FineWeb Concept Datasets
Collection
concept datasets extracted from fineweb
•
9 items
•
Updated
text
stringlengths 239
574k
|
|---|
Our hives have been in place for a month now and we are looking forward to seeing it’s progress and how the new bees are doing. We sit down for tea and Chelsea hands out some notes and goes through some of the general duties in month two. “Now that we have controlled spring build up as much as we can, it is time to do a split.” smiles Chelsea. This sounds like a delicate process and we are grateful to have her leading us every step of the way. A hive split, she explains, is done for a few reasons: to prevent swarming; to expand the number of hives in your apiary and in the years to come, increase honey production.
After our tea it is time for our hive check. We head to bee headquarters the Lenora van which houses everything members need to suit up for the hive checks. Richard who dabbled in beekeeping last year has his own head cover and jacket sent to him from England. I am reminded to fasten every zipper and velcro latch to avoid any unforseen possibilities of stinging. Chelsea shares a story with us about not doing up her velcro and a a bee flying in through the gap and buzzing around inside her suit! I double check and triple check that they are all fastened.
We gather the smoker, some burlap, a bucket of sugar syrup and head towards the south end of our garden.
We stop and observe the land of the bees and Chelsea points out our bee highway. “Always keep clear of their entrance way” she explains “approach from the sides, but never directly in front.” Makes sense. She gently puffs smoke into the entrance way to calm them for our inspection.
She opens up the hive and shows us how to use the top as a platform on the ground. Initial hive observations are good. Our outer frames are empty as expected for our late hive start. One by one she uses her tool to inspect the inner frames pointing out our queen and her distinguishing appearance. “Hive looks great” Chelsea announces and we are filled with joy. There are full circles of brood in all stages. We identify the egg, larvae and pupae stages. We see drones and the workers coming in and out with sacs of pollen. We even witnessed a remarkable sight, trophallaxis, the sharing of liquids between the bees. Lots of honey, lots of action. She is very pleased with the progress of the hive. This is a far cry from where we were last year as bee amateurs where approaching the hive felt tense. Opening and inspecting a whole other story. I barely ever accompanied Richard to the hive fearing the bees sensing my hesitation and stinging me. Bees smell fear was what I always remembered as a child. Hive check with?your beekeeping tutor is a truly rewarding experience.
It begins to lightly rain so we swiftly inspect the other frames and shift the empty ones to closer to the middle to give them some space for production. With all those capped brood frames we have to feed them so Chelsea carefully replaces the top and pours the sugar syrup into the frame feeder in the hive. She makes notes into a notebook about today’s inspection and leaves it under the lid for next time. “Do we have any homework?” I ask wondering if we have to inspect the hives in between her visits. “ Nope” she smiles “ When we are both fully confident that you are able and ready to handle the frames yourself then we can talk about that, but for now you can just leave them and we will do the inspections together.” Fine by me. In fact it is perfect.
For more info on Lenora Bee’s hive share program www.lenorabee.ca |
As bee populations decline around the world, beekeeping is becoming
the environmentally "in" thing to do, even in urban settings. VOA takes us to the grounds of the Franciscan monastery in
Washington, D.C. for a crash course on the life of bees and their
importance to the environment. Then, we visit the rooftop of D.C.'s
posh Fairmont hotel, where chefs are keeping hives and harvesting the
honey to use in everything from cheese plates to the French delicacy,
Joe Bozik has been keeping bees on the grounds of the Franciscan Monastery in Washington D.C. for about four years.
Recently, honey bee populations in the U.S. and Europe have fallen victim to something called "Colony Collapse Disorder," where bees leave the hive but, for unknown reasons, never return.
"It is happening most with the commercial beekeepers, and one of the theories is that they stress the bees by moving them long distances to get them to pollinate certain fields," Bozik said.
Bees play an integral part in pollinating fruits and vegetables. There is concern that declining populations could affect food production. Joe would like to see more people take up beekeeping as a hobby to increase their numbers.
"By having people more involved with hobbyist kinds of beekeepers, there may be some people who will actually raise queens and then offer those queens to beekeepers that are losing bees," he said.
Each hive contains about 45,000 bees. There are three types of bees in a hive. Female honey bees which collect the pollen and nectar. The queen. And male drone bees which fertilize the queen. The queen is the most important bee. There is only one in each hive.
The queen lives for three to four years. Her only job is to lay eggs. Female worker bees live for about 45 days, which means the queen must lay over 1,000 eggs a day for the hive to survive.
Today, Joe and his friend Toni Burnham are inspecting the
hive to make sure the queen is laying enough eggs.
"The queen begins laying in the middle and she lays in a spiral out toward the edges so you can see that the last eggs laid in that frame are only now capped," he explains.
In three days, the eggs hatch as larvae. Worker bees feed the larvae until adulthood. Joe says he gets a lot of personal satisfaction out of working with bees.
"You have got thousands of bees that you are handling, bare hands, and you are helping them," he said. "And there is a satisfaction that they are producing honey."
Joe's passion for bees is spreading. Across town at Washington's Fairmont hotel, pastry chef Aron Weber and executive chef Ian Bens have started a bee colony on the hotel roof.
With the full support of the hotel, they started their hives about three months ago. Aron says they wanted to do their part for the environment. "The honey bees are so important for the environment. For pollinating all the plants and vegetables, pretty much everything we eat," he said.
Executive chef Ian Bens says each hive should produce 100 pounds of honey a year. "I am interested in what Erin is going to be able to do with the pastries. We are working on some comb honey as well to go with cheese plates," Bens said.
According to experts, urban bee keeping is on the rise. The White House recently added some beehives in the vegetable garden. The jury is still out as to why bee populations are declining. But demand is still high for honey, and more urban dwellers are keeping hives and harvesting their own. |
This chinstrap with Cord Lock beekeeping hat can protect against mosquitos, bees, wasps, gnats, flies and more.
You can focus on the fishing,hiking,hunting or walking instead of being distracted by the sun and heat.
Ideal for varies outdoor activities, camping, climb, bicycle, fishing, military.
It can be folded for easy storage, light weight but durable.
- ☛ Made of polyester and breathable with clear visual fine mesh.
- ☛ One size fits most,Best Fit from 21 1/2"-23" head circumference.Hat Size 6 7/8 - 7 1/4. Weil net length is 19 7/10".
- ☛ The UPF 50+ excellent sun protection will protect you from sunburn
- ☛ Protect your neck and face from gnat, bee, and mosquito,insects, flies & bugs.
- ☛ Beekeeper Anti Mosquito Insert Fishing Hat Bee Bug Insect Fly Mask Cap with Head Net Mesh Face Protection Outdoor Fishing Equipment
- Binding: Misc.
- Brand: Xiabing
- Department: Men's
- Product Group: Sports
- Product Type Name: SPORTING_GOODS
- Manufacturer: Xiabing
- Publisher: Xiabing
- Studio: Xiabing |
This document gives the Association’s approach to the provision of colonies of bees to members, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of beginners. It includes instructions on preparing nucs, use of apideas and handling swarms.
Sources of bees:
i) (a) Nucs – from established beekeepers. Each established member should make one nuc per year available to beginners. Raising an additional nuc of bees in normal circumstances should not overstress the capacity of these beekeepers who would normally be considered as having 3 or more years experience. The main demand will, however, be in the short term, as it would be expected that nucs returning from ‘old’ beginners would soon be able to meet the demands of ‘new’ beginners. Established beekeepers need to be able to make up a nuc and have it headed by a viable queen. This will normally require the beekeeper to be able to raise queens in an appropriate manner. Note 1, gives details on how to provide bees through nucs and artificial swarms, and Note 2, deals with raising queens using Apidea mini-nucs.
i) (b) Artificial swarms. Experienced beekeepers who, for example, may not want to increase colony numbers, may provide their “one nuc per year” to beginners as part of an artificial swarm manipulation. See Note 1.
N.B. The above does not preclude members (either working as individuals or as a group) engaging in small-scale queen rearing and making nucs available to other members, with or without a charge. Details can be included in this instruction, if necessary, at a later stage. However, each established beekeeper would still be expected to provide “one nuc per year” without charge to beginners. In cases where bees are being supplied from sources unknown to the beginner, the opinion of the Association may be sought.
ii) Nucs – from ‘old’ beginners. Each beginner who receives a colony from an Association member as in i) above, would normally be expected, within a 2-year period, to make a nuc or equivalent available to the Association for distribution to new beginners. Notes 1 and 2 are also relevant to this paragraph
iii) Swarms. Swarms of bees have been a traditional way of increasing or replacing stocks. While they are a possible source of bees they are also a vector in the spread of disease. It would be proposed that swarms, where possible, be used close to the area where they were caught. In this way the spread of disease will be minimised. The Association should, therefore, make an effort to capture all swarms and deal with them in an appropriate way (Note 3). Any swarms that are not located by members are liable to fall into the hands of others who may sell them as nucs to beginners (or members) without regard to the locations from which the swarms arose and hence risk the spread of disease through our area. The Association should therefore make an effort to inform the public through publicity that swarms of bees will be collected by the Association. Note 3 details how swarms can be handled for use as replacement colonies.
N.B. To ensure that the allocation of bees from the three sources is undertaken with efficiency and fairness it is proposed that some level of co-ordination be applied by the Association. The details of the co-ordination will be developed during the first year of implementation.
Approved Committee Meeting 13th May 2010
1.1 A five-frame nuc can be made up as follows.
Reference: Beekeeping Study Notes 1, JD and BD Yates (Pages 60 / 61) – in Association library
1.2 When sealed worker brood is present the colony can be transported to the beginner’s apiary. As soon as possible the nuc should be introduced to a full hive and the nuc (scraped and blow torched) returned along with 5 frames, wax (in sealed package) and dummy board. In normal conditions the nuc should be returned within one week.
(b) Colony from artificial swarm
Reference: Guide to Bees and Honey, Ted Hooper (Page 138 / 141) – in Association library.
Note 2. Raising queens using Apideas.
2.1 The Apidea is a small mating nuc that can take a mature queen cell. A full description of using these mininucs to raise a young queen is given in, Managing Mininucs, Ron Brown, a copy of which is in the Association library. Note that the nuc can be filled with 300ml of bees (per Albert Knight, BIBBA).
Note 3. Using swarms as starter or replacement colonies
3.1 As a general rule swarms should be moved the minimum distance from the location in which they originated.
3.2 It is in the interest of safety and good relations that the general public should have an awareness of honeybee swarms, and should know what to do when they encounter them. The Association’s website should contain basic information on swarms, and this should include a contact numbers that would give the public ready access to the Association to report swarms.
3.3 When a swarm has come to the attention of the Association, the mentor of the beginner whose apiary is nearest to the location, and who requires a first colony of bees, should be contacted. If no beginner in the vicinity requires bees, then an experienced member with bees in the vicinity should be contacted. This experienced beekeeper could use the bees in his/her own apiary or, if not required, as a replacement colony for another member. The mentor or experienced beekeeper should take responsibility for capturing and hiving the swarm*.
3.4 The Association has a number of 5-frame nucs that can be used to ‘hive’ the swarms for use by beginners.
3.5 Swarms should generally not be fed for about 24 hours and then fed sugar syrup (50% sugar strength). The colony should be monitored closely. The brood should be checked in particular for the presence of American Foul Brood (AFB) in the first few months.
* Beekeepers should always have at hand the basic equipment with which to catch a swarm. A skep or sturdy box (stiff cardboard will do), a white cotton sheet and pruning tools such as secateurs. All beekeepers should be familiar with the method for catching and hiving swarms. Reference: Guide to Bees and Honey, Ted Hooper (Pages 148 / 152) – in Association library. |
This week COAM met with the Director of Seasons Honey company, one of the biggest honey producing companies in Afghanistan.
Mr. Manzoor Ahmad learnt beekeeping from his father and grandfather and then seven years ago, combined this knowledge with his business experience and built the Seasons Honey Company- www.seasonpurehoney.com. Seasons currently produces over 90,000 kg of honey per year from over 35,000 hives in eight provinces in Afghanistan.
“There is not enough honey to meet the market demand in Afghanistan”
Manzoor has plans to expand his production factory and develop new honey based products. |
By: Jackie Layer
Bees sustain our ecosystem and pollinate about a third of everything we eat, but that perfect lawn so many homeowners strive for is causing them harm, Bees are disappearing at an alarming rate because of pesticides, parasites, and loss of habitat. Now, a movement is underway to change the way we landscape so …
To stay updated with the latest in the apiculture industry to can check out our beekeeping latest news. On the other hand if you’re starting apiculture and desire to start professional beekeeping now download a copy of our beekeeping for beginners ebook.
Beekeeping can be a full time profession or a hobby that is simple. Nonetheless, more often than not, what started as a hobby would turn into a profession. But you cannot simply determine and tell yourself you will start to do beekeeping. You need to have sufficient knowledge and understanding on the field that you’re going to enter, before beginning on any avocation or profession. Then it’s about time to indulge yourself in your line of interest, if you’ve been putting off your curiosity about beekeeping for quite a while. Bee farming may look simple; learning the fundamental beekeeping lessons can enable you to get away to a great beginning.
What does a beekeeper have to understand?
You should have total interest on beekeeping to begin at the right foot. You should also have consented to share your house space. There are potential dangers in beekeeping that can hurt not only you but your family too. Your focus isn’t just to make money by selling honey; a great beekeeper should have a keen interest and fire in rearing bees.
An apiarist should know the right location for the beehives. If you decide to place your beehives you have to make sure beekeeping is enabled in your area. There are several areas restricted to beekeeping; you need to get permission relating to this.
Beekeepers must know whether beekeeping supplies are offered in the region where the beehives are situated. You may never understand when you should visit a local beekeeping shop; it is best that a nearby beekeeping store is accessible.
Protective supplies and equipment are also essential for beekeepers to understand. Know the appropriate suit to pick to keep you from any potential danger in beekeeping.
Last but definitely not the least, among the beekeeping lessons you must know is that: it is not unimportant for the beekeeper to understand the proper way of harvesting honey. In case you are not able to harvest honey all the beekeeping attempts would be useless. The approaches should be known by a beekeeper in collecting the honey from the comb; beeswax is also part of the yields in beekeeping. |
YOU will not see this inconvenient empirical data anywhere on the climate-theory-obsessed mainstream media, because it’s good news about the Arctic, and that directly contradicts their relentless bombardment of doom and gloom about Arctic sea-ice and its apparent “Death Spiral”.
TO report the massive expansion of thick, multi-year ice that has built up over the past ten years threatens both media and alarmist scientists – egos, jobs, reputations and government (taxpayer) grant money…
Via Tony Heller’s Real Climate Science :
Scary Times For Climate Alarmists
There has been a huge expansion of thick ice over the last ten years.
AFTER a brutally cold 2017/18 winter that witnessed record cold and snowfall across most of the Northern Hemisphere and snow again reaching all 50 states of the US, climate ambulance chasers have been eager to jump on recent heatwaves that have hit parts of the US and Europe…
ROY Spencer, PhD meteorologist with 40 years experience cools down the predicted hysteria with a healthy dose of stubborn facts and historical records that show nothing unusual about the latest ‘summer’ heatwaves…
“The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read.
The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think.
The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is;
he confuses it with feeling.”
– Thomas Sowell
AUSTRALIA’S ‘premier’ science body, the CSIRO, is a prime example of a government funded agency who has been fatally captured by global warming groupthink and climate change hysteria, resulting in a litany of failed predictions and costly fear-mongering, thanks in part to their own contribution to the global set of overheated climate models.
AN example of the CSIRO’s fealty towards the Climate Crisis Industry can be seen in the use of sea level rise figures far in excess of even the IPCC…
In its 2012 report, State of the Climate, the CSIRO says that since 1993 sea levels have risen up to 10mm a year in the north and west. That means that somewhere has had a 19cm-rise in sea level since 1993. Where is this place? The European satellite says that sea levels have been constant for the past eight years.
A 2003 CSIRO report, part-funded by the ski industry, found that resorts could lose a quarter of their snow within 15 years…
“For the first time, they realised that their attention should be directed to a common enemy,” says Andrew Fairley, head of the Alpine Resorts Co-ordinating Council, which advises the State Government and oversees the management of Victoria’s six snow resorts. “And that enemy is climate change.”
Like those who rely on the Great Barrier Reef, the Australian ski industry sees itself as a frontline victim of global warming. A 2003 CSIRO report, part-funded by the ski industry, found that the resorts could lose a quarter of their snow in 15 years, and half by 2050. The worst case was a 96 per cent loss of snow by mid-century.
CSIRO – Simulations of future snow conditions in the Australian alpine regions
The low impact scenario for 2020 has a minor impact on snow conditions. Average season lengths are reduced by around five days. Reductions in peak depths are usually less than 10%, but can be larger at lower sites (e.g. Mt Baw Baw and Wellington High Plains).
The high impact scenario for 2020 leads to reductions of 30-40 days in average season lengths. At higher sites such as Mt Hotham, this can represent reductions in season duration of about 25%, but at lower sites such as Mt Baw Baw the reduction can be more significant (up to 60%)…
We have very high confidence (at least 95%) that the low impact scenarios will be exceeded and the high impact scenarios will not be exceeded.
ALL around the world, warmist institutions and the climate-theory-obsessed compliant mainstream media were once predicting the end of snow… Read the rest of this entry »
“CLIMATE alarmism is a gigantic fraud: it only survives by suppressing dissent and by spending tens of billions of dollars of public money every year on pseudo-scientific propaganda.” – Leo Goldstein
CLIMATISM TOP 10 ALARMIST MYTHS – Intro
EXCESSIVE or exaggerated alarm about a real or imagined threat is fundamental in driving the human CO2-induced
global warming climate change narrative.
THE most popular climatic and weather-related events, as marketed by the Climate Crisis Industry, fall well within the bounds of natural variability. So, in order for such events to make the headlines, attract taxpayer funding for ‘research’, and advance the misanthropic, man-made climate change agenda, they must be accompanied by inflated language, an urgent tone, imagery of doom, and in many cases, fraudulent data.
IN this series we take an objective/sceptical look at ten of the more popular metrics used by warming alarmists to push the CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) narrative, testing the veracity of the all-too-often wild and alarmist claims associated with each…
#3. OCEAN ACIDIFICATION
“Corals evolved during the Cambrian Era six hundred million years ago, with CO2 levels 4000% of what they are now. They are made of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) – and could not exist without substantial amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Unless the chemical properties of CaCO3 have changed, the corals [and crustaceans] will be just fine.” – Tony Heller
WITH a stubborn atmosphere failing to warm as predicted, another climate threat was needed to sustain the Climate Crisis industry and keep lazy reporters supplied with junk science to feed their catastrophic climate narrative.
ENTER “Ocean Acidification”!
SOUNDS scary right? From the onset, the term “ocean acidification” was deceptive by design. And the only valid ‘science’ in the pseudoscientific study of “Ocean Acidification” is the ‘science’ of scare-mongering.
OCEANS are alkaline. The correct scientific term for any pH change toward zero is “less alkaline”. Obviously not the scariest of descriptors to shock the public into belief.
“OCEAN ACIDIFICATION” was first referenced in a peer-reviewed study in Nature in 2003, resulting in an explosion of journal articles, media reports and alarmist publications from environmental orgs. It has since gone viral, endorsed by scientists from numerous alarmist institutions including the Royal Society, the IPCC and NOAA who coined it “climate change’s evil twin” in a 2016 report.
A 2016 paper published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science put the issue of “ocean acidification” under the microscope, and found Scientists exaggerating the carbon dioxide threat to marine life…
Applying organized scepticism to ocean acidification research
“Ocean acidification” (OA), a change in seawater chemistry driven by increased uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the oceans, has probably been the most-studied single topic in marine science in recent times. The majority of the literature on OA report negative effects of CO2 on organisms and conclude that OA will be detrimental to marine ecosystems. As is true across all of science, studies that report no effect of OA are typically more difficult to publish.
Excerpts from the paper:
Scientific or academic scepticism calls for critical scrutiny of research outputs before they are accepted as new knowledge (Merton, 1973). Duarte et al. (2014) stated that “…there is a perception that scientific skepticism has been abandoned or relaxed in many areas…” of marine science. They argue that OA is one such area, and conclude that there is, at best, weak evidence to support an OA-driven decline of calcifiers. Below, I raise some of the aspects of OA research to which I contend an insufficient level of organized scepticism has been applied (in some cases, also to the articles in this theme issue). I arrived at that conclusion after reading hundreds of articles on OA (including, to be fair, some that also raise these issues) and overseeing the peer-review process for the very large number of submissions to this themed issue. Importantly, and as Duarte et al. (2014) make clear, a retrospective application of scientific scepticism such as the one that follows could—and should—be applied to any piece of/body of research.
FROM an article in The Times :
An “inherent bias” in scientific journals in favour of more calamitous predictions has excluded research showing that marine creatures are not damaged by ocean acidification, which is caused by the sea absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
It has been dubbed the “evil twin of climate change” and hundreds of studies have claimed to show that it destroys coral reefs and other marine life by making it harder for them to develop shells or skeletons.
The review found that many studies had used flawed methods, subjecting marine creatures to sudden increases in carbon dioxide that would never be experienced in real life.
Dr Browman, who is also principal research scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, found there had been huge increase in articles on ocean acidification in recent years, rising from five in 2005 to 600 last year.
He said that a handful of influential scientific journals and lobbying by international organisations had turned ocean acidification into a major issue.
“Such journals tend to publish doom and gloom stories . . . stated without equivocation,” he said. The bias in favour of doom-laden articles was partly the result of pressure on scientists to produce eye-catching work, he added.
“You won’t get a job unless you publish an article that is viewed as of significant importance to society. People often forget that scientists are people and have the same pressures on them and the same kind of human foibles. Some are driven by different things. They want to be prominent.”
Patrick Moore: Ocean ‘Acidification’ Alarmsim in Perspective
From Moore’s report: Read the rest of this entry »
“Beekeeping is being widely introduced to communities in East Africa as an alternative way of making money as climate change brings harsher weather.
But Ng’ong’oni’s said even the bees are struggling to deal with drought and worsening heat extremes, despite his having planted a woodlot of trees to help provide nectar.
Benedict Wambua, a researcher at South Eastern Kenya University’s school of agriculture and veterinary sciences, found in a 2016 study that recurrent droughts were among the factors limiting the use of beekeeping as a climate coping strategy, largely because honey production fell in drought periods.
The area he and colleagues studied in Kitui County, in eastern Kenya, “showed a notable decline in productivity attributed to drought, deforestation and inefficiency” by farmers, the study said…”
“Deforestation and inefficiency by farmers”, is most definitely a man-made issue, but as for “drought”, science points to Mother Nature as the cause. An important variable conveniently left out by The Christian Science Monitor, always partial to pushing the
global warming climate change scare.
BIAS BY OMISSION – the most insidious form of propaganda…
“Analysing precipitation data for the South East and North West of Kenya we found no consistent signal from human‐induced climate change and thus conclude that it has not greatly affected the likelihood of low rainfall such as in 2016.”
WHAT other pieces of vital information do climate-theory-obsessed mainstream media outlets omit in order to deceive their readers into man-made climate change belief?
- “Saving The Planet” Update : Wind Turbines Destroy Local Farming Village And Bees | Climatism
- CLIMATE CHANGE Derangement Syndrome : Science Abandoned For Dogma And Fake News | Climatism
See also :
- THE SUN : Climate Control Knob, Enemy Of The Climate Cult | Climatism
- THE SUN : Climate Changer, Climate Driver, Climate Disruptor | Climatism
- THE Great Global Warming “Pause” | Climatism
- 100% Of Climate Models Prove that 97% of Climate Scientists Were Wrong! | Climatism
Bee Science related :
- Shock Study: Bees like Warm Climates | Climatism
- Bee-pocaclypse called off, bees doing OK, global warming was never a cause | Climatism
Origins Of The Global Warming Scam :
- WESTERN Nations, Driven By A Global Agenda Of Climate Alarmism, Are Destroying Their Industries With Carbon Taxes And Promotion Of Expensive, Intermittent Green Energy | Climatism
- TOMORROW’S Grim, Global, Green Dictatorship | Climatism
- CLIMATE CHANGE – The Most Massive Scientific Fraud In Human History | Climatism
- “In Searching For A New Enemy To Unite Us, We Came Up With The Threat Of Global Warming” | Climatism
- Global Warming Is The Greatest And Most Successful Pseudoscientific Fraud In History | Climatism
- THE ARCTIC : Ground Zero For Anthropogenic Hubris And Climate Change Hysteria | Climatism
(Climate rationalists are still waiting for that “big oil” cheque to arrive in the mail!)
Click link for more info…TQ! Jamie.
NICKNAMED “The Gray Lady“, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a national “newspaper of record”.
IN March the paper launched a series called Warming Planet, Vanishing Heritage which examines “how climate change is erasing cultural identity around the world.” The series based on a UN “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate“ report, designed to push the fashionable theme that your lifestyle is causing imminent danger to ancient monuments by dangerous sea-level rise and other climatic horrors.
IF this mass die-off of sea-creatures happened due to a heatwave, the misanthropic Guardian and climate activists the world over would be blaming evil
mankind personkind and calling for immdediate “climate action”. |
Life is Sweet at the End of the World
Mawbanna, Tasmania (Australia)—High-spirited and well-travelled, Nicola Charles never dreamed she’d come back to this remote, forested area and marry a beekeeper. Or give up her successful nursing career to run the office, marketing and processing sides of Blue Hills Honey, her husband’s family business. But, she shrugs, it’s a good life.
“If you want Ferraris and condos, you don’t go into beekeeping,” Nicola muses over cups of tea after giving several visitors a tour of the Blue Hills Honey packing facility and warehouse.
Easygoing but keen to give us the whole story, she laughs often, occasionally pushing a strand of dark auburn hair back into its ponytail. “We’re never going to make a fortune, but we have quality of life, raise families, do what we want to do. It’s a flexible lifestyle, so we can go to trade shows in Melbourne and Hong Kong…but it’s always nice coming home, driving over those hills.”
Those hills are situated in northwest Tasmania near the coast and the pristine Tarkine Forest. Tasmania’s northwest coast is often called “the end of the world” because the sea west of Tasmania flows uninterrupted until it washes the coast of Argentina, half a world away. That means air travels 16,000 kilometers across nothing but the Southern Ocean and the Arctic before it arrives at the Tasmanian coast and sweeps over the island as immaculate wind and rain. It is truly the purest air on earth.
The climate, the water, and the Tarkine Forest itself all add the savor of an unspoiled terroir to the Charles family’s honey. The Tarkine is the world’s second-largest temperate rainforest, stretching over 117,870 acres, and Blue Hills operates the only apiary in its abundantly blossoming wilds. In fact, their beekeeping team comprises 10 of the 20 people who are even allowed access to the area each year.
Tasting the Tarkine: Leatherwood and manuka
Nicola, head beekeeper Robbie and their team produce leatherwood, Tasmanian manuka, meadow, blackberry, and prickly box honey using modern but small-scale production techniques. Leatherwood honey is their flagship product, its bright floral notes anchored by a caramel richness that lingers pleasantly on the back of your tongue. The ancient Leatherwood tree grows exclusively in Tasmania’s wild, remote Tarkine rainforest, where it originated nearly 65 million years ago. Its delicate pink and white blossoms appear briefly between January and March to release a fast flow of deep-gold aromatic honey.
“Leatherwood honey flows flat out,” Nicola says, “but the manuka flow is totally different: long, slow, small. We keep the bees tighter and warmer, with one small box on them. It’s longer and harder for the bees, and the honey is tougher to extract from the frames as well. We can run manuka frames through the cold extraction machine twice, and still have to scrape the honey out manually. That’s if the manuka honey is flowing at all. One year you get plenty, the next you get a small to medium flow, and the third year you get nothing. That’s just what nature does! We brought in just 15 tonnes last year (2012), and this year we have none.”
The Charleses only discovered manuka on their patch in 2009, from what they believed were simple wildflowers growing head-height near one of the Tarkine’s sweeping plains. “We took wildflower honey to a honey buyer, he tested it, said ‘that’s manuka honey, I want it!’—and he bought the whole lot!” Nicola remembers.
Despite the difficulties in harvesting and extracting manuka, it opens another worthwhile market for the family enterprise. Manuka honey is highly sought after for its antibacterial properties, which derive from the manuka flower’s high concentration of a compound called methylglyoxal (MGO). The naturally occurring antibacterial factor in Tasmanian manuka honey ranges in concentration from 30–550 MGO; Blue Hills’ manuka honey MGO goes up to 500+.
Head beekeeper Robbie and his team of six beekeepers breed, monitor, and transport bees for up to 1,800 hives located throughout the temperate Tarkine rainforest. At harvest time—“as soon as that scent’s in the air”—they literally go with the flow, packing up 80,000–100,000 bees and moving them late at night. In the morning, the hives are positioned at the sites of honey flows, and by the next day, beekeepers place frame-filled honey boxes on top of the hives to catch the honey flow. The large, Full Depth honey boxes can hold up to 20-30 kilos of honey, but the rate of flow depends largely on the type of honey as well as environmental conditions.
When Robbie’s father, Reuben Charles, launched his bulk honey business in 1955, he may not have envisioned crafting gourmet brands for high-end markets—but the transition to artisanal producer has made Blue Hills a business that can grow in harmony with the next generation.
Nicola traces the history: “Robbie’s grandfather kept bees as a hobby; then his father and mother expanded the hobby into madness up to 1,600 hives. Robbie’s mum and dad started the bulk honey business, and Robbie’s been working alongside his dad since he was 14. He picked up a lot of the traditional beekeeping skills season through season.
“Now, I was away from Mawbanna for 20 years, working as an intensive care nurse in Hobart, Melbourne and London. I came back to visit…bought a bottle of red wine on New Year’s Eve…and next thing I’m marrying the boy next door from all those years ago!”
When asked about the long-term view, Nicola is positive but philosophical. “Fate has a lot to do with where we go. We just want to be the best beekeepers we can, make the best product that we can, and have happy customers and happy staff. It’s a combination of the right equipment, careful monitoring, and knowledgeable handling by a few well-trained people.” A sudden thought brings out a chuckle. “Even if Robbie left beekeeping professionally, he’d still keep a few hundred hives out in the bush, so he’d have something to do in the bees if we have an argument. He often laments, as an old beekeeper told him, ‘One day, boy, you will know why we keep bees.’”
Clearly, Nicola and Robbie could write the book on beekeeping in the Tasmanian wild. “I haven’t the time!” she protests, but as her guests help clear away the teacups, they suspect she’ll find a way. |
Beekeeping as a probe to begin testing out a town.
Beekeeping Experiments is a collaboration between Town Lab and Huddersfield-based artist and beekeeper Diana Spurite, exploring beekeeping in the town centre.
During the first stage (Beekeeping Experiments 01) Diana made a beehive from recycled wood, setting up a temporary workshop in the event space at 21 Market Place , the empty shop taken over by Huddersfield's Making Space co-operative.
After this, the principle of using recycled materials wherever possible became a touchstone for Beekeeping Experiments, and for the second stage Diana taught herself the basic dressmaking skills to put together a handmade beekeeping suit and hat from The Making Space's store of fabric scraps. The suit is embroidered with the routes of two walks starting from the town centre and exploring green space within the distance that bees would usually fly.
The hive and beekeeping suit will be used for the third stage of Beekeeping Experiments. A town centre roof top has been found and permission negotiated with the owners to put up the hive. A queen and a small colony of bees will be introduced later this spring.
The aim of Town Lab is to conduct arts-led action research into towns as different from cities or villages and to try out creative interventions that support towns to flourish on their own terms.
Beekeeping acts as a probe to begin testing out a town, Huddersfield, by making the ecology of the town centre visible, not just the biological ecology needed to support bees, but also the civic ecology of regulations and ownership: what do we need to do to establish beekeeping in a town centre? |
OHMYGOODNESS! This is definitely one of those go-tell-all-the-peoples-to-read-it-NOW books! (Told the hubby he needs to read it before I'd even finished it. I read the last sentence and immediately texted my sister-in-law to tell her she should read it. I plan to email my mom to recommend this for her church book club.)
This is a very, very short book that packs a very big punch. Keller goes through Psalm 23 line by line, imparting insights from his time spent as a shepherd. We all know Psalm 23:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for His name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
The message of A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 is overwhelmingly one of reassurance and comfort. The way that the author connects actual shepherding to the ways in which God loves us and takes care of us is so sweet as to nearly bring me to tears of joy.
Personally, I also loved reading about the actual action of shepherding. I'm enraptured with the idea of shepherding, and I ask the hubby to get me sheep every couple of weeks. (So far, it's been a big, resounding "NO." But I'm eternally optimistic.) This book actually led me to recall two readalikes: Scouting the Divine by Margaret Feinberg and Adventures in Yarn Farming by Barbara Parry. Scouting the Divine connects actual modern-day winemaking, beekeeping, and shepherding to passages in the Bible and Adventures in Yarn Farming is a good overview of modern shepherding (with lots of fantastic pictures). I gave both of those books 5 of 5 stars too, and highly recommend all three.
*Random note: I could not find any connection between W. Phillip Keller and the famous Pastor Timothy Keller. Both are excellent Christian nonfiction writers, but I don't think they share any blood.
*I own my copy of A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. Sadly, my library doesn't own a copy. But this book was so good I would've bought my own copy even if the library had it. |
Monday, March 31, 2008
I know little about Buddhism, but I thought that onions, garlic and other alliums such as chives and leeks were forbidden foods for Buddhists. But I've been searching the web and it seems that only some branches of Buddhism observe this rule.
I rather like the Buddha of the onions, and I hope he feels at home here. During my web research I came across the same story many times; how as a young boy watching his father plough a field, Buddha had fallen naturally into a state of blissful meditation. Perhaps he can meditate on we allotment holders digging our plots, too.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
"On the other hand, Dick Cheney said he's seen Al Gore's global warming film five times, and it still cracks him up." --Conan O'Brien
"President Bush says he's really going to buckle down now and fight global warming. As a matter of fact, he announced today he's sending 20,000 troops to the sun" --David Letterman
Cartoon by Marc Roberts of Throbgoblins. Click on the panel to view the rest of the strip.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Thanks to Throbgoblins for the image.
It's Earth Hour at 8pm this evening. Please turn your lights and other unnecessary gadgets off at 8pm local time for one hour to save energy and (mainly) to raise awareness about climate change.
Google is marking the day by putting a dark background on its home page. Dark colour schemes are said to reduce energy usage on older-style CRT monitors, although they make no difference on modern LCD flat screens.
The BBC are covering the event with a story on their web page and an audio story. Bean Sprouts reader Killi tells us that her electricity bill from ESB, the Irish electricity supplier, had the WWF logo on the front and a promotion for Earth Hour on the back. The city of San Francisco has moved its Lights Out event from October to March 29th, to align with Earth Hour.
Tell a friend. Spread the word. Start a debate. Join in.
Friday, March 28, 2008
He very generously allows free use of his cartoons for campaigning, educational or other ethical purposes, as long as credit is given to the cartoonist and the site. See the bottom of his website for details. If you're a green blogger, why not add Marc's cartoons to your own site? The specifically climate-related cartoons are all gathered in one blog called Climate Chaos. There is also a non-blog website called Climate Cartoons, where the climate cartoons are arranged into categories. So if you know you want a single-panel cartoon to fit your blog layout, or if you want to see all of the Labrats cartoons in one place, it's eaier to find what you want at Climate Cartoons than at a blog.
Marc also has a new website where he uploads his art rather than cartoons. It's called More Joy in Heaven and I very much like the paintings he has put on there so far. I have lots of talents but art is not one of them and I am in awe of people who can imagine and create images like this. I'd very much like to buy one of Marc's paintings. I'll have to get in touch with him about that.
Why not go and visit Marc's blogs? You've got a pretty wide choice - edgy political and environmental cartoons, or serious art with mythological themes. Leave him a comment. Tell him I sent you. Enjoy.
We've been reading your Bean Sprouts blog here at Mother Earth News and we're hoping you might be willing to help us test a new feature we are developing for our web site!
Mother Earth News reads my blog? I'm as chuffed as can be. It's the spiritual parent of Bean Sprouts, my inspiration and my model.
So I'm very happy to share with you the news of their new online tool:
With all the time and care a garden takes, I wanted to invite you to try a time-saving - and free! - tool from Mother Earth News magazine. Our custom Seed and Plant Finder is a quick and easy way to find mail-order sources for pretty much any vegetable, flower or herb variety, old standards as well as new and hard-to-find varieties.
The free Finder searches more than 150 garden catalogs - from the big names to small, specialized companies. Our initial emphasis is on sources for vegetables, but we plan to add fruit and nut tree and ornamental catalogs in the near future.
I've tried it and it looks good - as long as you live in the USA. It only includes American seed catalogues so far, so it's no use to me or my many British readers, and readers from other countries outside the USA. That's fair enough - Mother Earth News is an American publication. If Gardener's World magazine produced a seed finding tool, I expect it would only cover British seed catalogues.
I hope my many American readers give this new online tool a try and find it useful. If you're not American, why not visit the Mother Earth News website, where you can read thousands of online articles about sustainable living topics?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
When you open the book, your expectations are not disappointed. The photographs, the graphics, the typesetting, everything about this book is beautiful. It's even more of an achievement when you consider the subject matter: if you had to create a book about decomposing vegetables, worms, poo, bacteria and fungi, could you make it a feast for the eyes?
But what about the content? To be honest, I'm in two minds. DK books are always visually stunning, but sometimes they can be rather shallow when it comes to content. This book is a bit like that. Any page you flick open you will find a full-page photo on one side and a few lines of enormous text facing it. It took me about an hour to read it cover-to-cover. And although it did contain a few things I didn't know (apparently a human corpse decomposes to a skeleton in about three weeks), there wasn't much (and even that wasn't terribly useful. I hardly ever put human corpses on my compost heap).
But on the other hand, I've read books on compost that went into so much science and detail about aerobic and anaerobic, thermophilic and mesophilic, exact recipes for the perfect compost heap, how frequently to turn it, the correct moisture content and so on, that it would put any sensible person off the idea of composting altogether. And that's silly, because as Thompson quite rightly says:
Even if you do everything wrong, you will still make decent compost eventually.
(only he says it in 197pt text).
This matches my experience perfectly, and it also matches common sense. It makes me laugh when people say things like "You can't put avocado peel on the compost heap. You can't put orange peel or any citrus on it." Of course you can. Orange peel decomposes perfectly well. I've got a decomposing orange in my fruit bowl at this very minute (I really should chuck it on my compost heap). Otherwise we'd all be neck deep in perfectly preserved avocado and lemon peels that would have been accumulating since the evolution of avocado and citrus trees. Getting stuff to decompose isn't hard. Stopping it decomposing is hard, but making compost is not hard.
So I liked Thompson's sensible, relaxed attitude. There's a chapter where he describes the standard "recipe" for perfect compost. You know the one: collect together at least a cubic metre of equal amounts of "green" (soft, nitrogen-rich material such as veg peelings and grass clippings) and "brown" (dry, carbon rich material such as shredded paper and hedge prunings). Layer them in six-inch thick layers. Ensure there is just enough water. Turn once a week. And so on. Then Thompson rips into this recipe with satisfying ridicule and sarcasm. Where are you supposed to store all this green and brown material whilst you're waiting until you've collected enough? How do you stop it decomposing in the meantime? Keep it in the fridge? Forget that, just decide where you want your heap then bung compostable stuff on it as and when it becomes available. There's no need at all to follow a precise recipe. It's a compost heap, not a damn souffle.
If you've never made compost, you might like this book. Especially if you're scared of compost-making for some reason, perhaps because you've read one of those silly books with too much science and prescriptive instructions. Ken Thompson's books is guaranteed to remove the fear and assure you that compost-making is easy and worthwhile. If you're an experienced composter, you don't need this book. Actually, you don't need any book, because all you really need to know about compost is this: 1) Put organic stuff in a heap. 2) Wait. And that's all that Thompson says, but with better pictures.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
It's my birthday on Saturday, March 29th. I'll be thirty-mumble, but that's not important right now. Do you know what I'd really like as a present? I'd like you to turn your lights off between 8pm and 9pm, local time. It's Earth Hour:
On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming – coal-fired electricity – by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world.
10.2%? That's incredible. It's what E-Day should have been if it hadn't been so badly stuffed up.
In 2008, 24 global cities will participate in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. Earth Hour is the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis. It is about simple changes that will collectively make a difference – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty, to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.
So please will you give me a birthday present? Will you participate in Earth Hour, even if you don't live in one of the participating cities? Will you blog about Earth Hour and spread the word? Will you email people who you think might be interested?
I think this is really important. I think this could wake up the people who say "It doesn't matter what I do, I'll cut my carbon footprint when industry/the government/China cuts theirs". It proves that what individuals do does matter. I think it could shake up the people who say "I'm not prepared to go live in a cave just in case man-made climate change is real". It proves that you don't have to go live in a cave, small changes can make a big difference if everyone does them.
Just one hour. It will be fun. Turn off your lights (and other unnecessary devices). Then you'll have to figure out how to entertain yourselves in the dark for one hour. Personally I think burning paraffin wax candles kind of defeats the point, but we can quibble over that in future years. Burn a candle if it makes you happy. Join in, have fun, and talk about it to your friends and neighbours. Sing "Happy birthday dear Melanie", and then leave a comment here to say you did it. For me. For my birthday.
UPDATE 16/11/2009: This post seemed to be attracting a great deal of spam comments so I have reluctantly deleted the spam and disabled new comments
Sunday, March 23, 2008
But one I saw today made me laugh: "practical jokes for chickens".
The stunning image is by Marc Roberts of Throbgoblins, who is also behind our regular Sunday funnies. If you get it printed up as a greetings card by next year, I'll buy a couple of packets, Marc.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
I wasn't sure whether to include this video as I think it's irritatingly patronising. What do you think?
Annoying videos aside, cavity wall insulation can make a huge impact on your home heating bill and on your carbon footprint. About half the houses in Britain have cavity walls, although if your house is under 25-30 years old it probably had the cavity walls insulated at the same time it was built.
If you live Britain you can contact the Energy Saving Trust who will put you in touch with a local contractor. They will check whether your house already has cavity wall insulation by drilling a small hole in your exterior wall to have a look. They will fill the hole up again when they're done so there is nothing to worry about, and they will carry out the check free of charge. If you don't have cavity wall insulation it's great news in a way, because you can save up to 15% of your home heating bill (abut £90 per year) by getting insulation installed. That's about the same as you can save by having your loft fully insulated - almost as much heat leaves your house through the walls as through the roof.
It costs about £500 to get cavity wall insulation installed. It's a quick and clean procedure. And you should recoup the cost in lower heating bills within about 5 years. There may be grants available, so ask the Energy Saving Trust about grants when you speak to them.
We've already got cavity wall insulation. It was here when we bought the house. But if we didn't I would definitely get it done. It's one of the most important things you can do to save energy, save carbon (about 3/4 of a tonne per year), and save yourself loads of money.
If you get a contractor to come and check whether you have cavity wall insulation, you can tick "I've done one thing on the list!" in the poll in the right-hand-sidebar. If you need to install insulation and you do it, you can tick it again.
Friday, March 21, 2008
It's a full moon tonight. The reason Easter is so early this year is that the full moon is only one day after the equinox. The date of Easter has a complicated definition, but the short (slightly inaccurate) version is that it's the Sunday after the full moon after the equinox.
It's not the earliest possible date for Easter - that would be March 22nd, one day earlier than this year. That won't happen until 2285, and it won't happen on March 23rd again until 2160. So nobody alive today will ever see such an early Easter as this for the rest of their lives. I'm sure teachers will sigh with relief at this news, as it has really messed up the length of school terms.
I hope the sky is clear tonight so I can get a good view of the March full moon, also known as the Lenten Moon. If the skies are clear where you are, why not wrap up warm and go and look at it?
(Isn't the animated picture of the phases of the moon amazing? It's by Tom Ruen and is public domain. Click on the picture to go to the Wikipedia page I got it from and find out more about it.)
Thursday, March 20, 2008
I imagine that ancient people, noticing that the midday sun was getting lower and lower in the sky as winter progressed, may have been afraid that this year it might carry on getting lower and eventually disappear altogether. Maybe they were very relieved after midwinter passed and they noticed the days lengthening again. Perhaps it seemed to them like a battle between light and darkness, between day and night, warmth and cold, life and death. At midwinter it must have seemed as if the darkness was winning the battle, but then the light began to fight back. By the equinox, the light was winning the battle - day is longer than night once again and all of nature is coming back to life. Plants are starting to grow again, animals are active and breeding. Hurrah for the force of light and life and everything that is good for we humans.
So it's no surprise that the date of midwinter is close to the feast of Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of the son (sun). He is small and weak at that point, but he is growing and he brings hope for the future. Other cultures past and present have important celebrations at that time of year which include ideas about light and life and warmth. Similarly, the date of Easter is defined in relation to the equinox. And other cultures have celebrations at this time which are all about rebirth, renewal, and the triumph of life over death. It's all the same celebration. It's all the same idea. It's built into us because we are alive and we live on a planet which has seasons. Maybe you're not religious yourself and don't celebrate Easter. Maybe you didn't know that today is the equinox before you read this post. But you knew the flowers are all coming out, didn't you? You noticed that the mornings aren't so dark, and the evenings are getting longer. It's good to be in tune with the changes of the year. Happy equinox.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
I've already talked about loft insulation, but that's quite expensive (about £200-£500) and time-consuming. It's worth it, as it will only take couple of years before you've saved that much on your energy bills. But there are also simpler and cheaper things you can do to cut your home heating bills.
For example closing all your curtains at dusk will trap heat in your home. Remember to close the curtains in any room that has a radiator (such as bedrooms and spare rooms) at the same time. However you heat your house, closing the curtains after dark prevents heat from escaping through the windows.
For maximum benefit, make sure all your curtains are lined, preferably with thermal lining. Mine aren't, but as I get round to replacing them I'll make sure any new curtains I make or buy have thermal lining. Pelmets also help to stop heat escaping through the window (I really hate the look of pelmets though - ugh). And finally, make sure your curtains don't drape down over the radiators, as this would totally defeat the purpose - all the heat would be trapped behind the curtain and go straight out through the window. You might as well burn money. If any of your curtains fall over the radiators, go and chop them off with scissors straight away - it doesn't take long to sew up the hem with a sewing machine, or get some iron-on bonding to neaten up the cut edge.
If you promise to remember to close all your curtains after dark, you can click "I've done one thing on the list!" in the poll in the right-hand-sidebar. If you want to see the other items on the list, they're on the March Challenge blog post.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
The latest entry tells how, with a lots of effort and a bit of lateral thinking, she put only one item in her black (landfill) bin during zero-waste week - a used sticking plaster. She also starred on BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour between the 10th and 14th of March, and you can listen to the show on the Women's Hour website.
I loved the way she announced it:
Today is Bin Day and I am going to celebrate by NOT PUTTING THE BIN OUT...because for the first time in my life as a responsible adult...there's no need to.....HOORAY! Indeed, if I keep this up, I won't have to put it out for weeks or months!
We all hate putting the bins out, don't we? Wouldn't it be great if we could all make as little waste as Karen, so we didn't have to put the bins out at all?
Monday, March 17, 2008
I planted some raspberry canes and weeded a bed full of some kind of alliums - they're either onions or shallots, or possibly funny-looking garlic. I simply can't remember what I planted there, and if I put a label on then it must have blown away. Anyway, whatever they are they're looking well. I do remember where I planted the garlic which came from the garlic fairy. That's looking great, too, and I'll get round to weeding it soon.
Ed dug some ground elder out of a bed ready for us to plant something there. There's a lot of things need planting soon and we haven't yet decided what is going to go there. The broad beans I planted in October have grown slowly all winter and are now ready to leap into action as the days start getting longer. I hope we'll get a crop off those fairly soon, although I've planted far too many and always intended that some of them would just be dug back into the ground as green manure.
I also planted as green manure a proprietory mixture from the garden centre. It contains rye and tares and other things I can't remember or identify. It has come up nicely and has smothered out any weeds in the patch where I sowed it. It now needs mowing and digging in, then leaving to rot for a little while before I plant out the nicely enriched bed. It's basically the same thing as the fallow part of old crop rotation methods, putting nutrition back into the soil. So I'll plant something hungry there that will appreciate the extra nutrients.
I could go on - there are a couple of clumps of daffodils that always make me smile when I visit the allotment in Spring. Next time I go I'll probably cut a few unopened ones to bring back to the house. My rhubarb is starting to come up, but the variety on my plot is a late starter and I'm always jealous of my neighbours with early rubarb varieties. Maybe I can barter some early rhubarb for eggs or something. I've still got brussels sprouts growing on the plot, and late-season spuds in storage, although I'm pretty sick of them by now. I'm clamming for fresh home-grown salad, radishes, tomatoes, peas, mmm-mmm. I want it to be summer already but it's not even the equinox yet.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Our Sunday funny this week is Grocery Store Wars - a 5-minute video about buying organic, based on Star Wars. It's right up my street. Hope you enjoy it, too.
But if you don't - why not? If you'd prefer a video that's not as funny but actually contains some persuasive information and arguments about how our shopping choices affect the environment, try The Story of Stuff. Alternatively, if you'd prefer really funny videos about Star Wars set in a supermarket without the irritating environmental message, try Chad Vader.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
That's what loft insulation does to your house. Without any insulation at all 15% of your heating costs (about £110 per year)could go straight through the roof. If you have a little bit of loft insulation, say up to about 50mm (2 inches) that would be a lot better than nothing. But if you had a really thick layer of loft insulation, say up to 270mm (about 10 or 11 inches), then every bit of heat stays in your house where you want it, your bills come down, and so does your carbon footprint, by around 1 tonne of CO2 per year.
That's why I climbed up into my loft armed with a ruler, a torch and a camera (you probably don't need the camera) to see how much loft insulation I have. It turns out there's about 80mm up there (just over 3 inches). That's better than nothing, but not really enough.
Since space heating and water heating account for a whopping 84% of our typical household energy consumption, topping up my loft insulation is perhaps the single most significant thing I can do to bring down my energy bills and my carbon footprint. It puts low-energy lightbulbs in the shade. However it's a bit more costly and time consuming than simply buying a different type of bulb whenever one goes "ping". Topping up your loft insulation costs around £200 if you do-it-yourself (maybe £500 if you GALMI - Get A Little Man In). But you'll save the DIY cost in under 2 years of reduced heating bills (less than 5 years for the GALMI version). There may also be grants available. I'll be looking into that over the next few days - if anyone knows anything about loft insulation grants, please drop me an email.
It takes about half a day to insulate your loft, but perhaps more if your loft is full of junk which will have to be removed first. I don't know what the insulating value is of boxes full of old clothes, books and unused sporting goods. I wouldn't rely on it myself.
Do you know how much loft insulation you have? Go and have a look, and then you can click "I've done one thing on the list!" in the poll in the right-hand-sidebar. If you need to add more insulation and you do so, you can click it again.
Friday, March 14, 2008
But I couldn't resist sharing this news story - a court in Macedonia has convicted a bear of theft and criminal damage after repeatedly attacking a local beekeeper's hives. I loved this bit:
For a while, he kept the animal away by buying a generator, lighting up the area, and playing thumping Serbian turbo-folk music. But when the generator ran out of power and the music fell silent, the bear was back and the honey was gone once more.
I wonder if Jethro Tull would have the same effect?
Being a wild animal, the bear had no owner, so the court ordered the state to pay compensation to the beekeeper of $3,500 (£1,750 or 2,238 euros). I wonder if it is possible under UK law to sue a mouse?
And in case you're worried:
The bear, meanwhile, remains at large - somewhere in Macedonia.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
But this new catalogue is also more than that. Heather Gorringe is an astute user of new media: the Wiggly Wigglers website, podcast, blog, Facebook group, and Heather's personal blog (subtitled "One womans journey around the World - with the aim to shake up farming using Web 2.0 and Social Media") are all testaments to that. The new catalogue blends contributions from bloggers, customers and celebrities such as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall in a scrap-book style. When it plopped through my door this morning I stood in the hallway to flick through it, but eventually had to go and make myself a cup of tea and get more comfy. It's not a catalogue you "flick through". It's so full of articles, features and columns it's more like a magazine. It's actually a good read.
I think what excites me most about the new Wiggly Wigglers catalogue is the beekeeping and poultry-keeping equipment. Having to track down suppliers for those sorts of things can be daunting, I know. To make them available in a catalogue such as WW which has a much broader appeal must sow a seed in lots of people's minds that they could do those things too. I think I might have taken the plunge into chicken and beekeeping much sooner if they had been presented as just normal gardening activities, alongside feeding birds and composting scraps.
What I just wrote isn't strictly true. What excites me most about the new Wiggly Wigglers catalogue is the short piece Heather asked me to write for it about growing your own salad, which is printed on page 57. I don't expect you be particularly excited about that, but I bet you'll be excited about the rest of the catalogue.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
It is full of practical advice not only on how to be more self sufficentish but also how to be more ethical and greener. We hope that it is one of those books that will look really tatty within weeks of owning it as it will be referred to so frequently.
You can pre-order it from Amazon.co.uk, from your local bookstore, or your local library (the ISBN numbers are # ISBN-10: 034095101X - # ISBN-13: 978-0340951019).
Congratulations, Dave and Andy. It looks really good, and I'm looking forward to reading it.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
The other story that attracted my attention was about the Southern Baptist Church in the USA. Church leaders have announced that man-made climate change is real and their members have a duty to prevent it. I'm not knowledgeable about American politics, but I know the Southern Baptist Church has a great influence on the Republican party in particular, and a knock-on effect on the Democrats as well since they cannot ignore what the Southern Baptists say and do. Another major influence on Republican politics is the energy industry, and green commentators have blamed this influence for President Bush's infuriating inaction on climate change. Now that the Southern Baptist Church has taken this position, it will be very interesting to see what effect it has on Republican policy.
Photograph by Agência Brasil, a public Brazilian news agency.
Monday, March 10, 2008
I hope some of you will stay a while and have a look around. Why not browse the archives, leave a comment, subscribe to the feed or participate in our monthly challenge? There's usually a new article every day, so hit "favourites" and save the link so you can visit us again.
Hello also to Bean Sprouts' loyal readers who have stuck with it all along, especially to everyone who gets involved by commenting, participating in the challenges and so on. I hope you have that nice feeling of having discovered something before it became "cool".
Sunday, March 09, 2008
The Rt Hon. Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Transport, issued a full apology today after it transpired that a cycle lane in Wilmslow, Cheshire, did not contain substantial fragments of broken glass, abandoned vehicles or a telephone box placed right in the middle...
‘This places us in an impossible position’ said one local cyclist. ‘We were already as self-righteous as it was possible to be. This new outrage against our healthy and carbon neutral form of sustainable transport has left us unable to be any more self righteous.’
Read the whole story here.
Cartoon from Climate Cartoons. Click on the panel to read the whole strip.
Friday, March 07, 2008
Thursday, March 06, 2008
To be mentioned on the same page as The Huffington Post, Dooce and Rachel from North London cheered me up on a day when I was feeling a bit low. I have two important concerts this weekend, and I am starting to come down with the same cold that flattened Ed for several days. Poor me. Come to the pity party.
Anyway, my dad is arriving tonight for a week-long visit. I'm going to be singing two wonderful works in inspirational settings this weekend. The garden is full of spring flowers. And Amnesty International likes my blog. So what reason is there to feel sorry for myself? No reason at all that a big glass of whisky and hot lemon can't fix.
The picture is a drawing of me by my 8-year-old daughter Eleanor, which she drew for a mother's day card this year. See, even more reasons to feel good.
- Blue tits (some are inspecting the nesting box on the wall of the house)
- Great tits
- Canada geese (NEW - didn't see these in January)
- Pheasant (NEW - didn't see these in January either)
That's 14 species. Birds I saw in January that I didn't see again in February include long-tailed tits, woodpecker, gulls, herons, nuthatch, chaffinch. But didn't spend as much time birdwatching this month. So they were probably there, I just wasn't looking out of the window at the right time.
It was only a few years ago I decided I wanted to be able to identify all the birds that frequent my garden. I'm not a dedicated "twitcher". I have no interest in going to some desolate spot and sitting in a little camouflage tent in the driving rain in the hope of spotting some rare bird.
But I was delighted at how quickly I learned to identify my local garden birds. It was quite strange; I would have told you that I didn't get many birds in my garden, and most of them were all the same - a mass of small similar brown birds. But when I started watching I realised there were quite a few birds I could already identify - robins, blackbirds, magpies etc. And the "little brown jobs" eventually separated themselves out into sparrows (male and female quite distinct), chaffinches (again males and females are different), dunnocks, wrens and a few other things. Blue tits and great tits stymied me at first but now they look totally different, I don't understand why I found it so hard to tell them apart. Woodpigeons and collared doves also confused me for a while. And I don't know why it took me so long to decide whether the big black things I could see were crows, rooks or jackdaws - they're quite different from each other when you know what to look for. But I still can't tell gulls apart at all. And there's a little grey-and-white fellow I see sometimes who is either a marsh tit or a willow tit, but in every book I've read they look completely identical to me so I've no idea how to decide which one he is.
If you can't already identify your neighbourhood birds, I recommend you get a good bird book and start keeping a monthly list. It's not hard. It seems hard at first but once you've identified a regular visitor you never have to do it again. It's free. It's not time-consuming. I do it whilst I'm doing other things, the washing up, for example. And it's a lovely skill to have.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
They're not, of course. They're an easy thing that everybody can do. And if everybody does it (switch to low-energy lightbulbs) then it makes a big difference.
Reducing your home heating bill isn't quite as straightforward. But it has the potential to make a much bigger impact than changing lightbulbs - both on your own fuel bills and on your carbon footprint.
I made a list of ways you can reduce your home heating bill, and none of them involve turning the heating off and shivering:
- Add to your loft insulation
- Make sure you have cavity wall insulation
- Install double or even triple glazing
- Exclude draughts
- Close curtains when it gets dark.
- Make sure the curtains have thermal lining
- Put foil behind radiators
- Turn off radiators in unused rooms
- Use timers to make sure the heating is only on when it needs to be
- Wear a jumper
- Turn down your heating thermostat
If you can think of any other things I could add to the list, do let me know. Notice that turning down your thermostat is last on the list. Once you've made your house more insulated and draught-proof you'll want to turn your thermostat down anyway because you'll be far too warm.
I tried to pick one of these things for March's challenge, then I thought - let's do them all. So that's this month's challenge. Every time you do one of the things on the list, vote in the poll. Even if it only makes a 5% difference in your home heating usage, that will swamp any saving you could make in lighting, appliances, leaving gadgets on standby, or any other single part of your domestic energy budget.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
- I've started a new blog! 23 (24%)
- I already had a blog! 57 (60%)
- I don't want to! 10 (10%)
- I can't! 5 (5%)
I already linked to a lot of the new blogs, but I also lost a few because they were getting posted to several different places and I lost track. So if you started a new blog this month, please leave the URL of your blog in the comments to this article. I'll collect them all together in about a week.
A new challenge for March will be coming soon.
Monday, March 03, 2008
That means Tesco have three options: give up the idea of building a store in Poynton, second, appeal within the six months, or lastly, submit a new or modified scheme.
From Poynton Against Tesco website.
The bad news is Waitrose have also applied to build a supermarket in Poynton. This is receiving more of a mixed reception from Poynton residents who seem to like the idea of upmarket Waitrose more than the low-brow appeal of Tesco. But all the reasons I objected to Tesco - the risk to local traders, the influx of extra traffic, the loss of local jobs and the siphoning of money out of the village - also apply to Waitrose or any other chain supermarket. So I'll be objecting to Waitrose too.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
In The Know: How Can We Make The War In Iraq More Eco-Friendly?
Last Sunday I posted an article from The Onion, the satirical online newspaper. Here's a satirical video from The Onion which had me hooting with laughter. Some panelists discuss ways to wage a greener war in Iraq, such as driving biodegradable tanks and shocking detainees' testicles with wind power.
Cartoon from Climate Cartoons. Click on panel to read the complete strip.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Today I've been busy assembling lots of brand new frames and fitting them with wax foundation. They come flat packed - lots of odd-shaped bits of wood, sheets of beeswax stamped with a hexagon pattern and reinforced with wire, and 19mm gimp pins. You'll also need a hammer and/or pin punch, your hive tool, and probably a pair of pliers for removing any nails that go in wrong.
The first thing to do is to identify a top bar and snap off the foundation-retaining slat using your hive tool. Clean off any slivers of wood that remain stuck to the top bar and the slat.
Then lie the top bar on your work surface flat face down, and find two side bars. Orient them so the foundation grooves face inwards, then gently push them onto the top bar. They should fit snugly. If they are too snug to push into place by hand, tap them into place with a hammer using a waste piece of wood to avoid hitting the slotted ends and damaging them. Pin the top bar to the side bar through the side, not through the top. When the frame is laden with honey a nail through the top may not take the weight, with sticky consequences.
Now take a sheet of wax foundation and figure out which way up it goes. You should have three long loops of wire at the top. If you have two short loops it's upside down. Bend the three loops at right angles and gently slot the foundation into the grooves. If all is well it will fit snugly, but if necessary trim a little wax off the side.
Find the slat you separated from the top bar earlier, and put it back in place. Pin it with three gimp pins through the loops in the wire. Take care not to lose concentration and put your hammer through the beeswax. It's really annoying.
Nearly done. Now find two bottombars and gently fit them into the slots in the sidebar. Be careful not to bend the foundation at this stage. Pin the bottombars through the bottom, not the side. At some point you will want to partly disassemble the frame and remove the wax. If you nail through the sides it will be almost impossible to avoid damaging the frame if the pin goes through the side.
And that's it. I now have one complete bee hive frame. Only 39 more to go. Sigh. |
A Tiny Lesson in Bee Culture
By Annie Herlocker
Northport, Alabama: Wooden Nickel Press, 2008. Edition of 32.
3.5 x 5"; 7 pages. Letterpress printed with handset type on a Vandercook SP-15 proofing press. A combination of woodcut and linoleum relief print illustrations. Printed on khadi (cover) and biblio (text) papers. Pamphlet bound with four-panel pull out illustration.
A Tiny Lesson in Bee Culture is an excerpt from L.L. Langstroth's Hive and The Honey-Bee: The Classic Beekeeper's Manual.
I have repeatedly witnessed, in my observing-hives, the whole process of swarming. On the day fixed for their departure, the queen is very restless, and instead of depositing her eggs in the cells, roams over the combs, and communicates her agitation to the whole colony. ..
Penn State Live (website), June 10, 2010, "Entomology graduate fellowship to honor apiarist Lorenzo L. Langstroth": The Rev. Lorenzo L. Langstroth was a Philadelphia-born apiarist, clergyman and teacher who in 1851 revolutionized the beekeeping industry in the United States with the invention of a new beehive. His top-opened, movable-frame structure effectively used what he called 'bee space' and allowed the beekeeper to easily inspect and manage the hive in a way that previously had not been possible without disturbing the bees and their home. The Langstroth Hive continues to be the standard used by beekeepers all over the world.
"He also published several books on practical hive management, beginning with Langstroth's Hive and The Honey-bee, The Classic Beekeeper's Manual in 1853, which is still in print."
Annie Herlocker: "A long fascination in beekeeping led me to create this diminutive accordion." |
Acacia Honey is the Backbone of the Beekeeping Industry
Minister for Rural Development Sándor Fazekas met with beekeepers to discuss development opportunities for the sector. According to beekeepers, acacia honey generates the industry’s profits, and if the European Union’s proposal to include acacia as an invasive species is adopted, Hungarian producers will go bankrupt.
At the end of last year, the European Union put forward a proposal to address invasive alien species and protect biodiversity, and acacia, which is practically a national tree in Hungary, was included among the list of invasive species.
Acacia currently makes up one third of Hungary’s tree stocks and 25 percent of the country’s forests, and is irreplaceable for forestation and as an industrial source of wood. 18-19 thousand beekeepers work within the Hungarian beekeeping sector, providing work for some 80 thousand people, and half of the honey produced comes from acacias.
The Minister for Rural Development assured the country’s beekeepers of his support, stressing that it is none of the EU’s business what species of tree grow in Hungary. Hungarian acacias would be protected at every forum possible, he added. At its last session, the Hungaricum Committee included the acacia tree and acacia honey in the national treasure depository. “Our view is that acacia must be declared a Hungaricum and instead of persecuting the species, more should be planted“, Mr. Fazekas underlined.
Source: Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development – www.kormany.hu |
Germany's capital city Berlin has a thriving sharing and collaborative economy, thanks in part to think-and-do tank OuiShare. Since 2012, the group has facilitated a lively exchange of dialogue and action in many different formats, which has led to a strongly connected network of over 200 different projects and more than 1,000 individuals. In 2014, a group of sharing experts launched SharingBerlin and took the community building efforts to a whole new level. For two years, an exhibition and networking event called Share Fair (2014, 2015) brought together around 65 important players from the scene. After mapping Berlin's collaborative economy ecosystem, the group started to engage with local politicians and the government to create an official Sharing City. While this hasn't panned out yet, sharing projects continue to flourish in Berlin. Even without the official recognition of Berlin as a Sharing City, projects have been flourishing in the fields of food, mobility, money, and more.
Mundraub ("theft of food") is the largest online platform for the discovery of foraged food. It allows people to map locations, connect with others, and create actions to pick free fruits and vegetables. The group also organizes a harvest and offers plant care and other activities. Meanwhile, the organization Foodsharing offers tools for people to share leftover food. Another community food initiative is AufHaxe. The group's mission is to encourage "cooking and partying in your neighborhood." People are split into teams, and each team can choose to prepare an appetizer, a main dish, or a dessert, and invite another team over for one course. After each course, the teams split up and move to another team member's home for the next course. At the end of the day, each team member eats three courses (each one at a different house), connects with 12 people, and participates in a huge party with all the members. Some of the food prepared at these cooking events come from FoodAssembly, a platform that connects organic farmers and buyers at local markets.
Photo of community harvest courtesy of mundraub
The P2P cargo bike-sharing platform Velogistics is a community treasure. It facilitates a commons-based culture of sustainability and DIY by connecting borrowers and lenders who want to share cargo bikes, usually for free. The founders of the platform also maintain Werkstatt Lastenrad ("workshop cargo bike"), a site with information on DIY building and repairing of cargo bikes. Workshops like Regenbogenfabrik ("rainbow factory") and local bike stores offer donation-based repair sets and knowledge for self-service. If you need to borrow a bike, you can choose between the free bike sharing group BikeSurf or other bike rentals like Call a Bike and nextbike.
Photo of a cargo bike ride along the old airfield of Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin, courtesy of Andrea Künstle/velogistics.net
3. Item Sharing
The LEIHBAR (meaning "rentable") runs a library of things, via a digital platform. It offers a network of pickup stations (mainly 24/7 convenience stores, community gardens) and provides users convenient and time-saving access to items of daily use. Drills, projectors, tents, and many other items can be rented via the website for a small fee, making the user experience comparable to professional car sharing. The project's social impact lies in its system design for circular economy. Partnering with tool producers (ex. Bosch), LEIHBAR convinces sales-orientated companies of circular business models and incentivizes longer product life times, reparability, and modular design. The longer the products last and the better they can be repaired, the lesser the toll on the environment.
Photo of item delivery, lending locker, and pick-up station at an urban garden, courtesy of LEIHBAR
The community-based sharing store concept LEILA has already become well-known worldwide and has inspired at least 10 other cities to launch similar projects. Members of the community donate and share items that can be borrowed by others. To ease drop-off and pick-up, the store established a reliable infrastructure run by its members. Users who cannot find a desired item via this channel still have a chance to browse the local P2P platform Fairleihen.
At the cooperative CZY WRK, digital workers, freelancers, and artists are welcome to share mutual work assignments, profits, and certain securities to overcome down-periods. The group believes strengthening its network will benefit all participating individuals.
Closely entangled with CZY WRK is the coworking space SUPERMARKT, which is recognized as one of the key players of the German platform cooperative movement. The group's conferences and workshops like "Co-op Futures" (June 2017), "Platform Co-ops — Start your own!" (Dec. 2016), and "Community Value" (Sept. 2016) regularly bring together local and international influencers. Another flagship in the Berlin coworking scene is Betahaus (meaning "beta house"). Established in 2009, it offers various rooms, event spaces, and woodworking facilities, where a lively maker community found its origins. Still quite new, the Agora community's spin-off CRCL hosts a coworking space and a community garden.
The nonprofit organization Mein Grundeinkommen ("my universal basic income") raffles off unconditional basic incomes of 1.000 €/month. Each person who wins receives a monthly transfer for the duration of one year, so 12.000 € in total. The team is interested in finding out what happens, if a society has the financial resources to focus on life-goals rather than on just basic needs. As of now the project has fulfilled the dreams of 105 universal basic income winners who are eating more healthy food, able to afford education, travel, and save.
Photo of the Mein Grundeinkommen team, courtesy of Christian Stollwerk
Das Baumhaus ("The treehouse") is an open socio-cultural project connecting, inspiring, and empowering its members and local changemakers working for transition to sustainability. The project space was crowdfunded and collaboratively developed by more than 300 people of the community. Nowadays the team fosters the community with regular cooking sessions, concerts, workshops, and other events like the yearly Emergent Berlin gathering.
Photos of the space, community dinner, and concert, courtesy of Das Baumhaus
Another excellent example for a thriving community in Berlin is Prinzessinnengarten ("princess garden"). After occupying some wasteland in the center of the city in 2009, the group — along with friends, activists, and neighbors — cleared away rubbish, built transportable organic vegetable plots, and reaped the first fruits of their labor. Thanks to the openness and entrepreneurial skills of the team, the urban garden gives room to a self-managed, cozy restaurant underneath the trees. The restaurant is supplied by vegetables and herbs grown in the garden. There's also a nursery, beekeeping area, repair workshops, flea markets, and an access point to pick up LEIHBAR items. It also features several spin-offs like Material Mafia, a recycling project for construction material.
Photos of Prinzessinnengarten: community gardening, nursery and plant sale, neighborhood event, courtesy of Marco Clausen
7. Bottom-up mass movements
Driven by its own bottom-up community building over the last couple of years, Jolocom focuses on establishing private key applications that allow users to connect to online networks and manage private data to be shared with the platform at the same time. The principle of "own your data" is maintained on a blockchain. Similarly Resonate is a blockchain-based service for streaming music that is cooperatively owned by the people who make it great: musicians, fans, and developers. Both examples show how network value can be distributed among the community to generate new benefits like privacy, cost-effective access for users, and fair payments for producers.
Photo of demonstration for safer bicycle lanes courtesy of press archive Volksentscheid Fahrrad
The list of interesting projects could go on and on, because the collaborative ecosystem draws its power from people who question the status quo. This practice is not just common for the sharing movement, but for general bottom-up cases in Berlin. It explains why Volksentscheid Fahrrad (meaning "referendum bicycle"), the civil society's answer to the mobility and bicycle policy of the city administration, has been very successful. The campaign has received 100,000 signatures from bicycle enthusiasts who are demanding better bicycle lanes, bicycle parking spaces, and car-free zones. One step behind, but promising as well is the movement BürgerEnergie Berlin ("civil energy Berlin") reaching out to purchase the Berlin electricity grid.
Photo of a demonstration for residents to purchase the electricity grid courtesy of BürgerEnergie Berlin
Please visit Berlin and experience our local collaborative economy. I'll be happy to guide you through the ecosystem.
Header graphic courtesy of Andreas Arnold |
Experts believe that multiple factors must be at play in the bees’ plight. The main suspects are referred to as the four Ps: parasites, poor nutrition, pathogens and pesticides. The parasites include tiny Varroa mites that feed on bees’ body fluids. The Asia natives have spread through international trade in bees and beekeeping equipment, and now afflict hives in every beekeeping country outside Australia, which has held them off through strict controls. Poor nutrition reflects a widespread loss of flowers in rural landscapes because of the rise of industrial farming practices over the past 60 years; varied farms have given way to vast monocultures that are efficient for growing crops but only provide bee-sustaining flowers for a few weeks a year.
The list of pathogens carried by bees includes fungal infections and wing-deforming viruses, many of which get moved around with international trade. Pesticides have gotten the most attention of the four Ps, and the European Union cited bee concerns in their recent ban of a popular class known as neonicotinoids—but with hundreds of chemicals on the market, it’s nearly impossible to tease out individual effects. Products that pass “bee safe” tests in a laboratory can become unsafe when mixed with the fungicides or herbicides often sprayed on the same fields.
This essay is adapted from Thor Hanson’s book ‘Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees,” released on July 10th.
Read full, original article: The Plight of the Humble Bee (behind paywall) |
I don’t know if the bailout has been passed yet in the Senate. I don’t like it. There should be responsibility taken. This is like a war crime or something. I posted a couple of letters that have been forwarded to me. All of it proves money is like heavy duty science, if you don’t know what you’re doing the experiment could go terribly wrong and mutant alligators might be coming up from the toilets at a very inappropriate time.
This painting is another in a series my brother, Ben, has made recently. I dig it. This one looks like it could be an album cover. It’s like she’s been attacked by a tanning bed fueled with Red Bull and nuclear waste. I think she’s going to have a glass jaw by the end of the night. All the pundits are saying Joe Biden has to be careful how he responds to her. She gets to do her thing. She’s good at insulting, undercutting, and making her opponents feel embarrassed based on what I’ve seen of her clips.
The special treatment is bullshit. Look, these are tough times. And we’re living in an era of technology and immediate gratification. Screw the piddly youtube debate. So called up-to-the-minute coverage is nothing. Reality shows are jumping the shark left and right. Movies are not doing it anymore. Let’s take the best of all this and make it really interactive. I demand a put up or shut up actual test of them all. Here’s how it will work: both teams of Presidential and Vice-Presidential in two virtual reality rooms where a graphics department can change the walls. Both teams are then given the exact same scenarios to test how they will handle them. They will have to deal with domestic and international meltdowns, egregious diplomatic foul ups by heads of state, financial problems, a Canadian invasion (just music because, come on, they’d never invade us. Or would they?), an assassination attempt on an important figure and any other serious areas. Things they could never expect. That 3am call stuff. Also, there would be a deck of wild cards. Maybe the President would die and the Veep would have to take over. Wouldn’t it be good to see how that would play out? We wouldn’t have to deal with talk or slogans or dirty campaigning. We’d just have to make sure the game wasn’t rigged.
Then they’d have to do a mega round of Jeopardy on American history, how government works, and applicable knowledge questions. Finally, they’d have to do a stress test on a treadmill. Because this would be televised live, we could stay at home and vote from our cell phones like American Idol. We’d also have to have a way for that not to be rigged.
In the meantime, I guess we have to keep dealing with what we have for 34 more days. I’m going down to Philly to help out on the Obama campaign. They’re getting close to having to have all the registrations done and are prepping for the Springsteen concert. Any NYC peeps want to go just take the NJ Transit train to Trenton and switch the SEPTA train to Philly and the Alleghany stop. The address for PA for Change is 1804 E Allegheny Ave.
I have to say I’m not happy both candidates are pushing for the “Rescue Bill” to go forward. What if they put that little 700 Billion dollar item on the ballot so we can all vote on whether we should approve this little piece of spending for THE ENTIRE COMMUNITY? They’re both doing it to show they can work with the over side. It’s a real damned if you do and damned if you don’t place to be. McCain doesn’t know what the hell he’s saying and Barack isn’t stepping up to the plate here. CEOS should not be making money if the company tanks. They should be paid on commission. The company does well, they get a piece of that. Not 400 times the pay of the lowest worker. People should be charged with crimes.
I just want all of this over with. Why do we have to think so hard about this kind of garbage? This should be already taken care of. I feel like my entire life is put on hold while this goes on. I really do. It’s too complicated. No one understands the math. “Bernanke’s a hero.” “Bernanke’s a fraud.” No one really knows it seems. What if the richest one percent got together and fixed this?
I’m writing about all this to distract from all the death in my life right now. I can’t handle it. My next post will be about beekeeping. |
THE NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE BEEKEEPERS’ ASSOCIATION
Registered charity Number 511576
Adopted at the SGM on 5th November 2014
The association shall be called the North Staffordshire Beekeepers’ Association and shall have the following categories of membership:
· Full (Registered) membership gives membership of the BBKA, with Third Party Public & Products Liability Insurance, which covers beekeeping activities, including sale of direct hive products, Bee Disease Insurance (full details of both www.bbka.org.uk), voting rights, publications as issued by BBKA, NSBKA newsletter, association’s programme of events and communications.
· Country membership is for those without bees, so does NOT provide insurance cover, but gives membership of the BBKA publications as issued by BBKA
· Partner membership is ONLY for those residing at the same address as a full member who need insurance cover to handle bees independently, giving BBKA membership and insurance, but no BBKA or NSBKA publications.
· Associate membership is for those who are members of another beekeeping organisation affiliated to the BBKA and give no BBKA benefits, but gives entitlement to NSBKA benefits
All the above categories of member have voting rights. Only members of the association are eligible for election to the committee, though non-members may be co-opted by the committee, but will not have voting rights.
· Junior associates will not have voting rights, and the committee will determine the benefits of this category
The Association shall be in affiliation to the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA).
The objects of the Association shall be to promote and further the craft of beekeeping.
The management of the Association shall be in the hands of a Committee who shall be responsible to the trustees for the finances and governance of the association.
(a)The officers of the Association shall consist of:
– Assistant/Minutes Secretary,
-Honey Show Manager,
– Education Secretary
– Membership Secretary,
– Programme Secretary,
– Social Secretary
(b)They are to be elected annually at the Annual General Meeting. A member may not hold more than one of the posts of President, Chair, Secretary, or Treasurer at the same time, except as provided for by Rule 9.
(c)The Committee shall consist of up to five elected members together with the officers of the Association listed in RULE 5(a)
(d)The Committee members shall be elected annually at the Annual General Meeting.
(e)The committee may appoint sub-committees (which may include persons not on the committee) and will determine the terms of reference of such sub-committees.
(f)There shall be elected at the Annual General Meeting a minimum of 3 NSBKA Trustees
(g)The committee may appoint additional persons to the committee, who shall have voting rights provided they are members of the association
An Annual General Meeting of the Association, of which at least seven days notice in writing or email is to be given to all members, shall be held each year as early after October 1st as the Committee may decide. At the Annual General Meeting the following business shall be included:
(a) President’s welcome.
(b) Minutes of the last Annual General Meeting and matters arising.
(c) Trustees report and presentation of the Association’s accounts,
(d) Any comments from the accounts inspectors,
(e) Opportunity for members to raise questions related to the trustees’ report or accounts,
(f) Election of Officers for the ensuing year.
(g) Election of members of the Committee for the ensuing year.
(h) Election of the Trustees
(i) Election of two accounts inspectors for the ensuing year.
(j) Members’ resolutions (which have been submitted in advance according to rule 17)
(k) Any other business accepted by the Chair
The Committee shall hold meetings at least four times a year to transact the business of the Association. Seven members shall form a quorum of which at least one shall be a trustee. Ten days notice by email of each meeting shall be given to every member of the Committee. The agenda will be distributed by email at least five days before the meeting.
The committee may agree to hold meetings in electronic format.
♦ It shall be the duty of the Treasurer to receive and pay all monies on behalf of the Association, and to prepare an annual balance sheet, duly inspected, for presentation to the Annual General Meeting. The financial year for the Association shall start on the 1st October and end on the 30th September of the following year.
♦ It shall be the duty of the Secretary or Assistant/Minutes Secretary to make and keep proper minutes of the transactions and relevant documents of the Association and Committee and to send out all notices required by these rules.
♦ The reports of the Trustees and Treasurer shall be approved by the Committee before presentation to the Annual General Meeting.
In the event of a vacancy occurring in any of the offices or on the Committee, any member of the Association may be appointed by the Committee to fill the vacancy until the next Annual General Meeting. In the event of the temporary absence of any of the Officers, the Committee shall appoint one of its members to perform their duties for the time being.
Each member of the Association shall inform the Membership Secretary of any change of contact details.
♦ The annual subscription of each type of membership shall be as determined from time to time by the Association at the Annual General Meeting or a Special General Meeting called for that purpose
♦ All subscriptions shall become due on February 1st each year. The committee may offer reduced rates to those joining part way through the membership year
♦ A member whose subscription is in arrears shall be removed from the list of members at the discretion of the Committee.
♦ Accepted members shall receive a copy of this constitution from the membership secretary
All monies belonging to the Association and not invested shall be in the hands of the Treasurer. He/she shall keep an account in the name of the Association at such bank as the Committee may appoint. Investments shall be made at the discretion of the Committee. The monies collected by the Association are for the objects of Rule 3.
The President or Committee, on written or email requisition of any ten members or of any one trustee, shall summon a Special General Meeting of the Association and shall send to all members ten days notice in writing or email thereof. The notice shall specify the particular business of the meeting and no other business shall be transacted.
If the conduct of any member shall, in the opinion of the Committee, be injurious to the Association he/she shall be requested to resign and the privileges of membership other than insurance shall automatically cease 21 days after such a request. Any member so requested shall have the opportunity to state his/her case before the Committee, who may reconsider their request.
At meetings the chair shall be taken by the Chair or at his/her wish, or in his/her absence, the President or a chair elected for the occasion by those present.
Fifteen members or half the members of the Association, whichever is fewer, shall form a quorum at the Annual General Meeting or any Special General Meeting. If any meeting is not quorate 15 minutes after the published start time, it shall be adjourned to a future date of which members will be given at least 7 days notice by email or post, and at the resumed meeting whatever number of members are present shall form a quorum.
(a)These rules may be altered by resolution at any Annual or Special General Meeting, provided that the notice calling the Meeting has specified the proposed alteration. Members’ resolutions to change these rules must be in the hands of the Secretary or Assistant/Minutes Secretary at least 42 days before any Annual or Special General Meeting for prior consideration by the Committee.
(b)A copy of the constitution is to be available to every member on request.
(c)No alteration shall be made to this Constitution that would cause the Association to cease to be a charity at law.
(d) Members resolutions for the AGM must be in the hands of the secretary at least 42 days before the AGM
The Association may be dissolved as a result of a resolution passed by a two-thirds majority of those persons present and voting at an Annual or Special General Meeting of the Association called for that purpose. If, upon the dissolution of the Association, there remains after the satisfaction of all debts and liabilities any property whatsoever, this shall not be paid to or distributed among the members of the Association but shall be given or transferred to such other charitable institution or institutions having objects similar to those of the Association as the members of the Association shall decide. |
This forum is designed to get people to think and today I want to ask a hard question. How do you hear or respond to another person's needs? A neighbor's beekeeping activity, after being asked not to do it, ended in the tragic loss of the next door neighbor's dear pet dog. Africanized, the bees swarmed the dog and it was stung over 200 times. Even after being asked not to pursue this interest in the neighborhood, the request was ignored and now the trust of these neighbors has been fractured, perhaps beyond repair. I think of the many times we make a request of someone we love and ignored, it ends in tragedy that could have been averted. Marriages, parent-child relationships, neighbors, countries. Arrogance is the deaf ears friend and reasoning and respect's enemy.
Sometimes it is so easy to become so focused on what we want or a mission that we must achieve that we lose sight of the affect it has on the people around us. The world suffers this malady and if we cannot even begin in a neighborhood, how can we ever live peacefully together? Certainly, arrogance is a quality that is hard to live with or next too. I am certain that in my own case, I have suffered moments of arrogance and it has left its mark on people I care for dearly. Not listening to another person's concern or insight can be not only hurtful, it can even be deadly as in the case of the beekeeper and his neighbor.
Perhaps it does us all a tremendous service to listen to others whom we share life with. It is a kindness and a respect we show others when we take the time to listen to what they have to say and to regard their true need seriously. As a child, I was not taught to do this and it took me a very long time to learn how to honor another person's perspective or request. Ego and arrogance are crutches we can no longer afford to walk with. Hearing what another says does not necessarily mean acquiescence. It means weighing the interests of everyone. Most times there is a common ground that can be struck...as long as we are not stuck on getting our way. |
Save the bees - it’s now or never!
How You Can Help Save The Bees with your vote on the 21st of March
Research has shown that bees are smart, resourceful, and have feelings about their life experience. They follow a highly ordered, efficient society that has been crucial to their survival over many years. They were on this planet well before humankind, and developed an effective way to live. However, they are faced with extinction that will have a greater effect on the entire ecosystem than many ever thought possible.
Life without our buzzy friends
Have you ever considered how many of the fresh fruit, vegetables and nuts we consume rely on pollination? An incredible 70% of these plants must be pollinated to grow - meaning if we were to lose all bees we would in turn lose many delicious crops we eat on a daily basis.
For example, the food that would no longer be available to us if bees ceased pollinating our agricultural goods are: broccoli, asparagus, cucumbers, pumpkins, blueberries, watermelons, almonds, apples, cranberries, and cherries.
This shocking image reveals the damage that would be done to our fresh produce if bees became extinct. Imagine walking into your local supermarket and seeing this:
Genetically Modified Organisms have taken a turn for the worse
We have the ability to accommodate a natural agricultural model, yet large corporate companies such as Monsanto, choose to build an industrial model that doesn’t respect or care for nature. They work with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) to manipulate the beautiful, natural process of plants. GMOs were originally designed to keep us all from starvation and prevent crops from being ruined. Unfortunately this scientific development has turned into something much worse.
There are a lot of single independent studies conducted on the impact of genetically modified food, and it shows that it damages organs, causes infertility, and can result in immune system failure as well as multiple organ system failure.
Did you know that Monsanto is connected to the cause of the Colony Collapse Disorder? They designed a pesticide to spray the crops of the manipulated seeds (GMOs) which is claimed to have killed over 40% percent of honey bees in the U.S. within a year.
Let’s talk pollination
Of course we also rely on other animals (like the Rhino, which is almost extinct) and the wind. And some plants can actually pollinate themselves. But killing the bees means killing our natural pollination system, which is the livelihood of growing new plants and trees in a natural way.
By killing the bees, we become more dependent on GMOs, which unlike natural seeds, cannot be reproduced after a year. This means that farmers always have to buy new seeds which is an expensive, unsustainable option for those who grow crops for a living.
The future of our own free food chain is at risk. It is being killed and corrupted by large corporate companies who are focused purely on making money, and making money fast. The power is in the hands of the consumer - we can petition for change, shop consciously, and educate ourselves and others about the future our planet faces.
Here’s how you can help:
Get educated - read, watch and interact with all of the amazing content out there. Form your own opinion and share this with the rest of your community.
If you haven’t already, we recommend checking out The World According To Monsanto, Cowspiracy or Leonardo DiCaprio’s film Before the Flood, it reveals how many large corporate companies are willingly killing our planet for money.
Sign up to the petition to protect our bees and vote for a total ban on neonicotinoids. It’s time we stopped greedy companies like Monsanto from causing harm to our ecosystem.
In The Netherlands we get to vote against these harmful pesticides on Wednesday 21 March; make sure your voice is heard!
Say goodbye to honey. This is a simple and effective way to make a positive impact on the lives of bees.
Not convinced that quitting honey will make a difference? This video explains how we are damaging the entire bee kingdom one spoonful of honey at a time.
Buy organic plants for your garden or balcony. Do you know that you can contribute by buying GMO-free plants? GMO-free plants don’t contain the harmful pesticides that are responsible for bees dying. This way your balcony or garden can save many bees lives! Here’s a list of 25 bee-friendly plants you can purchase at your local garden centre.
Keep your own beehive at home. BEEcosystem has developed a beautiful device that can house a bunch of happy bees in your very own home. The bee-friendly hive comes with a clear plastic tube that can lead outdoors through a window to allow bees to come and go as they wish.
The power truly is in our hands! If we are to act now we can truly save the bees and our planet.
Curious to learn a bit more about Monsanto in 13 minutes, check out this history of the company and why we need to ban their pesticides in Europe!
Conscious Contributor: Elizabeth Plokker
Urban Apiculture: Raise Bees in Your Apartment
Can you keep bees in an apartment complex?
Sleek Urban Hive Lets You Keep Bees in the Comfort of Your Apartment
By Rebecca Boyle November 9, 2011
Become an urban beekeeper in 8 steps
The BEEcosystem Lets You Keep Bees as Indoor Pets
Beekeeping for Everyone |
Confirmation of small hive beetle in Italy
On 11 September 2014, the Italian National Reference Centre for beekeeping confirmed the presence of small hive beetle (SHB) for the first time in Italy, in the port city of Gioia Tauro, in samples which were taken from a bait trap belonging to the University of Reggio Calabria.
Since its discovery, urgent measures are underway to measure the extent of the outbreak, complete tracings (sales and movements of bees from the area) and eradicate and control its spread in line with EU legislation and safeguards. Measures include the destruction of all colonies where the beetle is found and treatment of soil surrounding the land.
Since 2011, there has been a substantial level of imports of package bees and queens from Italy into the UK. Presently the NBU is arranging for further inspection of colonies belonging to these beekeepers, but in the meantime all beekeepers are reminded to remain vigilant when checking their colonies and to report any suspicious sightings. Beekeepers who have received bees from GB, which originated in Italy, are asked to contact a DAERA Bee Inspector to arrange an inspection.
More information about this exotic pest and action to take: |
This month's theme is: WINTER MEDICINALS. Use local honey from beekeeping guild member Erin Shepley to make medicinals that keep you healthy over the cold/flu months of winter.
Led by: Erin Shepley
This meeting will also be a potluck - bring your own table settings and dish to pass! This is a FREE event, but please RSVP to make sure you get important information like the room number or any last minute changes.
If you have interest enough to commit to gathering regularly around the topic of herbs, let your voice be heard! Questions about the Herb Guild or guilds in general? Contact Jen at 231-622-5252 or Jen@Crosshatch.org. There are also rumblings of herb guilds starting in the Bellaire and Petoskey areas. |
Zoning regulations for chickens and bees
Municipal zoning regulations can allow residents to keep chickens and bees within city limits. Raising chickens or keeping bees can be part of individuals’ and families’ income-earning and food-producing activities in urban areas.
Expected Beneficial Outcomes (Rated)
Increased access to healthy food
Strengthened local & regional food systems
Other Potential Beneficial Outcomes
Increased healthy foods in food deserts
Evidence of Effectiveness
Zoning regulations that allow residents to raise chickens and keep bees, as part of urban agriculture activities, are a suggested strategy to increase access to healthy foods, build sustainable, self-reliant food systems, and increase household income (CDC-Urban ag, FAO-Livestock). Models suggest that cities can achieve significant levels of self-reliance for poultry, eggs, and honey through urban agriculture activities (Grewal 2012). However, additional evidence is needed to confirm effects.
Regulations addressing public health safety concerns and educational campaigns for those in contact with live poultry are suggested strategies to decrease potential risks of infectious disease transmission related to raising chickens (Bailey 2013, Beam A, Garber L, Sakugawa J, Kopral C. Salmonella awareness and related management practices in U.S. urban backyard chicken flocks. Preventive Veterinary Medicine. 2013;110(3-4):481–8.
Link to original source (journal subscription may be required for access)).
Impact on Disparities
No impact on disparities likely
Many municipalities have adopted or changed zoning regulations to support raising chickens and bees, including Boston, MA (BRA-Urban ag zoning); Cleveland, OH (CCC FPC-Chickens and bees); Salt Lake City, UT (Salt Lake-Chickens); and Madison, WI (Madison-Beekeeping). The specifics of these ordinances (i.e., codes, requirements, and restrictions regulating urban livestock activities) vary significantly (Butler 2012).
As of 2012, 94 of the top 100 US cities by population (according to the 2000 census) have laws that allow chickens in some manner. Only 3 cities have an outright ban on keeping chickens, and 3 have unclear ordinances that have been interpreted as bans (Bouvier 2012).
Citations - Evidence
* Journal subscription may be required for access.
CDC-Urban ag - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Land use planning and urban/peri-urban agriculture.
Grewal 2012 - Grewal SS, Grewal PS. Can cities become self-reliant in food? Cities. 2012;29(1):1–11.
FAO-Livestock - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Livestock and dairy products.
Beam 2013* - Beam A, Garber L, Sakugawa J, Kopral C. Salmonella awareness and related management practices in U.S. urban backyard chicken flocks. Preventive Veterinary Medicine. 2013;110(3-4):481–8.
Bailey 2013 - Bailey T, Larson J. Backyard poultry: Implications for public health and safety. Minneapolis: Food Policy Research Center (FPRC), University of Minnesota; 2013.
Citations - Implementation Examples
* Journal subscription may be required for access.
BRA-Urban ag zoning - Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA). Urban agriculture rezoning initiative.
Bouvier 2012 - Bouvier J. Illegal fowl: A survey of municipal laws relating to backyard poultry and a model ordinance for regulating city chickens. Environmental Law Reporter. 2012;42(9):10888.
Butler 2012 - Butler WH. Welcoming animals back to the city: Navigating the tensions of urban livestock through municipal ordinances. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. 2012;2(2):193-215.
CCC FPC-Chickens and bees - Cleveland Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition (CCCFP). Chickens and bees ordinance: Cleveland revamps zoning codes to promote urban agriculture. Cleveland: Cleveland Cuyahoga County Food Policy Coalition (CCCFP); 2011.
Salt Lake-Chickens - Hendrickson M, Porth M. An ordinance amending sections 8.08.010, 8.08.060, and 8.08.080, and enacting section 8.08.065, Salt Lake City code, to authorize the keeping of chickens in residential districts subject to certain requirements. Salt Lake City: City Council of Salt Lake City; 2011.
Madison-Beekeeping - City of Madison. Obtaining a city of Madison beekeeping license.
Date Last Updated
- Scientifically Supported: Strategies with this rating are most likely to make a difference. These strategies have been tested in many robust studies with consistently positive results.
- Some Evidence: Strategies with this rating are likely to work, but further research is needed to confirm effects. These strategies have been tested more than once and results trend positive overall.
- Expert Opinion: Strategies with this rating are recommended by credible, impartial experts but have limited research documenting effects; further research, often with stronger designs, is needed to confirm effects.
- Insufficient Evidence: Strategies with this rating have limited research documenting effects. These strategies need further research, often with stronger designs, to confirm effects.
- Mixed Evidence: Strategies with this rating have been tested more than once and results are inconsistent or trend negative; further research is needed to confirm effects.
- Evidence of Ineffectiveness: Strategies with this rating are not good investments. These strategies have been tested in many robust studies with consistently negative and sometimes harmful results. |
End of preview. Expand
in Dataset Viewer.
- Downloads last month
- 4
Size of downloaded dataset files:
23.9 MB
Size of the auto-converted Parquet files:
23.9 MB
Number of rows:
5,000