Backwards Beekeepers The Xerces Society » Bees Bees are undoubtedly the most abundant pollinators of flowering plants in our environment. The service that bees and other pollinators provide allows nearly 70 percent of all flowering plants to reproduce; the fruits and seeds from insect pollinated plants account for over 30 percent of the foods and beverages that we consume. Beyond agriculture, pollinators are keystone species in most terrestrial ecosystems. The Xerces Society advocates on behalf of bees. Learn more about our Pollinator Conservation program. Bee Pollen helps avoid allergies, increase… Monsanto buys leading bee research firm after being implicated in bee colony collapse (NaturalNews) Amid all the controversy over genetically-modified (GM) crops and their pesticides and herbicides decimating bee populations all around the world, biotechnology behemoth Monsanto has decided to buy out one of the major international firms devoted to studying and protecting bees. According to a company announcement, Beeologics handed over the reins to Monsanto back on September 28, 2011, which means the gene-manipulating giant will now be able to control the flow of information and products coming from Beeologics for colony collapse disorder (CCD). Since 2007, Beeologics has been studying CCD, as well as Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV), for the purpose of coming up with intervention-based ways to mitigate these conditions. Now that Beeologics is owned and controlled by Monsanto, the company is sure to completely avoid dealing with the true causes of CCD and IAPV as they pertain to Monsanto’s crop technologies — GMOs and their chemical counterparts.
Bee propolis contains all the vitamins and… Leaked document shows EPA allowed bee-toxic pesticide despite own scientists’ red flags Follow the honey: Smoking bees makes them less mad when you move them, but leaked EPA documents might have the opposite effect. It’s not just the State and Defense departments that are reeling this month from leaked documents. The Environmental Protection Agency now has some explaining to do, too. In place of dodgy dealings with foreign leaders, this case involves the German agrichemical giant Bayer; a pesticide with an unpronounceable name, clothianidin; and an insect species crucial to food production (as well as a food producer itself), the honeybee. And in lieu of a memo leaked to a globetrotting Australian, this one features a document delivered to a long-time Colorado beekeeper. All of that, plus my favorite crop to fixate on: industrial corn, which blankets 88 million acres of farmland nationwide and produces a bounty of protein-rich pollen on which honeybees love to feast. It’s The Agency Who Kicked the Beehive, as written by Jonathan Franzen! Hive talking Wimpy watchdogging
Beesource.com - Beekeeping Resources For Beekeepers Since 1997! EPA Document Shows It Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees The world honey bee population has plunged in recent years, worrying beekeepers and farmers who know how critical bee pollination is for many crops. A number of theories have popped up as to why the North American honey bee population has declined--electromagnetic radiation, malnutrition, and climate change have all been pinpointed. Now a leaked EPA document reveals that the agency allowed the widespread use of a bee-toxic pesticide, despite warnings from EPA scientists. The document, which was leaked to a Colorado beekeeper, shows that the EPA has ignored warnings about the use of clothianidin, a pesticide produced by Bayer that mainly is used to pre-treat corn seeds. The pesticide scooped up $262 million in sales in 2009 by farmers, who also use the substance on canola, soy, sugar beets, sunflowers, and wheat, according to Grist. The leaked document (PDF) was put out in response to Bayer's request to approve use of the pesticide on cotton and mustard. Related:
The Early History of Beekeeping History of Wild Bees and Beekeeping The beekeeper is the keeper of bee collection of honey and the other products that bees product in the hive like beeswax, pollen, and royal jelly. Another product of bees is for resale to other beekeeper. The location of where bees are housed is called an apiary or beeyard. The collecting honey dates back 15,000 years ago, Egyptian art shows beekeeping around 4,500 years ago. Wild bees became domesticated in artificial hive like logs, wooden boxes, pottery, and woven baskets. The Greece apiculture found smoking pots, honey extractors in Knossos; Beekeeping was a highly valued industry. In China the art of beekeeping recorded the importance of quality of wooden boxes if improved the quality of the honey. There are more than 20,000 different species of wild bees. With breeding bees some companies will achieve a selectively breeding and hybridize varieties are disease and parasite resistance, which produces good honey, swarming behavior reduction.
Vertical Herb Gardens comments on 04/22 at 01:35 AM Oh wow, I like this too. I'll have to research this...like how do they get the plants to stay in the box?! I also like the boxes themselves. on 04/22 at 12:56 PM Hey! I want to build one too! on 04/22 at 01:00 PM My question would be how to water it. on 04/22 at 01:02 PM Inside the house environment. on 04/29 at 12:33 PM Wow, that's pretty awesome (not really a word I use that often!). on 05/26 at 03:40 AM Idon't know if you can do vertical planting, but I am doing an art project in which I give out seeds of trees that survived the atomic bombing to the people of US and the world. on 05/28 at 01:14 PM Saw this article and it made me think of your post...
Warre Bee Hive Construction Guide - The Bee Space Welcome to the Warre Hive Construction Guide brought to you by The Bee Space. In this guide you will learn how to build a complete Warre beehive. A Warre (pronounced war-ray) hive is a vertical or supered top bar hive that is simple to build and easy to use. The hive management methods of the Warre hive are quick and few, thus it is a suitable beehive for urban and backyard beekeepers. Description The Warre hive is smaller than a regular ten frame Langstroth hive so it consumes less energy and resources than a regular hive. Disclaimer Before we begin, I need you to understand that building a Warre Hive involves potentially dangerous activities such as using hammers and saws. Outline Let’s begin with an outline of the Warre Hive Construction Guide. As I post each section, I will place a quick link in the right sidebar so it is easy for you to find. Go on to the Tool List → Like this: Like Loading...
What a scientist didn't tell the NY Times on honeybee deaths - Oct. 8, 2010 Jerry Bromenshenk, bee investigatorBy Katherine Eban, contributorOctober 8, 2010: 1:42 PM ET FORTUNE -- Few ecological disasters have been as confounding as the massive and devastating die-off of the world's honeybees. The phenomenon of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) -- in which disoriented honeybees die far from their hives -- has kept scientists, beekeepers, and regulators desperately seeking the cause. After all, the honeybee, nature's ultimate utility player, pollinates a third of all the food we eat and contributes an estimated $15 billion in annual agriculture revenue to the U.S. economy. The long list of possible suspects has included pests, viruses, fungi, and also pesticides, particularly so-called neonicotinoids, a class of neurotoxins that kills insects by attacking their nervous systems. What the Times article did not explore -- nor did the study disclose -- was the relationship between the study's lead author, Montana bee researcher Dr. Dr. Bayer v. beekeepers Share this
Basic Beekeeping Scientists discover what’s killing the bees Universal Basic Income (UBI) proposals are gaining in popularity across the political spectrum. The measures would see governments hand a set monthly income to every single citizen within a country, either in addition to existing benefits or in place of them (depending on the details of the particular UBI proposal). Left-wing fans favor UBI’s ability to eradicate absolute poverty, while right-wing libertarians are drawn to its simplicity and reduction in bureaucracy. In Silicon Valley, startup investment firm Y Combinator has plans to fund a basic income experiment in the US, while Finland announced last year it would conduct its own extensive experiment. But how feasible is UBI to implement in reality? We spoke to five UBI experts to get their take on the practicalities of the scheme. Matthew Zwolinski, associate professor of philosophy at the University of San Diego: The main changes we need to see to introduce UBI are largely conditions of public acceptability.