I need help! Etymologists, biologists, Google geeks – I need some great identification/texts/resources/guides on nectar, flowers, and bees species/subspecies identification for the South Caucasus. Here are a few of the photos from the field I am working with…but I would love to put them into a better regional context for my honey mapping work. Check out the photo gallery below to see some of my photo samples, and if you have any suggestions, send them my way in the comment section below. Thanks!
*note: this needn’t be said, but for all of those blogging villagers who are fighting the creeping suspicion that either I or Claire might be stealing endemic flowers, butterflies, or bee species to give to the Russians and Israelis, let this be a formal disclaimer that we ONLY EVER take photos and only for RECREATIONAL purposes. With the exception of the very large cucumber that an old woman gave us for a snack (which we forgot and found much later in Claire’s bag), Claire and I have never taken any nature specimens and put them in any of our bags/pockets/purses/notebooks/journals/or “spy-like” honey sampling jars. We are interested in this subject from an entirely amateur perspective with simply a sincere desire to celebrate natural diversity and the rich biological cross-roads that is the South Caucasus. And because bees and nature are cool. And we want to learn more for our super neat map project.
Photos by Cat Jaffee in Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin – Summer 2012…and there are many many more…
Balyolu: The Honey Road
Cat as a National Geographic Young Explorer
Claire Bangser Makes Things
One Sticky Hive
Such beauty and differences in the bees! are they both the Caucasian bees and some wild bees? Very beautiful photography.