Posts tagged bees
Not True.
Honey keeps and keeps and keeps.
And my bacon grease can go bad, and lordy that stuff isn’t good for me (but I love it).
(via hardcoresandals)
There are a lot of people with uninformed opinions who have access to the internet.
I really should just delete my facebook. It’s like a rage inducing machine.
I had just posted this petition about bees and pesticides.
My friend shared it and got his first hater on his page discussing how there is two sides to every story and how people should educate themselves about the issue before signing anything. I’m all for that, but the link he provided went to a study at some podunk institution that had been sponsored by Bayer Chemical.
I don’t know if you know this but Bayer is already in a lot of hot water about Colony Collapse DIsorder and seeing their name on a debunk study does not constitute evidence of anything in my book as a scientist.
But that isn’t what pisses me off. Giant corporations and their business as usual is not my problem (at least not today).
MY problem is that we live in an era where information is not locked up in institutions or in libraries or in even buildings. Dammit. People this information is right there for the gathering, processing, evaluating, and then finally digestion. But oh no, we’re too busy and saavy for that!
Quick! Off to google to find a single source that agrees with our initial position! Now we’re an expert! Doesn’t matter that we didn’t actually even read the damn journal article. It just matters that we cited a source, right?
Honest to God, the science education in this country is in the toilet. Logic, mathematics, causality, critical thinking, etc, are just not practiced by anyone I seem to run into on the regular.
The funniest/saddest part is the guy didn’t even seem to understand why I was upset.
Colony Collapse Caused by Some Pesticides Made in Germany. These Pesticides are Banned in Germany, but Not in the USA. The EPA Is Whored Out by Bayer, Monsanto….
Leaked document shows EPA allowed bee-toxic pesticide despite own scientists’ red flags
An internal EPA memo confirms that the very agency charged with protecting the environment is ignoring the warnings of its own scientists about clothianidin, a pesticide from which Bayer racked up €183 million (about $262 million) in sales in 2009.
Clothianidin has been widely used on corn, the largest U.S. crop, since 2003. Suppliers sell seeds pre-treated with it. Like other members of the neonicotinoid family of pesticides, clothianidin gets “taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through pollen and nectar,” according to Pesticide Action Network of North America (PANNA), which leaked the document along with Beyond Pesticides. That effect makes it highly toxic to a crop’s pests — and also harmful to pollen-hoarding honeybees, which have experienced mysterious annual massive die-offs (known as “colony collapse disorder”) here in the United States at least since 2006.
Pesticides: Germany bans chemicals linked to honeybee devastation
Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.
The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.
Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.
Neonicotinoids, which were introduced in the nineteen-nineties, are neurotoxins that, as the name suggests, chemically resemble nicotine. They’re what are known as systemic pesticides: seeds are treated with the chemicals, which then are taken up by the vascular systems of the growing plants. According to the Pesticide Action Network, at least a hundred and forty million acres were planted with neonicotinoid-treated seeds in 2010. This is an area larger than California and Florida combined.
Found some more autumnal beauty in my neighborhood.
Bee assisted flower sex.
Talk to your kids about pollination today.
It’s so naughty! I’m watching a cucumber being made.
Awesome. YAY BEES!
My friend posted this with the comment “R.I.P. Bees.” Pretty accurate.
Beeologics’ acquisition announcement explains that Monsanto plans to incorporate all the biological research that Beeologics has conducted over the years into its own programs for developing more GMO systems. Monsanto has also seized control of a key product that is currently in the Beeologics development pipeline that supposedly “help[s] protect bee health.”
“Monsanto will use the base technology from Beeologics as a part of its continuing discovery and development pipeline,” says the announcement. “Biological products will continue to play an increasingly important role in supporting the sustainability of many agricultural systems.”
To translate, it appears as though Monsanto plans to useeven more chemical inputsto supposedly solve the bee collapse problem, even though it is these very inputs that are largely thecauseof the bee collapse problem. Several recent studies, after all, have definitively linked crop pesticides and herbicides, as well as high fructose corn syrup, to CCD.
The future looks bleak for bees, in other words, as Monsanto appears poised to slowly gobble up all the competing companies and organizations that threaten its own GMO products, while pretending to care about the dwindling bee populations. And unless drastic action is taken to stop Monsanto in its continued quest to dominate global agriculture, the food supply as we know it will soon be a thing of the past.:( Our hardworking bees… but I like nature, non-genetically altered food and flowers…sigh…
this does not look good for bees…
read more http://www.naturalnews.com/035688_Monsanto_honey_bees_colony_collapse.html
Could we please stop Monstanto? Please?
Racking the mead today. Had to start with sanitation.
I have a 20 gallon primary fermenter. I started the sani this morning around 10.
I’ll be rinsing and treading with onestep next. After that, I’ll feed the kids dinner, get them situated in a movie and Then oh man. Pics time.
The fermentation is complete, so I’ll be racking through filter paper. I’m not quite ready to bottle so I’ll be filtering, pooling the two meads from the secondary fermenters into the big primary tank, cleaning the secondary fermenters, and finally diluting, back into the sanitized secondary tanks.
Big job, but the Mrs is gone for the weekend and I am bored. I even know what my dilution ratio is… 
This is a headsup that I will be racking a HUGE amount of mead coming up this weekend. Stay tuned for some fun pictures and possibly buzzed blogging! What are you brewing right now?
vanisherbee: Honey Bees Drinking Water in Slow Motion (by beekalmer)
bees are pretty amazing!
love bees
Brief garden update.
Before my camera ran out of juice, I snapped a couple quick pics.
My tomatoes have just started bulking up since I pruned them a bit. The cucumbers are on their third or fourth picking with no abatement of flower production. The moths and bees are helping quite a lot.
And Bees. I said it! Honey bees are all over my garden. The sunflowers opening up may have something to do with it. So excited. Happy Fourth!
