Are Bees Too Busy?

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/2007-08-01/news/are-bees-too-busy

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Gosh, that makes all kinds of sense.

Back in my "Mother Earth News" days I raised honeybees. (Also chickens and nubian milk goats.) My bees were bought from the Farmer's Bulletin and when they were acclimated to my home I re-queened with a queen bought from Sears. The next generation of honeybees came online about the same time as my vegetable garden. Holy mackerel! The difference in seeds/pod in peas and beans between the year prior and the year of my honeybees was amazing. Everything bee pollinated produced more and in better synchrony. When I retire I'm returning to my hippie days -- a second childhood.

B

I wouuld think an almond grower would take some steps to have his own in house honeybee operation, at least a small one. Since they have so much riding on bees, and there would be an extra source of income from the honey, hard to imagine that it wouldn't work to some degree.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Most industrial farmers use lots of pesticides except during the flowering period. The flowering period for trees is usually very brief -- a matter of a week or so. Since there is usually very little plant life on industrial farms (and orchards) other than the primary crop, the farmer would mostly likely find it necessary to provide supplementary feed for the bees.

Also, because of the pesticide use during the non-flowering season for the primary crop, the bees would probably die anyway.

It may be just a very simple fix for industrial farmers: Use fewer hives but disperse them more widely.

My personal preference would be to largely abandon industrial monoculture farming. But with billions of lives dependent on industrial farming, a radical change like that would probably result in mass starvation.

Yes. Large scale mono cropping seems to be related to all types of food production here, including meat. (ok that wouldn't be a crop)... But food production in the us is modeled after mass industrial production as much as possible. Our plants and animals look great and are large but seemingly lack certain nutritional goodness that used to be common. And they often seem to contain things that aren't even healthy, such as hormones, and anti biotics.

I am wondering how things are going with the bee shortage. I haven't heard much about it lately, and the crops seem to be growing around here. (the corn is huge in many places).

Tom W

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Mono cropping is what led to the Irish potato famine.

Corn and other indigenous crops don't require honey bee participation. I was surprised to learn that honey bees were not native to this continent. Neither were earthworms and that surprised me even more. I had thought earthworms had played a big part in soil production in the entire world.

BTW Bot, good points on the pesticide limiting effect. I imagine up til now, having beekeepers bring the hives in at the right time worked so well there was no motivation to look elsewhere.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

That is surprising! Bee's I can easily understand but earthworms...wow!

I have some reading to do today.

It is true, according to a recent national geographic article, I beleive that is where I read it.

I have a poster that I got at the field museum in chicago that shows all the different types of corn back to when it was wild. very fascinating.

Tom W

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Whoops, I was a bit premature with that one. It dawned on me I should look into that one some more and it turns out, according to this piece anyway, that some worms were native to parts of North America while other parts had none, at least after the glacial age. I'll have to read up on that more, I hate dispensing faulty info.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

Ya'll remember the big "killer bee" scare from a few years back?

No, not John Belushi. Although that one was hilarious.

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-livin' in the terminally flippant zone

It's all laugable to you, eh? Who knows, this might be a tempest in a teapot, but we know that bird populations are way down in North America, it's not a stretch to consider that the alarming drops in bee populations might also be real.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

I recently read that the earthworms were not native too.

Speaking of birds, yesterday I spotted a turkey vulture feeding on a 'possum just up the street from my home. First time I have seen a vulture in the city, iirc. Man, those are some ugly birds!

Tom W

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Charles Darwin wrote an interesting study of earthworms in the years prior to "Origin of the Species."

Not sure about earthworms and origins. This article, I linked to above:

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/terrestrialanimals/earthworms/index.html

says that the big glaciers probably wiped them out in the northern midwest whereas in the south and west they continued, and this far before the days of humans spreading earthworms and the like in ship ballast, nursery stock, etc.

It is an intesting piece as I was under the impression that earthworms were always a positive and this article points out that it's not always the case.

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1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K

That is interesting, I was under the same impression.

I know that this wasn't your point about them being a problem and not many tears would be shed for the poor golfers, but they can be a big problem on putting greens. Unfortunately it's the Superintendent, whose job security is in the hands of the membership, who gets put in that precarious place since nothing **wink, wink** will control them because no pesticide manufacturer would dare put earthworm control on their label.

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1980 300TD-China Blue/Blue MBTex-2nd Owner, 107K (Alt Blau) OBK #15
'06 Chevy Tahoe Z71 (for the wife & 4 kids, current mule) '03 Honda Odyssey (son #1's ride, reluctantly) '99 GMC Suburban (255K+ miles, semi-retired mule) 21' SeaRay Seville (summer escape pod)