haven't subscribed yet - then you are missing out on just about everything you need to know as a business owner.

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Buzz on Marketing:
Yes, we know there is a recession and you are probably watching your cash flow ebb slowly away. As the panic sets in and you look to trim fat from your operations, marketing should not be a fallen soldier. Let's face it - this is war! Only the strong and smart will survive and as other companies drop the ball, cut back on services, raise their prices, cut back staff and so the quality of service falls off... Don't you want to be on the customers mind - this is a great opportunity to pick up business - but they need to know you are out there! MARKET MARKETI MARKET!

Market smart and market economically. With the great technology at hand today, take advantage of drip e-mail campaigns; get your web site updated and more interactive and useful; start that blog you have been avoiding...

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Buzz on Honey:
Practically every household has a jar of honey in the kitchen. Often, honey is used in tea and occasionally in cooking. We hope to share some wonderful reciepes that use honey and we would like to introduce you to some fantastic healing and medicinal uses of honey - you'll want to put a jar of honey in your medicine cabinet too! Honey not only can heal, it will improve your overall health."

Allergies: Eating locally produced honey may help to minimize the symptoms of hay fever and related pollen allergies. Take one tablespoonful of local honey after each meal, beginning a month before pollen season starts. Chewing some of the comb between meals is also recommended. Although honey and honey comb will not cure hay fever as such, it should reduce the misery and aggravation of watery eyes and runny nose by at least 80% during the allergy season.

Antibacterial: Apply honey to cuts, scrapes or burns and cover with a clean bandage. Change dressings one to three times daily, as needed. Note: excessive heat or prolonged exposure to light can rob honey of its antibacterial properties. Always store in a dark, cool place.

Sore throats: Many opera singers add honey to a glass of warm milk and sip slowly. This helps soothe the throat.

Insomnia: Mix a half glass of warm water with 2 tablespoons of honey and the juice of a lemon and an orange. The darker the honey, the better this works.

Honey pick-me-up: Combine 2 tablespoons honey, 2 teaspoons pollen, a teaspoon of ginseng, and dried orange peel. Take with a spoon. Asian healers believe that this creates a feeling of total rejuvenation.

Diarrhea: In 8 ounces of water, mix 4 large tablespoons of honey. This works well for bacterial diarrhea. Those with diabetes should be cautious about taking so much honey at one time.

Dieting: Honey's double action (providing instant energy boost, while maintaining sugar levels for along time) satisfies the hunger for sweets and may keep you feeling fuller longer. For some dieters, this may be good news.

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Buzz on Bees:
Bees are responsible for pollinating plants that provide much of our food; in North America it is believed that 30% of food for human consumption originates from plants pollinated by bees. Honeybees are generally thought of as the most common pollinator, and they are the most widely studied, but bumblebees are the chief pollinators of red clover, alfalfa, and in some areas cotton, raspberries, apple and plum blossom.

Bumblebees are social insects. Like their relatives the honey bees, bumblebees feed on nectar and gather pollen to feed their young.

Bumblebees generally visit flowers and can visit patches of flowers up to 1-2 kilometres from their colony. Bumblebees will also tend to visit the same patches of flowers every day, as long as nectar and pollen continue to be available. While foraging, bumblebees can reach ground speeds of up to 15 m/s (54 km/h).

When bumblebees arrive at a flower, they extract nectar. Pollen is removed from flowers deliberately or incidentally by bumblebees. Incidental removal occurs when bumblebees come in contact with the anthers of a flower while collecting nectar. The bumblebee's body hairs receive a dusting of pollen from the anthers which is then groomed into the corbiculae ("pollen baskets"). Bumblebees are also capable of buzz pollination.

In at least a few species, once a bumblebee has visited a flower, it leaves a scent mark on the flower. This scent mark deters visitation of the flower by other bumblebees until the scent degrades.. It has been shown that this scent mark is a general chemical bouquet that bumblebees leave behind in different locations (e.g. nest, neutral and food sites), and they learn to use this bouquet to identify both rewarding and unrewarding flowers. In addition, bumblebees rely on this chemical bouquet more when the flower has a high handling time (i.e. it takes a longer time for the bee to find the nectar).

Bumblebee species are non-aggressive, but will sting in defense of their nest, or if harmed.

Bumblebees are increasingly cultured for agricultural use as pollinators because they can pollinate plant species that other pollinators cannot by buzz pollination. For example, bumblebee colonies are often emplaced in greenhouse tomato production, because the frequency of buzzing that a bumblebee exhibits effectively releases tomato pollen.

Endangered status
Bumblebees are in danger in many developed countries due to habitat destruction and collateral pesticide damage. In Britain, until relatively recently, 19 species of native true bumblebee were recognised along with six species of cuckoo bumblebees. Of these, three have already become extinct, eight are in serious decline and only six remain widespread. A decline in bumblebee numbers could cause large-scale sweeping changes to the countryside, leading to inadequate pollination of certain plants.
In response to this, a new organisation has recently been set up - The Bumblebee Conservation Trust aims to halt these declines through conservation and education

Profit and loss
Bumblebees need energy to fly, so when they leave on a foraging trip they carry nectar in their stomach to fuel them. The amount of nectar needed is roughly about 10% by volume of the amount collected in one foraging trip. The average mass of pollen and nectar carried by bumblebees returning to the nest is around 25% of their body weight. However some bumblebees fly back carrying as much as 75% or more of their body weight! A bumblebee making about ten average foraging trips would expect to provide the nest with about 3 ml of honey a day. However practically all the pollen collected in the pollen basket is stored for larval consumption. So to a bumblebee time is honey.

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