You Didn’t Scroll to the Bottom of the Home Page, Did You?
This site started out in February 2023 with the aim of providing technical commentary on beekeeping with the European honey bee, Apis mellifera. Bee stings are sharp and beekeepers are sharper. Just knowing how to extract honey and inspect brood will not get you far. Think about it: In order to define “honey extraction” you need knowledge of:
- Biochemistry, to understand when bees seal cells with a wax capping, and the importance of a glucose:fructose sugar ratio (hint: more glucose, faster honey crystallisation)
- Botany, to know which plants are in bloom, and how they will influence the honey’s composition – sweetness, colour, aroma and so on
- Meteorology, to understand how temperature, wind and humidity influence hive activities – just because it’s a sunny day it doesn’t mean the girls will fly in search of nectar and pollen, they may getting water to cool the hive (all worker bees [who make up 99.99% of the hive] are female)
- Genetics, to learn how aggressive colonies emerge and how to control for desirable traits (however if you’re a hobbyist, you’re better off buying a new queen bee)
- Nutrition, disease pathology, ecology, predator-prey interactions… it goes on
I started writing about these topics from a technical viewpoint, as my professional background is within the life sciences. Eventually I realised there’s more to bees than molecular interactions, and ventured out into the wide world of solitary bees, pesticide use, the honey bee industry, insects-as-a-food (Eat Ze Bug™), and the Hymenoptera Order as a whole. All this was published under the name “The Holy Habibee”, inspired by that one time I conducted a beekeeping inspection in the white garbs of a desert dweller from the Near East.
The years went on, my hives came and went (Varroa came to Sydney in 2023) and the publishing persisted. Eventually I started receiving emails and messages from genuine readers (not bots!) which got me thinking “this is serious”, so in June 2026, a rebranding was called for to both A) diversify my content from bees-only to the broader Insecta class (and Arachnida!) and B) give it a more Professional™ look. The goal is unchanged: continue providing quality educational content for beekeepers worldwide, the hardworking wagie worker bees, botanists and beyond. The content will be biased towards my locality in Australia; with a bit of tinkering you can apply it to your own situation, for entomology has a global impact.
Right, the summary: High-level technical content is available here, on this site. Don’t have a goal in mind? Start by reading the “learn biology with bees” section. There will be typos and excellent puns, that’s just how it is.
For people whose attention & focus are cooked, more-accessible content is available on socials: the Twitter/X profile provides daily visuals on bees & insects, whereas the YouTube channel is for turning these articles into videos, complete with flashing lights and other subway-surferesq popups.
Yours Beely,
Safaa Cabot, B(ee). Sci
P.S. If you haven’t already, go read the other introduction at the bottom of the home page.
P.S.S if you want to contact me there’s a page for that