Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#16
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 5/5/2014 8:40 AM, rbowman wrote: The Daring Dufas wrote: I seem to recall something about beekeepers renting out their bees to farmers. Like renting a bull out to stud, the beekeepers bring their hives to the farmer's fields to pollinate his crops. ^_^ It's more extensive than you think. Some bees have a lot of miles on them, spending the summer in Iowa and the winter in California. I've seen flatbeds loaded with hives with a big net over the whole mess headed down the road. I don't even want to think about loading/unloading. Fortunately, I've only ever hauled bee wood, the new frames amd so forth. Most folks have no idea how complicated farming is. Many of them think a farmer is a fellow in overalls watching plants grow while chewing on a grass stem and chugging on a jug of moonshine. ^_^ TDD Hi, Probably farmers/fisher men are hardest working bunch to feed us. I respect them whole heartedly. |
#17
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
micky wrote:
On Sun, 4 May 2014 21:29:41 -0500, "Terry Coombs" wrote: micky wrote: On Sun, 04 May 2014 20:04:45 -0500, The Daring Dufas wrote: On 5/4/2014 7:04 PM, micky wrote: My new cherry tree NW of Baltimore didn't seem to have many bugs fertilizing it. Just 4 when I looked, two honey bees and two other things about half as big and all black. Is this because of the deaths of so many honey bees? What were these other things? I'm not sure they were even big enough to do the accidental fertilizing that honey bees do. Do you think this will cause a shortage of fruit on the tree? It had loads of flowers, If there isn't much fruit, how do I fertilize the flowers myself next year? A brush? A toothbrush? I wonder if an unusually cold winter may have something to do with it? I think a lot of the bugs aren't around here in Alabamastan after the very cold winter weather we had. ^_^ There aren't any more stink bugs, afaict, and two bushes in front of my house which have been dying slowly, finally died completely, and the ivy that was all around the bed all seemed to die, the first time that any ivy died. For next year, if necessary, I know you can buy lady bugs, but I've never heard of buying honey bees, unless it's a whole hive. I don't want to be bothered with a whole hive. Plus I suppose it would be expensive these days. It's still a small tree. If the flowers were still there, I'd be happy to pollinate them myself. It would have take no more than 2 hours, I think. I'll be taking posession of my hive later this month . I'm getting a going hive with a brood super and one honey super for $350 - that's hive , bees and all . I could have done it mail order package bees and built my own supers/frames/etc for less money , but ... This will be an established "family" , vs the mail order route which is basically a new queen and a bunch of strangers . Additionally , these bees are local , and acclimated to this area . And once I have a hive going well I can split it for just the cost of hive bodies/etc . I think this first hive will be going over in the orchard . I just wish it were here already , the blueberries are blooming and the blackberries are budding , expected to bloom in 3-6 days . And I gather there aren't enough air-crittrers to pollinate the black and blue berries? I'll bet you could do it yourself with some sort of brush. We haven't had a problem with non-pollination , and I'm for sure not going to crawl around in the woods hand pollinating several dozen blueberry bushes .. actually , these are low-bush huckleberries 350 isn't such a bad price, but I'm not in the mood for more projects. The beauty of doing it this way is that the seller does all the really hard work - getting things going . I'll be attending a beekeeping class later this month , but don't expect to have a lot of time invested until time to collect some honey . Won't I need gloves and overalls and hat with a mask? Won't I have to read bee podcasts? Or beecasts, as I call them. Well, you didnt' say I'd have to do anything, only what you were doing. Fair enough. There are a lot of local beekeeping orgs around , but nothing says you have to join ... you can probably find all the info you need in an afternoon , print it out for later reference . Gloves , screened hat , smoker , and a couple of small hand tools can all be had for well under a hundred bucks . We decided to get into beekeeping as much for the honey as for the pollination aspect . We have pollinators here , but they don't have the added bonus of hunney ... My wife is a big fan of the W the P character Eeyore , and so our place has been named "The 12 Acre Wood" and the house is "Eeyore's Hideaway" ... and so we'll be getting "hunney". -- Snag |
#18
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
On 5/4/2014 8:45 PM, micky wrote:
On Sun, 04 May 2014 18:28:38 -0600, Tony Hwang wrote: If there isn't much fruit, how do I fertilize the flowers myself next year? A brush? A toothbrush? Hi, Fertilize or Pollinate???? Whichever would not be humiliating. Perhaps that is pollinate. Fertilizie, using a woodie? Pollenate with small artists paint brush maybe. -- .. Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus www.lds.org .. |
#19
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
On 5/5/2014 10:14 AM, Tony Hwang wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote: On 5/5/2014 8:40 AM, rbowman wrote: The Daring Dufas wrote: I seem to recall something about beekeepers renting out their bees to farmers. Like renting a bull out to stud, the beekeepers bring their hives to the farmer's fields to pollinate his crops. ^_^ It's more extensive than you think. Some bees have a lot of miles on them, spending the summer in Iowa and the winter in California. I've seen flatbeds loaded with hives with a big net over the whole mess headed down the road. I don't even want to think about loading/unloading. Fortunately, I've only ever hauled bee wood, the new frames amd so forth. Most folks have no idea how complicated farming is. Many of them think a farmer is a fellow in overalls watching plants grow while chewing on a grass stem and chugging on a jug of moonshine. ^_^ TDD Hi, Probably farmers/fisher men are hardest working bunch to feed us. I respect them whole heartedly. There are a lot of people who work very hard. I've been disabled for 20 years and couldn't hold a job flipping burgers but before I became too ill to work, wound up on Social Security Disability then dropped dead of a heart attack, I worked my ass off. I worked on those days when I wasn't so sick and in pain to get out of bed. I do my best to help my roommate with his business so I don't turn into a mushroom but I'm so frustrated to lack the strength to run up and down ladders as I could when I was in my 50's. Most of the guys I know who own their own service businesses are disabled in one way or another. They work when they can and like I did, find someone in better health to help with the business. There is a whole invisible workforce out there composed of the working disabled who receive no government help. I didn't want to receive any help from government programs but I became too ill to work. It's so frustrating to be unable to be completely self reliant as I once was and it's very difficult for me to depend on anyone else. I spent most of last May in the hospital after dropping dead of a heart attack and was sent home to die while receiving home hospice care. After 6 months, my nurse told me I was being dropped from hospice care because I wasn't dying fast enough. It's because I never gave up and I'm too ornery to give up and die. ^_^ TDD |
#20
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 5/5/2014 10:14 AM, Tony Hwang wrote: The Daring Dufas wrote: On 5/5/2014 8:40 AM, rbowman wrote: The Daring Dufas wrote: I seem to recall something about beekeepers renting out their bees to farmers. Like renting a bull out to stud, the beekeepers bring their hives to the farmer's fields to pollinate his crops. ^_^ It's more extensive than you think. Some bees have a lot of miles on them, spending the summer in Iowa and the winter in California. I've seen flatbeds loaded with hives with a big net over the whole mess headed down the road. I don't even want to think about loading/unloading. Fortunately, I've only ever hauled bee wood, the new frames amd so forth. Most folks have no idea how complicated farming is. Many of them think a farmer is a fellow in overalls watching plants grow while chewing on a grass stem and chugging on a jug of moonshine. ^_^ TDD Hi, Probably farmers/fisher men are hardest working bunch to feed us. I respect them whole heartedly. There are a lot of people who work very hard. I've been disabled for 20 years and couldn't hold a job flipping burgers but before I became too ill to work, wound up on Social Security Disability then dropped dead of a heart attack, I worked my ass off. I worked on those days when I wasn't so sick and in pain to get out of bed. I do my best to help my roommate with his business so I don't turn into a mushroom but I'm so frustrated to lack the strength to run up and down ladders as I could when I was in my 50's. Most of the guys I know who own their own service businesses are disabled in one way or another. They work when they can and like I did, find someone in better health to help with the business. There is a whole invisible workforce out there composed of the working disabled who receive no government help. I didn't want to receive any help from government programs but I became too ill to work. It's so frustrating to be unable to be completely self reliant as I once was and it's very difficult for me to depend on anyone else. I spent most of last May in the hospital after dropping dead of a heart attack and was sent home to die while receiving home hospice care. After 6 months, my nurse told me I was being dropped from hospice care because I wasn't dying fast enough. It's because I never gave up and I'm too ornery to give up and die. And you were lucky there were programs like SSDI in place to help make it all possible. |
#21
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
On 5/6/2014 12:29 AM, Bob F wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote: On 5/5/2014 10:14 AM, Tony Hwang wrote: The Daring Dufas wrote: On 5/5/2014 8:40 AM, rbowman wrote: The Daring Dufas wrote: I seem to recall something about beekeepers renting out their bees to farmers. Like renting a bull out to stud, the beekeepers bring their hives to the farmer's fields to pollinate his crops. ^_^ It's more extensive than you think. Some bees have a lot of miles on them, spending the summer in Iowa and the winter in California. I've seen flatbeds loaded with hives with a big net over the whole mess headed down the road. I don't even want to think about loading/unloading. Fortunately, I've only ever hauled bee wood, the new frames amd so forth. Most folks have no idea how complicated farming is. Many of them think a farmer is a fellow in overalls watching plants grow while chewing on a grass stem and chugging on a jug of moonshine. ^_^ TDD Hi, Probably farmers/fisher men are hardest working bunch to feed us. I respect them whole heartedly. There are a lot of people who work very hard. I've been disabled for 20 years and couldn't hold a job flipping burgers but before I became too ill to work, wound up on Social Security Disability then dropped dead of a heart attack, I worked my ass off. I worked on those days when I wasn't so sick and in pain to get out of bed. I do my best to help my roommate with his business so I don't turn into a mushroom but I'm so frustrated to lack the strength to run up and down ladders as I could when I was in my 50's. Most of the guys I know who own their own service businesses are disabled in one way or another. They work when they can and like I did, find someone in better health to help with the business. There is a whole invisible workforce out there composed of the working disabled who receive no government help. I didn't want to receive any help from government programs but I became too ill to work. It's so frustrating to be unable to be completely self reliant as I once was and it's very difficult for me to depend on anyone else. I spent most of last May in the hospital after dropping dead of a heart attack and was sent home to die while receiving home hospice care. After 6 months, my nurse told me I was being dropped from hospice care because I wasn't dying fast enough. It's because I never gave up and I'm too ornery to give up and die. And you were lucky there were programs like SSDI in place to help make it all possible. Yea, I paid into it longer than most Leftists have been alive. But it wasn't the SSDI program that made it possible for me to drop dead. It was the consequences of another government program. ^_^ TDD |
#22
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
On Mon, 5 May 2014 12:13:29 -0500, "Terry Coombs"
wrote: There are a lot of local beekeeping orgs around , but nothing says you have to join ... you can probably find all the info you need in an afternoon , print it out for later reference . Gloves , screened hat , smoker , and a couple of small hand tools can all be had for well under a hundred bucks . We decided to get into beekeeping as much for the honey as for the pollination aspect . We have pollinators here , but they don't have the added bonus of hunney ... Oh, yeah. I forgot. I like ice cream, cake, icing, cookies, candy, but I don't really like honey. Too sweet and esp. too sticky. But I'm sure you'll enjoy your project, so that's good. If nothing goes wrong, I'll post how many cherries I get this year, and if it's low, I'll try to stay home when it flowers next year (18 days after the peak of the cherries at the DC Cherry Blossom Festival, and about 40 miles north of it) and do them all myself. It's a little tree, half within reach and the other half 2 or 3 feet higher. My wife is a big fan of the W the P character Eeyore , and so our place has been named "The 12 Acre Wood" and the house is "Eeyore's Hideaway" ... and so we'll be getting "hunney". |
#23
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
On Mon, 05 May 2014 16:13:29 -0400, Stormin Mormon
wrote: On 5/4/2014 8:45 PM, micky wrote: On Sun, 04 May 2014 18:28:38 -0600, Tony Hwang wrote: If there isn't much fruit, how do I fertilize the flowers myself next year? A brush? A toothbrush? Hi, Fertilize or Pollinate???? Whichever would not be humiliating. Perhaps that is pollinate. Fertilizie, using a woodie? Pollenate with small artists paint brush maybe. I'll look around for some small artists. |
#24
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
"micky" wrote in message
... On Mon, 5 May 2014 02:00:45 -0400, "Robert Green" wrote: "micky" wrote in message stuff snipped here and there My new cherry tree NW of Baltimore didn't seem to have many bugs fertilizing it. Just 4 when I looked, two honey bees and two other things about half as big and all black. If there isn't much fruit, how do I fertilize the flowers myself next year? A brush? A toothbrush? Jeez Micky, could you put any more "straight lines" in a single post? (- "Mommy, what's that man doing to the tree?" EEEWWWW! "Is that how you make cherries and cream?" Etc. I don't think about such things, but if I had, I'd have counted on the adults here not to spend time on such things. Relax, Micky. Adults? Here in AHR? Are you feeding me straight lines again? It was a homage to a former English professor of mine, James Dickey. Some will remember him as the author who penned "Deliverance" but he also wrote about how farmboys will put their organs of generation in anything they can: The Sheep Boy Farm boys wild to couple With anything with soft-wooded trees With mounds of earth. . . . http://www.poetryfoundation.org/learning/guide/179991 It's really a remarkable poem and 100% Dickey who was by all means larger than life. He wrote another interesting poem calling "Falling" based on an actual event. He had heard a stewardess had fallen out of a plane and wrote about what she might have been thinking on the long, long way down to her death (she undresses - which is a far more common reaction to hyper-stressful situations than people might think - a doctor friend says it's because when people have serious breathing troubles they feel that their clothes, particularly shirts, jackets, etc are too tight and keeping them from breathing - who knows for sure?) If all the flowers lead to cherries, I'll have to find those bees and give them a medal. I'm afraid though that if I pin medals on their chests, I'll kill them. Maybe a ribbon around their neck. I think that entomologists tag them with a little plastic numbered plaques and a dab of crazy glue. They might object to any award, though. (-: Glad I could help. Be sure to let us know if it worked. I suspect from what I've read you'll still have cherries but not nearly as many as you might with a health population of bees. FWIW, I was outside working and I saw no shortage of big fat bumblebees working over the Roses of Charon. So it's not only the honeybees out there facilitating fruit tree sex. Soon, you too will be artificial inseminating cherries. Reminds me of an Ag Fair I once covered where this lovely young blonde that looked a lot like Tiger Wood's ex donned this super long plastic glove that looked like a clear opera glove, slicked it with goo and just rammed it right up a cow's rump. What was even more amazing was that the cow was so used to it, it didn't even twitch. As for those poor honeybees - they get trucked all over the country, exposed to more and different threats than they ever would as a fixed colony. That's why I really suspect neonictinoids as the culprit. The EU ban will precede ours so if their colonies recover and ours are still in collapse we'll have our smoking gun. Be thankful bee medical research isn't done like human research. The dead bees are scooped up, blended into a puree and the centrifuged out to find out what should be there, what's not, etc. "Grandpa just died and they're putting him in the NIH cement mixer to see what was wrong with him." -- Bobby G. |
#25
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
On 5/6/2014 1:29 AM, Bob F wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote: There are a lot of people who work very hard. I've been disabled for 20 years and couldn't hold a job flipping burgers but before I became too ill to work, wound up on Social Security Disability then dropped dead of a heart attack, I worked my ass off. I worked on those days when I wasn't so sick and in pain to get out of bed. I do my best to And you were lucky there were programs like SSDI in place to help make it all possible. Out of all TDD wrote, all you can do is praise government. What a liberal. -- .. Christopher A. Young Learn about Jesus www.lds.org .. |
#26
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
micky wrote:
I'll look around for some small artists. Toulouse-Lautrec has been dead for a long time. Good luck. |
#27
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees? (I already told you it was neonicotinoids)
"Sherlock.Homes" wrote:
Insecticide killing honey bees? DDN Correspondent Posted on 10 May, 2014 at 10:34:AM Honey bees are dying en masse due to exposure to a certain class of insecticide, claims a recent study. The report was published today in the Bulletin of Insectology and it recreated a 2012 study which first linked the bee-killing disease with neonicotinoids. I've already posted in this thread, last Monday (May 5), that the reason was neo-nicotinoids. Seeds coated with the stuff planted by farmers. |
#28
|
|||
|
|||
where are the honey bees?
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/wild-be...rfly-declines/
But it's not just honeybees that are in trouble. Many wild pollinators-thousands of species of bees and butterflies and moths-are also threatened. Their decline would affect not only our food supply, but our landscapes, too. Most honeybees live in commercially managed agricultural colonies; wild pollinators are caretakers of our everyday surroundings. "Almost 90 percent of the world's flowering species require insects or other animals for pollination," said ecologist Laura Burkle of Montana State University. "That's a lot of plants that need these adorable creatures for reproduction. And if we don't have those plants, we have a pretty impoverished world." Compared to honeybees, wild pollinators are not well studied, and their condition has received relatively little public attention. Most people don' t realize that there are thousands of bee species in the United States. Even many butterflies are overlooked, with the plight of just a few species, particularly monarchs, widely recognized. 'Species that used to be in all our yards are dropping out.' Wild bees and butterflies are out on the landscape, making them difficult to count, and a lack of historical baselines makes it challenging to detect long-term trends. Slowly but surely, though, results from field studies and anecdotal reports from experts are piling up. They don't paint a pretty picture. Many pollinator populations seem to be dwindling. According to a recent survey organized by the Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group, nearly one-third of North American bumblebee species are declining. Other studies have reported similar trends, documenting dramatic declines in once-common species such as the American bumblebee. If that's happening to bumblebees, says Xerces Society executive director Scott Black, it's quite possible, even likely, that others are hurting, too. "There's very little information status on most of the bees other than bumblebees, but if you look at the life histories of these groups, many are likely even more sensitive to the disturbances leading to the declines, such as pesticides and habitat loss," Black said. "Although we don't know what's going on with all bees, I think we could be seeing real problems." Among other pollinators, iconic monarch butterfly declines are well documented: Their numbers are now at a small fraction of historical levels. And entomologist Art Shapiro of the University of California, Davis spent most of the last four decades counting butterflies across central California, and found declines in every region. These declines don't just involve butterflies that require very specific habitats or food sources, and might be expected to be fragile, but so-called generalist species thought to be highly adaptable. Many other entomologists have told Black the same thing. "Species that used to be in all our yards are dropping out, but nobody's monitoring them," Black said. |
Reply |
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads | ||||
Thread | Forum | |||
Sighting Honey Bees | Gardening | |||
OT honey bees in roof | United Kingdom | |||
Honey bees nesting in garden | United Kingdom | |||
Wild honey bees! | Edible Gardening | |||
honey bees | Gardening |