Bee Skeps - Minnesot
Bee Skeps - Minnesota Renaissance Festival - Shakopee, MN by jrozwado, via FlickrTuesday, 28 February 2017
Bee Skeps - Minnesot
Bee Skeps - Minnesota Renaissance Festival - Shakopee, MN by jrozwado, via Flickr
Bee Skeps - Minnesot
Bee Skeps - Minnesot
Bee Skeps - Minnesota Renaissance Festival - Shakopee, MN by jrozwado, via FlickrSunday, 10 March 2013
The Neonicotinoid Argument Continues
Last week David Aston, the chairman of the British Bee Keepers Association, sent out a letter to members regarding the BBKA position (or lack of one) on neo-nicotinoids. As this letter arrived at the time that the UK Government's Environmental Audit Committee was finalising the taking of evidence on the use of neo-nicotinoids, and as the EU were about to make a decision on banning three specific neo-nicotinoid pesticides, it has generated quite a bit of debate.
The "pro" pesticide lobby, which includes DEFRA and the BBKA, and I say that only because they have consistently ignored the scientific evidence on the effect of these chemicals on bees for years, have grasped at the straw that whilst the European Food Safety Agency press release on the proposed ban said that neonicotinoid use on plants that attract bees was unacceptable, the EU report did not. This is both true and disingenuous. The report, and I have read all 55 pages of it, is aimed at the scientific reader and lists many combinations of crop and formulation that pose "a high acute risk to honey bees". The press release, which is aimed at the general public, uses the word "unacceptable" in place of "high acute risk".
Personally I am waiting for the EU decision later this month, and am hoping that will trigger DEFRA into banning, or at least imposing a moratorium, on neo-nicotinoids for the next few years whilst further testing takes place. Should DEFRA drag their feet, then Buglife, the invertebrate charity, are waiting in the wings to take legal action against them for failing to protect the environment.
I hope that this will eventually lead to an investigation into why DEFRA, and specifically the National Bee Unit have such close links with the agro-chemical companies. It should also focus on why the Chemical Regulation Directorate and the Advisory Committee on Pesticides were so slow to realise that the testing and risk assessment regimes they used were totally inadequate for this generation of systemic, seed treated and cumulative pesticides. After all they have only been around 15 years.
It seems that governments and regulators have yet again been found wanting and it is only persistent campaigning by special interest groups with the help of sympathetic journalists that lead to improvements in society.
Dr Bernie Doeser
Small Blue Marble
www.smallbluemarble.org.uk
The "pro" pesticide lobby, which includes DEFRA and the BBKA, and I say that only because they have consistently ignored the scientific evidence on the effect of these chemicals on bees for years, have grasped at the straw that whilst the European Food Safety Agency press release on the proposed ban said that neonicotinoid use on plants that attract bees was unacceptable, the EU report did not. This is both true and disingenuous. The report, and I have read all 55 pages of it, is aimed at the scientific reader and lists many combinations of crop and formulation that pose "a high acute risk to honey bees". The press release, which is aimed at the general public, uses the word "unacceptable" in place of "high acute risk".
Personally I am waiting for the EU decision later this month, and am hoping that will trigger DEFRA into banning, or at least imposing a moratorium, on neo-nicotinoids for the next few years whilst further testing takes place. Should DEFRA drag their feet, then Buglife, the invertebrate charity, are waiting in the wings to take legal action against them for failing to protect the environment.
I hope that this will eventually lead to an investigation into why DEFRA, and specifically the National Bee Unit have such close links with the agro-chemical companies. It should also focus on why the Chemical Regulation Directorate and the Advisory Committee on Pesticides were so slow to realise that the testing and risk assessment regimes they used were totally inadequate for this generation of systemic, seed treated and cumulative pesticides. After all they have only been around 15 years.
It seems that governments and regulators have yet again been found wanting and it is only persistent campaigning by special interest groups with the help of sympathetic journalists that lead to improvements in society.
Dr Bernie Doeser
Small Blue Marble
www.smallbluemarble.org.uk
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
TO ALL LEADING UK SUPERMARKETS: Please remove bee-killing pesticides from your shelves!
Sainsbury's- http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/sol/contact_us/contact_us.jsp
Waitrose - customersupport@waitrose.co.uk
Morrisons - http://www.morrisons.co.uk/Help-and-information/Contact-Us/
Lidl - http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/6491.htm
Tesco - cr.enquiries@uk.tesco.com
Homebase - info@homebase.co.uk
Waitrose - customersupport@waitrose.co.uk
Morrisons - http://www.morrisons.co.uk/Help-and-information/Contact-Us/
Lidl - http://www.lidl.co.uk/cps/rde/xchg/lidl_uk/hs.xsl/6491.htm
Tesco - cr.enquiries@uk.tesco.com
Homebase - info@homebase.co.uk
Please write to all of the above and any other addresses you can find. If you are not in the UK, send something similar to your own supermaket HQs.
Dear Sirs,
You will be aware by now that two leading UK retailers are to remove products containing neonicotinoids from their shelves:
We ask you to follow their example and make a point of demonstrating your 'bee-friendly' credentials to your customers, who will, I am sure, respond positively.
The European Food Standards Authority has established that neonicotinoids pose an unacceptable risk to bees and there is considerable scientific evidence that they are also lethal to other important pollinators.
Friends of the Bees request that you consider:
1. Removing all garden products, include lawn treatments, and spray presticides containing neonicotinoids, from your shelves.
2. Ensuring that suppliers of plants, bulbs and seeds have not and will not use neonicotinoids in soil, or neonicotinoid treated bulbs and seeds.
Neonicotinoids include the following chemicals (some not present currently in garden products, but for your information): imidacloprid, thiamethoxam, thiacloprid, clothiandin, Acetimacloprid, Dinotefuran and Nitenpyram.
Yours,
Philip Chandler
Director
Friends of the Bees Ltd
Sunday, 27 January 2013
Bee Behaviour
This an extremely interesting and thought provoking essay on the complexity of bee and ant colonies.
COMPLEXITY EXPLAINED: 2. Swarm Intelligence
WRITTEN BY VINOD WADHAWAN AUGUST 22, 2009
http://nirmukta.com/2009/08/22/complexity-explained-2-swarm-intelligence/
http://nirmukta.com/2009/08/22/complexity-explained-2-swarm-intelligence/
“In Part 1 of this series of articles, I gave a general and
simple-minded definition of a complex system. Before we go into the details of
how complexity can be quantified, I shall describe here a couple of interesting
and well-investigated examples of how something approaching intelligence arises
in a complex system comprising of non-intelligent individuals. I shall explain
how honeybees in a beehive, and ants in an ant colony, operate as a single,
intelligent, super-organism. I shall also point out how we humans can draw some
practical lessons from studies on these complex systems.”
“I end this article by quoting what Doyne Farmer had
to say about the importance of investigating complex systems of all types:
So when we ask questions like how life emerges, and why
living systems are the way they are – these are the kind of questions that are
really fundamental to understanding what we are and what makes us different
from inanimate matter. The more we know about these things, the closer we’re
going to get to fundamental questions like, ‘What is the purpose of life?’ Now,
in science we can never even attempt to make a frontal assault on questions
like that. But by addressing a different question – like, Why is there an
inexorable growth in complexity? – we may be able to learn something
fundamental about life that suggests its purpose, in the same way that Einstein
shed light on what space and time are by trying to understand gravity.”
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Pollen-free? Not for me!!!
This blog post was written in response to Kim Flottum's CATCH THE BUZZ Email on 4/24/12: There’s More To The Highly Filtered Honey Story. Read more here: http://home.ezezine.com/1636/1636-2012.04.24.08.36.archive.html
I am shaking my head in wonder.... why would somebody want to "filter" the pollen out of honey?
People -- POLLEN is not an IMPURITY!
So I have to wonder - what is the point of filtering all the life-giving wonder out of the most amazing, special, magical, sacred food on the planet? Have we become THAT disconnected to think that POLLEN is an unwanted thing in HONEY?
It's a bit like peeling a potato and eating only the starchy insides, throwing away the nutrient dense skin. Well, isn't it?
Or... are the honey packers hiding something? And if so, what? Who would want honey that had been stripped of its signature nectar source or geographical origin? Or are they just taking advantage of the fact that not enough of us are aware (yet) that honey can be so abused by processing, and made valueless (in the search for the almighty dollar,) and yet still be beautiful enough to be sold as honey? Even though it's essentially *dead* at that point?
A jar full of glowing golden liquid, with light shining through it - is beautiful, yes - but if the honey has been processed to within an inch of its life, you can get the same effect by collecting pretty bottles and filling them with colored water.
So
without the pollen, where's the value in honey? I mean, I guess we all
used to want the perfect, round, red, unblemished apple... thinking it
some sign of "new and improved", or "perfection" - or maybe we just
hoped it would impress the teacher better... But aren't we past that
grade school mentality by now?
Don't we get it that nature is a little messier than that? A little more "real"? That it requires a little more of us - that it requires us to think, to understand, to actually be connected to it, to know that we are a PART of it?
And - pay attention, pollen allergy sufferers (like me) - there is no MEDICINE in the honey if there is no POLLEN in it. Just as well put sugar in your tea for all the health benefit it provides...
POLLEN is why, if you have pollen allergies, you want unprocessed honey from as local as you can get it... like for instance, your own backyard.
So if this makes sense to you - and if backyard beekeeping is something you've been wondering about - stop by www.goldstarhoneybees.com to learn how you can become your own backyard beekeeper - and have REAL honey - pure, natural honey that is FREE of the chemicals that industrial beekeepers use in their hives, and FULL of the lovely pollen that is SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!
Pollen is what prevents honey from being a runny, crystal clear, amber colored, liquid sweetener - kind of like brown Splenda in a Squeezy Bear. Get the real deal. Because it matters. Really, it does.
I am shaking my head in wonder.... why would somebody want to "filter" the pollen out of honey?
People -- POLLEN is not an IMPURITY!
So I have to wonder - what is the point of filtering all the life-giving wonder out of the most amazing, special, magical, sacred food on the planet? Have we become THAT disconnected to think that POLLEN is an unwanted thing in HONEY?
It's a bit like peeling a potato and eating only the starchy insides, throwing away the nutrient dense skin. Well, isn't it?
Or... are the honey packers hiding something? And if so, what? Who would want honey that had been stripped of its signature nectar source or geographical origin? Or are they just taking advantage of the fact that not enough of us are aware (yet) that honey can be so abused by processing, and made valueless (in the search for the almighty dollar,) and yet still be beautiful enough to be sold as honey? Even though it's essentially *dead* at that point?
A jar full of glowing golden liquid, with light shining through it - is beautiful, yes - but if the honey has been processed to within an inch of its life, you can get the same effect by collecting pretty bottles and filling them with colored water.
 |
| Red, Orange, Yellow... Honey! |
Don't we get it that nature is a little messier than that? A little more "real"? That it requires a little more of us - that it requires us to think, to understand, to actually be connected to it, to know that we are a PART of it?
And - pay attention, pollen allergy sufferers (like me) - there is no MEDICINE in the honey if there is no POLLEN in it. Just as well put sugar in your tea for all the health benefit it provides...
POLLEN is why, if you have pollen allergies, you want unprocessed honey from as local as you can get it... like for instance, your own backyard.
So if this makes sense to you - and if backyard beekeeping is something you've been wondering about - stop by www.goldstarhoneybees.com to learn how you can become your own backyard beekeeper - and have REAL honey - pure, natural honey that is FREE of the chemicals that industrial beekeepers use in their hives, and FULL of the lovely pollen that is SUPPOSED TO BE THERE!
Pollen is what prevents honey from being a runny, crystal clear, amber colored, liquid sweetener - kind of like brown Splenda in a Squeezy Bear. Get the real deal. Because it matters. Really, it does.
Ways to Get Bees for in your Top Bar Hive
Ways to Get Bees for in your Top Bar Hive
THINGS YOU DO WANT:
A swarm. The beautiful thing about a swarm is that swarming is the natural reproduction process
of honeybees. That means that the bees in a swarm are a finely tuned,
well-organized “colony”. The bees are the right ages for the tasks they
will be performing in their new home when it is found, and they are all
related to each other, and they are all related to their queen. This is
about as close to natural as you could ask for!
A swarm’s ability to build wax and fill your top bar hive with honeycomb is just amazing!
HOWEVER – The difficulty with starting your hive with a swarm is that you cannot predict its arrival time – or even if a swarm will come your way at all. You might say that they are a “gift of nature.”
Or a package. A package of bees has advantages for the beekeeper. You can “order” a package. So you know you’ve got bees coming, and when.
While it's not the most natural method, at least you know when it’s expected to arrive.
A drawback of package bees is that they likely have not had the best time of it just before they come to live in your top bar beehive. They are bees of random ages, tumbled together with bees from many other hives in an apiary – they are unrelated, disorganized, and expected to get on with an artificially raised queen that they have never met before.
The package process is an artificial process and not so good for bees, but they seem to be able to adapt and overcome, and organize themselves into a colony and go forward. Our goal is to offer you the very best, healthiest package bees with emphasis on natural cell size and treatment-free management.
So – with those options to consider – you can now make a choice. Swarm or Package?
Start your top bar hive off right – download our free Hive Start-up Handbook here.
We will be selling package bees in 2013. Joining our newsletter will get you the information as soon as it posts: http://bit.ly/GSHNewsletter
THINGS YOU DON’T WANT:
Now, let’s talk about nucs. Just what is a nuc in the bee world? A nuc is the nickname given to a “nucleus colony”. It works like this – you buy a nuc, which is like a little starter hive of bees – you take it home, and you remove five empty frames from your Langstroth hive, and you replace them with five frames (and the comb, and the accompanying bees) from the nuc. Voila – instant beehive. If you are using Langstroth equipment, this works beautifully… because it comes on Langstroth equipment!
But sometimes novice beekeepers don’t realize that a conventional
“nuc” isn’t going to fit in a top bar hive. And they may not be quite
sure what questions to even ask, so the company they are purchasing from
doesn’t even know how to keep them from making this error – buying bees
that won’t work in their top bar hive.
Primarily, it’s a question of non-compatible, non-interchangeable equipment. Top Bar Hives, with their natural wax, are not shaped anything like Langstroth hives. Yes, there are tales of brave (or crazy?) beekeepers who cut apart the frames of a conventional nuc in order to make it fit into a top bar hive – we call that a “hack and slash” or “chop and crop” job.
We would like to discourage you from doing that – and one obvious reason for that is because it’s very hard on the bees, who also get pretty angry about the whole process. But another reason to avoid a nuc is that it means that you are introducing the Langstroth hive’s foundation wax into your clean top bar hive. And since standard-sized wax foundation is a bit the wrong size, and has also been found to contain about 170 different chemical contaminants – it’s sort of like shooting yourself in the foot before you even begin. Let’s at least let the bees have their own way about making clean, natural comb – they know what’s best.
So a nuc is just not the best choice for populating your top bar hive.
Make sense? We thought it would.
Thanks for listening!
 |
| A swarm of honey bees |
A swarm’s ability to build wax and fill your top bar hive with honeycomb is just amazing!
HOWEVER – The difficulty with starting your hive with a swarm is that you cannot predict its arrival time – or even if a swarm will come your way at all. You might say that they are a “gift of nature.”
Or a package. A package of bees has advantages for the beekeeper. You can “order” a package. So you know you’ve got bees coming, and when.
 |
| A 3# package of bees |
A drawback of package bees is that they likely have not had the best time of it just before they come to live in your top bar beehive. They are bees of random ages, tumbled together with bees from many other hives in an apiary – they are unrelated, disorganized, and expected to get on with an artificially raised queen that they have never met before.
The package process is an artificial process and not so good for bees, but they seem to be able to adapt and overcome, and organize themselves into a colony and go forward. Our goal is to offer you the very best, healthiest package bees with emphasis on natural cell size and treatment-free management.
So – with those options to consider – you can now make a choice. Swarm or Package?
Start your top bar hive off right – download our free Hive Start-up Handbook here.
We will be selling package bees in 2013. Joining our newsletter will get you the information as soon as it posts: http://bit.ly/GSHNewsletter
THINGS YOU DON’T WANT:Now, let’s talk about nucs. Just what is a nuc in the bee world? A nuc is the nickname given to a “nucleus colony”. It works like this – you buy a nuc, which is like a little starter hive of bees – you take it home, and you remove five empty frames from your Langstroth hive, and you replace them with five frames (and the comb, and the accompanying bees) from the nuc. Voila – instant beehive. If you are using Langstroth equipment, this works beautifully… because it comes on Langstroth equipment!
 |
| A Langstroth "nuc" |
Primarily, it’s a question of non-compatible, non-interchangeable equipment. Top Bar Hives, with their natural wax, are not shaped anything like Langstroth hives. Yes, there are tales of brave (or crazy?) beekeepers who cut apart the frames of a conventional nuc in order to make it fit into a top bar hive – we call that a “hack and slash” or “chop and crop” job.
We would like to discourage you from doing that – and one obvious reason for that is because it’s very hard on the bees, who also get pretty angry about the whole process. But another reason to avoid a nuc is that it means that you are introducing the Langstroth hive’s foundation wax into your clean top bar hive. And since standard-sized wax foundation is a bit the wrong size, and has also been found to contain about 170 different chemical contaminants – it’s sort of like shooting yourself in the foot before you even begin. Let’s at least let the bees have their own way about making clean, natural comb – they know what’s best.
So a nuc is just not the best choice for populating your top bar hive.
Make sense? We thought it would.
Thanks for listening!
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