Getting busy with it - The Irish Times - Thu, Aug 05, 2010

Getting busy with it - The Irish Times - Thu, Aug 05, 2010: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"
Irish beekeepers are an industrious lot: this year’s conference featured sessions on honey and husbandry, stings and queens, and how bees love a good chat, writes ROSITA BOLAND

Honey bees disappearing in the U.S | CRWE NewsWire

Honey bees disappearing in the U.S | CRWE NewsWire

The State News

The State News: "A waffle cone full of MSU’s Dairy Store ice cream might get pricey as the summers pass, and the problem isn’t cows — it’s bees.

MSU Dairy Store ice cream flavors such as Coconut Chocolate Almond and Hoosier Strawberry, which depend on the pollination of honey bees, ultimately might become higher priced than others because the species is inching closer to becoming endangered, said John Partridge, an adviser in MSU’s Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition.

Although ice cream ingredients are dependent on the diminishing honey bee populations, nature also has a role to play in ingredient availability, Partridge said."

Plants for Bees & Butterflies : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce

Plants for Bees & Butterflies : Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce

Plants for Bees + Butterflies

Honey bees at risk as 'foot and mouth' style disease hits Scotland - Scotsman.com News

Honey bees at risk as 'foot and mouth' style disease hits Scotland - Scotsman.com News: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Study - Bee Population Decline - Cell Phones Responsible? | Geekosystem

Study - Bee Population Decline - Cell Phones Responsible? | Geekosystem

Why the decline in bees matters | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Why the decline in bees matters | Environment | guardian.co.uk

Highlands and Islands reporter, BBC Scotland news website

A lack of suitable flowers may be forcing bumblebees to seek out aphids to feed on their sugary secretions.

The Bumblebee Conservation Trust (BCT) said it was a behaviour that appeared to be becoming increasingly common.

Images captured by the BBC Scotland news website in a garden in Nairn, in the Highlands, show the bees visiting tree leaves covered with aphids.

The secretions offer a substitute for nectar, but do not contain the protein the insects need to stay healthy.

There have been warnings that bumblebee and wild bee populations around the UK are experiencing "catastrophic declines".

Bees are important pollinators of flowers and crops.

The bumblebees' behaviour of feeding on secretions from aphids could be a further sign of the problems facing the insects.

"There is a fine balance to be struck in the garden - the answer is to put plants in the garden that are of benefit to bees"
Craig Macadam
Buglife Scottish officer

Dr Ben Darvill, a BCT director and research ecologist based at the University of Stirling, said there have been several reports of the behaviour but the reason for it remained unclear.

He said: "It's hard to say for sure, but it does seem as if this behaviour is becoming more common.

"Bumblebees are known to feed from aphid secretions, and from extra-floral nectaries on unlikely plants like bracken - but it's more usual to see it in upland areas where there are few other flowers around.

"The fact that it is now frequently observed elsewhere may suggest that there are fewer of the right sorts of flowers around in people's gardens and in the wider countryside."

Dr Darvill said a fascinating aspect of the behaviour was the bumblebees' ability to apparently smell the sugar.

They normally choose flowers by colour, but are known to have "smelly feet" allowing them to detect if a flower has already been visited by another bumblebee for its pollen.

However, the intrigue is tinged with concern for the insects.

Dr Darvill said: "Bumblebees have struggled in recent decades from habitat loss - three species are extinct in the UK and many more are threatened - so perhaps bumblebees are having to find innovative ways of finding food."

But he added: "Although the aphid secretions provide them with a sugary solution, a substitute for nectar, they provide no protein.

"Bumblebees can only get their protein from pollen, which they feed to their growing young, so it is essential for a healthy population."

Research work at the University of Stirling, has demonstrated that certain pollens are particularly rich in protein, said Dr Darvill.

He said to help declining bumblebees, gardeners, farmers and land managers need to ensure a constant supply of forage plants from March through until September.

Flowers from the pea and mint families seem to be particularly beneficial.

Craig Macadam, Scottish officer with conservation group Buglife, said aphids were considered a garden pest but he would not wish to see them wiped out.

He said: "Ants often protect the aphids from other predators such as ladybirds and in return they take the honey dew secreted by the aphids.

"There is a fine balance to be struck in the garden - the answer is to put plants in the garden that are of benefit to bees."

---

Migratory Beekeepers Worry About Their Livelihood

BENTON CITY-- Cherry and apple seasons are approaching, and Washington farmers are looking to migratory beekeepers to pollinate their crops.

As the bee population rapidly decline in nature, beekeepers are traveling from state to state, where their bees pollinate seasonal crops before moving on.

"Einstein's theory-- it's been, oh, a couple years ago-- was that within about four years, there would be no more food to sustain life anywhere on the planet, to pollinate orchards, pollinate everything out there," said Daniel McLaury, a migratory beekeeper from Montana.

Bees may be the fuzzy, buzzing creatures humans try to avoid, but without them, there would be nothing to pollinate our fruit, the plants livestock eat, the cane to make sugar, even coffee.

"Without the bees, there is no life, there is no food to eat," said McLaury. "So we're going to get real hungry really soon without bees."

UNICEF girl lauded by NCERT

PATNA: A girl from a poverty-stricken family who turned to bee-keeping for a better living and was declared the 'UNICEF girl' has now been hailed as a role model by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).

The girl Anita Kushwaha, from a backward family from remote Bochaha village in Bihar's Muzaffarpur district, took up bee-keeping when she found that she could earn more from it with little investment.

Anita, now a 19-year-old, took to bee keeping when she was ten after her mother Rekha Devi provided her with Rs 3000.

The saga of her success in being described as the 'UNICEF girl' has been incorporated in chapter five in a class IV text book on environmental studies 'Looking Around'.

With the money she received from her mother, Anita bought three queen bees and began running hives to make a profit of Rs 50,000 in the first year of her venture.

She not only met the expense of her family, but also paid for her education till class ten.

UNICEF-assisted 'Mahila Samakhya' volunteers, later, identified her and adopted her as a girl model.

By introducing the concept of rearing honeybees for improving one's living condition, Anita ushered in a silent evolution in the rural areas of Muzaffarpur, UNICEF sources said.

Her path-breaking work caught the attention of UNICEF which honoured her by declaring her the 'UNICEF girl' in 2006.
Anita is now studying English (Hons) from a women's college in Muzaffarpur with a firm resolve to pursue education while fighting poverty.

Can Burt's Bees turn Colorox green?

In the summer of 1984, Burt Shavitz, a beekeeper in Maine, picked up Roxanne Quimby, a 33 year-old single mother down on her luck, as she hitch-hiked and Burt's Bees was born. After the couple split, the company was sold to Colorex for millions and 'the bee-man' returned to live in a turkey coop.

Imported Bees Not Source of Virus Associated with Colony Collapse Disorder

from UDSA
Research entomologists Yanping (Judy) Chen and Jay D. Evans, both with the ARS Bee Research Laboratory here, conducted a detailed genetic screening of several hundred honey bees that had been collected between 2002 and 2007 from colonies in Maryland, Pennsylvania, California and Israel.

"Our study shows that, without question, IAPV has been in this country since at least 2002," said Chen. "This work challenges the idea that IAPV is a recent introduction from Australia."

Almond Pollination Handbook. Joe Traynor 86 pgs. Soft. $7.00pp.

Between the 1950s and '80s, California's almond industry went from 90,000 to 400,000 acres. Approximately 800,000 colonies are needed to pollinate this crop each spring, half of which come from out of state. This annual event is unsurpassed in the history of the beekeeping industry, and without doubt points toward the future of beekeeping and crop production in the U.S., and eventually the world.

Healing with honey from

Abkhazia

map courtesy cia

THE CAVES OF API Nino Masetti

This page was automatically translated from Italian.

The Greek mythology has bequeathed us beautiful legend of Zeus Melissaion that to be saved from bulimia father Cronos was hidden in a cave on Mount Ida, where he was fed with the milk of goats Altea and the honey of a swarm of bees attracted by the sound of cimbali agitated by nymphs that custodivano the divine baby [1]

Going dall'Olimpo and trasferendoci at the other end of the Mediterranean is another famous cave in the village of Bicorp in Spain. Questa grotta porta lo strano nome di “grotta del ragno” ma in realtà conserva il simbolo della stretta relazione fra l’uomo e l’ape, una relazione che risale a circa 9000 anni fa. This cave brings the strange name of "cave of spider" but in reality retains the symbol of the close relationship between man el'ape, a relationship that dates back to about 9000 years ago.
In un interessantissimo libro pubblicato di recente Eva Crane illustra più di 300 grotte e località rupestri dove l’uomo preistorico ha lasciato delle impronte e pitture che costituiscono un omaggio al mondo delle api [2] In a very interesting book published recently Eva Crane illustrates more than 300 caves and cave locations where prehistoric man has left an impression and paintings that are a tribute to the world of bees [2]

A parte l’aspetto mitologico ed artistico ci è noto che anticamente l’uomo che viveva sulle pendici delle montagne ha spesso scelto grotte e caverne come dimora, magazzino e rifugio per se e per i suoi ma anche per gli animali che possedeva e che era necessario proteggere dalle intemperie e dai predatori fra i quali primeggiava l’orso bruno. Apart from the artistic and mythological aspect we know that the man who once lived on the slopes of the mountains has often chosen as caves and caverns residence, warehouse and shelter for themselves and for her but also for the animals and that he was possessed need to protect against bad weather and predators among them primeggiava the brown bear.
Quello che è meno noto è che spesso fra questi animali c’erano anche le api. What is less well known is that often among these animals were bees.

Certo a noi, uomini moderni, non è facile immaginare degli apiari installati in delle grotte specie se queste sono formate da una camera sola ma un esame attento ed una visita sul posto ci convincerà di questa possibilità. Of course we, modern men, it is not easy to imagine the apiaries installed in the caves where these species are formed from a single room but a careful examination and an on-site visit will convince us of this possibility.
Quindi, oltre alle”case delle api “, ai “muri delle api” ed altre strutture apistiche oggi dimenticate possiamo veramente parlare di “grotte delle api?” So, in addition to the "houses of bees", the "walls of bees" and other structures apistiche today can really forget talk of "Bee caves?"

La risposta è affermativa e possiamo aggiungere che le grotte e le caverne furono l’habitat primitivo dell’uomo e che fu in seguito all’abbandono di questo habitat che l’uomo si trovo’ nella necessità di ideare e costruire le “case delle api” per difendere i suoi alveari. The answer is yes and we can add that the caves and caverns were the primary habitat and that was later abandonment of this habitat that the man found the need to design and build "houses of bees "to defend his hives.

Fig.1- “Arne” accatastate davanti all’ingresso di una grotta Fig.1- "Arne" piled in front of a cave

Circa due anni fa, al termine di un colloquio sull’apicoltura vernacolare tenuta a St Faust, nei Pirenei, l’amico e collega Robert Chevet ci ha invitati a seguirlo in Spagna per visitare nella provincia di Huesca, nell’Alta Aragona, dei luoghi quasi inaccessibili dove numerose grotte contengono ancora un numero rilevante di arnie orizzontali di tipo intrecciato dette “ arnas ”(parola che potrebbe derivare dall’italiano arnia).

Dr Eva Crane, founder of IBRA and inspirational bee scientist, passed away on 6 September 2007. A lasting tribute will be established to honour Dr Crane and her contribution to the world of apiculture. Please send donations, made payable to "The Eva Crane Memorial Fund", care of IBRA. Photo: Mary Fisher.

Eva Crane, English Expert on World's Bees, Dies at 95

Eva Crane, who earned a doctorate in nuclear physics and then abandoned the field to devote herself to expanding and spreading knowledge about bees as a researcher, historian, archivist, editor and author, died on Sept. 6 in Slough, England.

She was 95, 57 years shy of the reputed life span of the 17th-century English farmer Thomas Parr who, she suggested in one of her books, owed his longevity to eating honey that she said he produced as a beekeeper. The International Bee Research Association, which she founded in 1949, announced her death.

For more than a half-century Dr. Crane worked in more than 60 countries to learn more and more about honeybees, sometimes traveling by dugout canoe or dog sled to document the human use of bees from prehistoric times to the present. She found that ancient Babylonians used honey to preserve corpses, that bees were effectively used as military weapons by the Viet Cong, and that beekeepers in a remote corner of Pakistan use the same kind of hives found in excavations of ancient Greece.

The usefulness of her findings was apparent in 2001 when an official of the United States Department of Agriculture in Louisiana read about Russian bees in one of her books. They had developed a resistance to mites, which had been devastating local bees, The Sunday Advocate of Baton Rouge reported. The agency imported some Russian bees, and the Louisiana bees were soon mite-resistant.

Dr. Crane wrote some of the most important books on bees and apiculture, including “The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting” (1999). In a review in The Guardian, the author Paul Theroux, himself a beekeeper, called the book a masterwork “for its enormous scope and exhaustiveness, for being an up-to-date treasure house of apiaristic facts.”

In an obituary published Friday, the British newspaper The Independent said Dr. Crane published more than 180 papers, articles and books. It noted that she wrote most of them when she was in her 70s and 80s, after stepping down in 1984 from the day-to-day running of the association.

The Times of London in 1999 called her the “queen bee among bee experts.”

Letters from the Hive
An Intimate History of Bees, Honey, and Humankind
by Stephen L. Buchmann and Banning Repplier

Quotes from Letters from the Hive:

"I am not alone in my passion for honey-making bees and their honey. From prehistoric times to the present, we humans have felt a mysterious and enduring connection to these furry little creatures and the food they produce. We have endowed them with magical properties, attributed to them surprising healing and cleansing powers, and seen in them meaningful symbols representing some of our most profoundly held beliefs.

"Our fascination with bees is deeply rooted in our collective consciousness. We see it in the cave paintings that our prehistoric ancestors left behind. We can read it in the rich, complex rituals and traditions that evolved to govern our relationship with these admirable insects. And we can still catch the reverberations of our instinctive connection to that part of the natural world every time a husband calls his wife "honey" or an excited child chases a buzzing bee through a bright summer afternoon. But its influence is much more far-reaching than you might imagine, extending not just to everyday moments of affection and play but to diverse cultures, religious beliefs, cuisines, and scientific study around the world. We can look for its roots in our history and, before that, our prehistory.

"Thanks to petroglyphs, the spectacular painted records still visible on cave walls throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and even Australia, we know our ancestors definitely had a sweet tooth, and we know that they indulged it by embarking on arduous and often dangerous honey hunts, armed with tools that enabled them to pillage bee nests with remarkable efficiency. We don't know why cave artists put so much effort into recording these often dramatic hunts. Perhaps the honey hunts signified something more profound than the simple harvesting of an ingredient to sweeten their days-something with deep religious or ceremonial meaning. Whatever the reason, vivid paintings chronicling those honey-hunting expeditions-beautifully stylized yet powerfully real-have been found on the ceilings and walls of hundreds of caves spanning the globe.

"In her recent book The Rock Art of Honey Hunters, Dr. Eva Crane, the grande dame of honey bee researchers, has collected some of the most striking examples of the cave art chronicling these prehistoric hunts. As she has vividly documented, there are a number of common elements that recur throughout this pictorial world. The honeycombs are prominently drawn, generally with great exuberance and appearing much larger than they are in real life. Bees, with or without wings, are shown flying angrily about as their nests are pillaged by the daring hunters. The hunters themselves are usually depicted either standing at the foot of a tree or cliff that harbors a bee nest or climbing long rope ladders to reach their prize. And they are typically shown naked-although to modern beekeepers, the idea of raiding a colony without protective clothing seems foolhardy at best. The honey hunters portrayed in African cave art frequently wear penis sheaths and nothing else."

About Stephen L. Buchmann

eco books

alibris

Historic St Bees

There is evidence of settlement dating back to Neolithic times, but nothing is known of either the Romans or the Romano-British Celts who would have followed them. We know of the Viking influence through the cross shaft at the Priory, but the first recorded history comes to us via medieval manuscripts which describe the life of St. Bega.

No matter where we live, there is a hidden world going on all around us, full of magic, mystery and adventure. Quite literally what we perceive as ordinary reality is far, far more than this, containing secret knowledge which was understood by an ancient, arcane tradition that still exists quietly in our midst. This knowledge, hidden and carefully preserved over thousands of years is revealed for the first time in this book by Simon Buxton - where magic is only a wing flutter away and reality is seen through compound eyes.

In The Shamanic Way of the Bee the intriguing world of bee shamanism - the Path of Pollen - is revealed and explained as both a vital part of our heritage and a practical system of healing, wisdom and spiritual development. It is written as a marriage of ethnography and autobiographical memoir, detailing the true adventure story of his initiation into this ancient tradition. As with all new and unusual experiences, his immersion in a new world order and way of being was sometimes terrifying, sometimes exquisitely beautiful, and readers everywhere will be enchanted as they share his journey.

"This book is like having a backstage-pass into the actual secret life of bees. Bee Master, Simon Buxton, takes us on his shaman's journey that unveils a tradition that has been held sacred for thousands of years. After reading this book, I felt I had been initiated into the ancient feminine mystery of sacred sexuality."
Tori Amos - Singer/Songwriter

"Simon Buxton's unusually wondrous tale combined with his exquisite use of words brings radiant life to an ancient path; the Shamanic Way of the Bee. Delve into the mystery with Buxton - the story and teachings are brilliant."
Sandra Ingerman author of Soul Retrieval

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100,000 Bees Invade University Building

HOUSTON -- More than 100,000 bees have invaded a building at the University of Houston, KPRC Local 2 reported Wednesday.University officials said the bees have taken up residence between the walls of the Cullen College of Engineering building."Mother Nature guided them to that spot and it was an easy place for them to get into," bee expert Mike Knuckey said. "It was placed where they could control the temperature and their environment."

Knuckey began removing the bees at about 8:30 a.m. The extrication was expected to take all day. Knuckey said he has to use smoke to subdue the bees and then remove the bricks one by one to get to the hive."Our hope is to safely remove the bees and relocate them to a less populated area on campus," said Alex Alexander, director of custodial and grounds. "The bee population is already under stress. UH is concerned about the environment we inhabit and will choose to protect it whenever possible."Officials said faculty and students noticed the bees several months ago.The bees are suspected to have created a 50- to 100- square-foot hive in the building.The bees have not stung anyone, officials said."Many of the students don't even know we have this situation," Alexander said. "It's been kind of a surprise to them, all this attention that is getting. We don't consider this a dangerous situation."Some students said the infestation concerned them."I'm kind of allergic to them," Fernando Gomez said. "I know I'm not the only one around this campus. There's a lot of students around this campus, if they get bit, Lord knows what can happen to them. I wouldn't want to get bit by one."Honey has been seen dripping from the building's weep holes.

Clorox Buying Burt's Bees
read article in the NY Times

Clorox posted a quarterly profit yesterday that was slightly less than year’s but still better than analysts had expected, and said it would buy the privately held personal products company Burt’s Bees.

Clorox said it would buy Burt’s Bees, which makes lip balm, soaps and other products from natural ingredients, for $925 million net of an additional $25 million for expected tax benefits.

check out Repel 'em Blog

The Bees' Needs
Honey bees are mysteriously vanishing across the country, putting $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and vegetables at risk.

Like carrots? How about cucumbers, broccoli, onions, pumpkins, squash, apples, blueberries, avocados, almonds or cherries? These crops, among others, can't grow without honeybees, and a mysterious die-off of these hard-working pollinators could put $15 billion worth of U.S. crops at risk -- not to mention put a damper on your diet.

Beekeepers sounded the alarm in 2006. Seemingly healthy bees were simply abandoning their hives en masse, never to return. Researchers are calling the mass disappearance Colony Collapse Disorder, and estimate that nearly one-third of all honey bee colonies in the country have vanished.

Why are the bees leaving? Scientists studying the disorder believe a combination of factors could be making bees sick, including pesticide exposure, an inadequate food supply, and a new virus that targets bees' immune systems. But more research is needed to determine the exact cause of the bees' distress.

Read more at NRDC

Bee Friendly, Bee Safe: Here's How