Slowly becoming the change I want to see.
"It's an odd quirk of human nature that once a man has made up his mind to be a farmer, he wants to get into action quickly, irrespective of the dozen and one factors involved."--Haydn S. Pearson, "Success on the Small Farm"
I am an urban homesteader helping my son recover from autism using the Domancic Method of BioEnergy Healing as well as tons of other biomedical approaches and therapies. I support the cause as a freelance Web Designer and Marketing Consultant.
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I am an urban homesteader helping my son recover from autism using the Domancic Method of BioEnergy Healing as well as tons of other biomedical approaches and therapies. I support the cause as a freelance Web Designer and Marketing Consultant.
Our Microgreens: http://www.microortaggi.it
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
Mark Lipscomb wrote:
On a side note if there are any natural / natural minded / waree bee keepers in the Portland, OR area that would be willing to come over and do a few hours of mentoring with me I would be grateful. I am happy to pay / barter as needed. I'll give you an extra copy of Mark Shepard's book that I have! (please help me...)
find religion! church
kiva! hyvä! iloinen! pikkumaatila
get stung! beehives
be hospitable! host-a-hive
be antisocial! facespace
Marty Mitchell wrote:
@ Emily C
I am totally interested in the deep litter method for giving the beneficial insects a hiding space. I would likely keep it screened to keep the bees from falling in. I honestly like the deep litter, or oil, or DE.
find religion! church
kiva! hyvä! iloinen! pikkumaatila
get stung! beehives
be hospitable! host-a-hive
be antisocial! facespace
find religion! church
kiva! hyvä! iloinen! pikkumaatila
get stung! beehives
be hospitable! host-a-hive
be antisocial! facespace
tel jetson wrote:
Mark Lipscomb wrote:
On a side note if there are any natural / natural minded / waree bee keepers in the Portland, OR area that would be willing to come over and do a few hours of mentoring with me I would be grateful. I am happy to pay / barter as needed. I'll give you an extra copy of Mark Shepard's book that I have! (please help me...)
I might be your guy, Mark. I live on the wrong side of the Columbia, but I'm in Portland regularly.
Mark Lipscomb wrote:What now Bee Keeper?
find religion! church
kiva! hyvä! iloinen! pikkumaatila
get stung! beehives
be hospitable! host-a-hive
be antisocial! facespace
tel jetson wrote:
Mark Lipscomb wrote:What now Bee Keeper?
looks like my schedule just opened right up.
David Livingston wrote:.
Instead of thinking that the bees and beekeepers have managed to find a solution is it not equally possible the verroa has found a solutionso instead of buying hygienic bees could you not be buying " tame " verroa .
Just a thought
David
Marty Mitchell wrote:
My Favorite... Are there any type of lifeforms that could live in soil placed inside the bottom of a hive that would also eat the invasive mites and such that fall down there? Could be fungi or else.
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
David Livingston wrote:For the vampire like parasite ,verroa killing your prey is evolutionary bad move as if you kill your host then there is a good chance you will die.
Mike Haych wrote:
David Livingston wrote:For the vampire like parasite ,verroa killing your prey is evolutionary bad move as if you kill your host then there is a good chance you will die.
Absolutely, David but the relationship has to be co-evolutionary . Varroa destructor co-exists with Apis cerana; it was introduced to Apis mellifera with which it does not co-exist. Unless one or both evolve, the vampire will destroy the host and itself.
find religion! church
kiva! hyvä! iloinen! pikkumaatila
get stung! beehives
be hospitable! host-a-hive
be antisocial! facespace
tel jetson wrote:the idea is to recreate more closely a natural situation. in a tree hive, there is, in fact, quite a bit of detritus and decay at the bottom of the hive. this provides a more complex hive community that does, in fact, mimic a natural situation rather better than a fastidiously clean hive.
Mike Haych wrote:Yep but it seems to me that it's far more complicated than observing what you see in a tree hive and then "copying" it. The detritus and decay at the bottom of the tree hive is part of that tree hive. It might even be unique to each tree hive. To put detritus and decay into a man-made hive isn't the same thing or maybe it is.
find religion! church
kiva! hyvä! iloinen! pikkumaatila
get stung! beehives
be hospitable! host-a-hive
be antisocial! facespace
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
tel jetson wrote:just like in other ecosystems I'm responsible for, I am guided by the principle that complexity and diversity create resiliency. in this instance at least, my intuition and scientific inquiry happen to agree.
I clearly only understand a small fraction of the interactions that occur in a hive. what I hear you saying (and I might be very wrong), Mike, is that it would be desirable to reduce the number of interactions. that way, I could understand a larger fraction of what goes on in there. not by increasing my knowledge, but by reducing what there is to know. that's just not my style.
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
David Livingston wrote:Nestduftwärmebindung is what you need to look into Marty and the work of Thur looking at hive atmosphere
Bacteria and moulds are very important for the bees to make bee bread from pollen which is why herbicides and fungicides are very bad for bees
David
Marty Mitchell wrote:
3. I have decided that if I harvest honey it will be to save and feed back to them during the winter if needed. Then no more harvesting ever. I would not be angry @ others for keeping all the honey from their hives though. It is delicious and awesome. I would still buy and use honey too myself.
find religion! church
kiva! hyvä! iloinen! pikkumaatila
get stung! beehives
be hospitable! host-a-hive
be antisocial! facespace
Living in Anjou , France,
For the many not for the few
http://www.permies.com/t/80/31583/projects/Permie-Pennies-France#330873
tel jetson wrote:
Marty Mitchell wrote:
3. I have decided that if I harvest honey it will be to save and feed back to them during the winter if needed. Then no more harvesting ever. I would not be angry @ others for keeping all the honey from their hives though. It is delicious and awesome. I would still buy and use honey too myself.
admirable, but perhaps not really the best for the bees in the long term. if they need feeding during winter, they are not adequately adapted to the locale. propping them up by feeding runs the risk of spreading whatever trait led them to be short of honey. and if they're only short of honey because you harvested some to feed them later...
winter feeding is also not easy to do without harming the bees. setting a top feeder up going into fall makes it less likely to chill them should you decide to feed later. but that also adds an un-insulated empty space above the cluster. you could stuff it full of something to insulate until you decide to add honey.
another option is to evaluate their honey stores going into Fall, and feed then if they're short to make up the difference. I don't feed at all anymore, but I would choose that option if I were going to.
Tom OHern wrote:So, as a beekeeper I get tons of people asking me about keeping bees "to help the bees, not for the honey"... Every time, I tell them not to do this. Here is why:
The crisis we face with the honeybee die-offs is that our industrial agriculture system is dependent on them for production. With commercial beekeepers losing so many hives per year, our food system becomes endangered unless we can find a way to stop the die offs. But there is absolutely no reason why getting one more urban or suburban beekeeper, or one hundred more, or one thousand more, will solve this problem. In fact, it can make it worse in may ways that others here have already alluded too. Unless you are actively working to select genetic populations that are better than the genetics that are already out there and getting those bee lines to the commercial beekeepers, you are not "helping". We here at permies take the different approach and say that we don't necessarily need to save the honeybees (although we can work them in our systems in sustainable ways), which are not naturally part of our systems in North America, but we should instead move away from the industrial agriculture system that is dependent on they honeybee.
But putting out a "STUN" type hives with the explicit hope of having it swarm only does damage. Not only will you probably have marginal-at-best genetics that will not help those of us who are trying to breed better bees, but your swarms will be competing for forage with native pollinators that are already at risk. And the the real disaster for our ecosystem would be to loose those native pollinators.
If you really want to help, plant more forage for pollinators. Early blooming and late blooming nectar plants are the best best. MORE SEED BOMBS PLEASE!!! Again, just having more honey bee hives will not have the effect of "saving the honeybee" nor will it help our industrial agriculture system.
Everybody's invited. Even this tiny ad:
Epigenetics and Seed Saving: Breeding Resilient, Locally Adapted Plants by Alan Booker
https://permies.com/wiki/208134/Epigenetics-Seed-Saving-Breeding-Resilient
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