Bee hives at the White House!

Mar 22, 2009 by

According to Bee Culture, a beekeeping magazine, and an article in the KansasCity.com, Michelle Obama has recently announced that not only will there be an organic garden at the White House, there will also be two bee hives! Apparently the bee hives belong to a White House employee who lives nearby and will tend the hives. The crops and will be used by the White House kitchen staff for the family and for official functions, while some will be donated to Miriam's Kitchen, a soup kitchen near the White House. Some of the produce will include lettuces, fennel, rhubarb, cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers, as well as berries and some herbs.The 1,100 square foot garden will be the first of its kind since Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden during World War II. Mrs....

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I heart bumblebees! Part Three: How we can help....

Mar 21, 2009 by

I heart bumblebees! Part Three: How we can help.

I watched the documentary King Corn last night and LOVED it. It's about two men who decide to farm an acre of land in Iowa and grow corn to understand just how the crop gets into so much of our food (and bodies). It's poignant, interesting and thoughtful, and I couldn't help but think how similar the issues they're looking at are to the ones that have caused bee decline. Basically, we're both exploring the downward spiral of agriculture, and its effects on our environmental and bodily health. The King Corn website also offers some great ways to address our agricultural system on the "take action" tab in their website, which gave me some good ideas for this post. So let's get on with it, shall we? How can we help out bumblebees (and...

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I heart bumblebees! Part Two: Why the bumblebee is in decline....

Mar 14, 2009 by

I heart bumblebees! Part Two: Why the bumblebee is in decline.

So, why have the bumblebees been in decline? Many of the articles I found concerned the U.K., which doesn't mean that the decline isn't happening in the U.S., it's just that the U.K. has been a hotbed of recent bee research. An article titled "Decline of Bumblebees (Bombus) in the North American Midwest" states: "The nature and extent of bumble bee decline in North America is poorly understood due mainly to a lack of baseline and long term data." Clearly, there are reports of bee decline in the U.S. as well, and I think that the two phenomenons are closely related. So let's return to David Goulson's analysis. In the last blog, I wrote about bumblebee's unique characteristics, but let's point out some of the main ones that are contributing to their decline. Bumblebees...

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I heart bumblebees! Part One: Cool facts about Bumblebees....

Mar 11, 2009 by

I heart bumblebees! Part One: Cool facts about Bumblebees.

So, I was speaking with a colleague the other day who just happens to have a family history in beekeeping. Her father (if I'm correct) is a third generation beekeeper and also an etymologist. Anyway, we were talking about her family's bee business when she mentioned that over 5 species of bumblebees had disappeared in the U.K. recently. 5 species? That surprised me, so of course--since I teach research writing and I'm into bees--I had to go and research the fact. I found two articles that talked about this phenomenon. One was titled "To Be or Not to Bee..." by Marianna H. Horn and Peter G. Kevan and another (not so subtly named) was called "The Demise of the Bumblebee in Britain," by David Goulson. Both articles had some enlightening things to say about...

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Top Bar Hives in Kenya

Mar 9, 2009 by

Top Bar Hives in Kenya

So, when I took beekeeping classes last year, I studied what's known as the top bar hive, not the traditional Langstroth hive (see the colorful bee boxes in the post below). Top bar hives are much easier to build than the Langstroth hive, which makes it perfect for using in developing countries. Some would even argue that it's more ecological for the bees since they build their own comb entirely, without the wax mold that comes with the Langstroth. We'll save that discussion for another post. For now, check out this fantastic video to learn more about the top bar hive! Next on I Heart Bees--we'll look at Top Bar Hives in more depth, for those interested in this alternative method of beekeeping. I'll talk about why they're considered more ecological and include a...

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CCD or not CCD? That is the question....

Mar 7, 2009 by

CCD or not CCD? That is the question.

So...got some news. Not sure what to think about it. Basically it states that scientists have not been able to come up with any hard facts about why so many friggin' bees are dying, all the same way. Apparently, according to an article in the BBC news, "many experts now believe that the term [CCD] is misleading and there is no single, new ailment killing the bees." So--that means, according to the article--that CCD may not actually exist. Here's a little chunk out of the article: Conducting experiments at an isolated almond orchard in the Central Valley area of California, Frank Eischen, of the US Department of Agriculture, said it was "probably true" that there was no new single disease. "We've seen these kinds of symptoms before, during the seventies, during the nineties, and...

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Help Protect Honey Bees from a Toxic Pesticide...

Mar 7, 2009 by

Help Protect Honey Bees from a Toxic Pesticide

Hey all! Sorry I've been a little lax in blogging. I've been teaching more than full-time, and working to finish my novel. Anyway, here's a great opportunity to help save the bees. One of the more nefarious pesticides for honey bees is one called imidacloprid (IMD), a toxin created by Bayer Corp. What IMD reportedly does is make the bees drunk, essentially, and inhibit their navigational systems so they can't find their way home. This letter encourages the EPA to reexamine the research on IMD, and make sure to ban its use when it has proven harmful to honey bees. Please click here and send a letter to the Office of Pesticides Programs at the EPA and spread the word! Thanks! Here's the...

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An article I published recently on bees...

Feb 16, 2009 by

An article I published recently on bees

Well, this seems like the appropriate place to link to the article I wrote. Here's an excerpt: IS THE HONEYMOON OVER? There's something particularly sweet about the first time you fall in love, especially when you're falling in love with honeybees. I remember when I first laid eyes on a buzzing, crawling hive box frame of apis mellifera, commonly known as the European or Western honeybee. I was living in the Philippines on a Fulbright grant in spring 2007, and decided to visit a small resort, the Bohol Bee Farm, located on the southern island of Bohol. Vicky Wallace, the Filipina owner and an avid beekeeper, created her sanctuary over the past 10 years. She dedicated her resort, a small farm plus a collection of hexagonal buildings nestled around an organic restaurant, to teaching...

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