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Bees, butterflies

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The Silence of the Hive. A full hive with bees working What you quickly learn as a beekeeper is that the sound of the hive matters. When you first get into a hive, if the hive is in good health and has all of its needs met, hive is generally pretty quiet (I talk about the hive as a single organism, because that’s really what bees are: a single super organism.) Sometimes, a hive is louder when you arrive–the bees are fanning the hive with their wings to keep it cool, or they are beating their wings to generate heat in the winter to keep it warm (you don’t open the hive under 50 degrees). But in the absence of extreme hot or cold, a happy and healthy hive emits only a very soft sound, discernible only up close when you open it. Beehives always have some buzzing in them–the bees move around, beat their wings, and go about tending their young and storing away pollen and honey. This is what you expect to see…. Its not just the loss of the hive, a dear friend and companion on my journey, that is so painful.

Like this: Sacred Lessons from the Bees, Honey Flows, and Honey Harvesting | The Druid's Garden. I’ve been making the transition to Pennsylvania and to my new life here (I spoke of this transition in an earlier blog post). Sorry for the delay in a regular weekly post–I’m back on track now, and have many wonderful things to share with you in the coming weeks. Today I’m going to talk about bees and share photos of my first honey harvest. Bees moving to their new home in early May!

I’ve now been a beekeeper for over a year, and I have begun to deeply resonate with the honeybee. Honeybees are the most amazing, gentle creatures–they make everything from the plants, are extremely hard working, and extremely fascinating. One of the decisions I made, in my transition from my 3 acre homestead to small-town renting (renting until I find my new land) was to keep my two beehives. Beekeeping Ethically I’ve become very vigilant about the protection of bees.

Beekeeping class I gave recently! I see beekeeping as a partnership–I wouldn’t do anything to them that I wouldn’t do for myself or to my land. Prevent Colony Collapse Disorder: Let's Plant for the Bees. Fantastic Invention: Honey on Tap Directly from Your Beehive. The Complete History of Monsanto, The World's Most Evil Corporation.

Hanzai E, Lost in the Bamboo ForestWaking Times Of all the mega-corps running amok, Monsanto has consistently outperformed its rivals, earning the crown as “most evil corporation on Earth!” Not content to simply rest upon its throne of death, atop a mountain of rotting corpses, it remains focused on newer, more scientifically innovative ways to harm the planet and its people. As true champions of evil, they won’t stop until…well, until they’re stopped! But what is Monsanto and how did they get to be so obscenely evil in the first place? 1901: The company is founded by John Francis Queeny, a member of the Knights of Malta, a thirty year pharmaceutical veteran married to Olga Mendez Monsanto, for which Monsanto Chemical Works is named.

Even then, the government knew saccharin was poisonous and sued to stop its manufacture but lost in court, thus opening the Monsanto Pandora’s Box to begin poisoning the world through the soft drink. Monsanto’s Disneyfied vision of the future: Why? Sources: Are Mushrooms the Solution to the Worldwide Bee Colony Collapse? Jefferey Jaxen, ContributorWaking Times As humanity becomes more conscious to the language of nature, it is clear that mushrooms in their many forms come in peace and are here to help.

The uses, benefits, and applications of mushrooms currently seem to be limitless cutting across all industries, cultures, and modalities. Embraced by the medical community, gardeners, architects, spiritualist, religions and others, their boundaries are yet to be found. The intricate matrix of mushroom mycelium under our feet represents rebirth, rejuvenation, and regeneration. Presenting at the recent Bioneers Annual Conference, Paul Stamets gave bombshell evidence that there is hope for bees, colony collapse, and our entire ecosystem.

It has also been confirmed in previous tests that fungicidal contamination reduces beneficial fungi in honey bee colonies. Of course there are many other benefits of mushrooms that go beyond bee-support. Additional Sources: Link.Springer About the Author. DIY Mason Jar Beekeeping. Wildflowers. Essex County Beekeepers' Association - Harvesting the Honey. How to rescue feral honey bee colonies. Ten Commandments of Butterfly Gardening. TDG ~ Telling the Bees. When David’s sister sent me this story yesterday, I immediately felt called to share it here. I was running out the door to give a presentation, though, so I made a mental note to post for later. While waiting on the porch for my ride, two notifications came through from a blog called “The Bees Knees,” linking to two pages on my own blog.

Not only did “The Bees Knees” seem like a message, but the post itself was unusual even for that blogger: “I normally read Tyberonn’s posts on Spirit Library, but this is a link to Laura Bruno’s Blog (27 October article) that has this wonderful affirmation.” OK, bees, you’ve got my attention, and I am now keeping my word by sharing the article and link back to the original. Formatting also appears as it does on the original post. Telling the Bees posted by Shadows Bees figure largely in folklore although these days people are mostly uninterested in the old stories of how bees are an important part of our society. Keep Bees, Naturally! If you’d like to benefit your garden and community and offer a treat to your taste buds, consider trying your hand at natural beekeeping in your own backyard. As honeybees gather pollen and nectar to make 50 pounds or more of pure, wild honey per hive, they pollinate crops nearby — and up to four miles away.

This pollination is essential for good yields for some flowering crops. Best of all, honeybees require only simple management once the hives are up and running. Kim Flottum, editor of Bee Culture Magazine, says that keeping bees takes “more effort than for your cat, but less than your dog.” But can you achieve natural beekeeping? To save their bees from these and other pests, many beekeepers turned to chemical controls, which worked for a while. In addition, products that utilize the mite-minimizing properties of essential oils (such as thymol-based Api-Life VAR and spearmint and lemongrass Honey-B-Healthy) can effectively suppress mites in small apiaries.

Getting Started Gearing Up. Colony Collapse Disorder Is a Fraud: Pesticides Cause Bee Die-Offs. Heidi Stevenson, Green Med InfoWaking Times Years ago, Gaia Health informed that bee dieoffs are a direct result of pesticide nerve agents called neonicotinoids. The term, Colony Collapse Disorder, is fraudulent, designed to direct attention from the known cause. Agribusiness, the poison manufacturers making death-producing pesticides, is the other face of Big Pharma.

The massive bee die-off is not a great mystery. Colony Collapse Disorder is poisoning with a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. Although the bee die-offs that have occurred recently are more severe, there have been many in the past from the same and similar products. Clothianidin and imidacloprid are both members of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now. Not a Surprise That neonicotinoids are potent neurotoxins, especially in insects, is unsurprising. There are many problems with this. Pharmaceutical Connection Mythical Disease. Grow Your Own Bee Garden: 7 Tips for a Bee-Friendly Habitat. Planting a bee garden is becoming increasingly important as across our planet, bees are thought to be suffering increased stress as a result of global warming, and the effect that this has on flowering times and nectar availability. It will take many generations of bees to evolve into stronger colonies able to deal with the change in climate.

We depend on the work of bees and other insects more than most of us realise; almost 70% of the food we consume relies on pollination from insects, and bees are a critical part of this army of fertilizers. Meanwhile there is plenty we can do to help. Knowing which plants bees prefer, and at what time of the year they need access to them, can make a fundamental difference to the success of local bee colonies. Whether we live in an urban area or deep in the countryside, we can actively encourage bees to thrive in the vicinity of our homes by creating a bee garden, however small that might be! What plants do you plan to include in your bee garden?