Offsetting the declining Honey Bee population.....

This is the most positive thread I have seen in awhile. Thank you so much for making it! Star and a flag for sure, because it's very educational. I'm glad your hives are doing better!
I always thought bees were really cute, though I always get really scared when one lands on me. I've never been stung, they just like to land on me? [I think, don't send fear, don't let it know you're scared or else...]
I've planted a lot of tomato plants, and other flowering plants to help these guys out. I live in a major city that likes to spray their plants will all sorts of crap. I figure if I could make an area where they can get clean pollen, it should at least help. Hopefully they will make a hive or something in one of my trees. I don't care to collect the honey, I just want them to reproduce!

I got my 22 oz raw local honey for 10.50 which doesn't seem bad at all when I see other people saying how much they got theirs for...

I can't get over how happy this thread makes me. I'm so thankful you're doing this,
Your dad is just so darn adorable I'm so happy he still does what he loves doing.

I just have to say thanks to everyone for their comments, and I'm glad you liked the thread.

I'll be sure to let dad know he became famous!

But honestly, it gives him something to do, and he enjoys the hobby. I'm sure he'll appreciate your words of support!

reply to post by Druid42

I hiked the "Holy Tom" Trail for the first time yesterday.
In 1870s, Tom and his cousins were bee keepers in Trabuco Canyon located in Orange County, CA.
Tom was a cus'n king of his day...so bad was his cus'n that locals called him Holy Tom!!
And the legend stuck to him...prowdly we're told.

Thanks Druid for such an educational post with pictures. It is so refreshing
to see a positive thread & especially in regards to something so crucial as the
Honey Bee! You & your Dad's en devour made me smile at your efforts on
safely containing the hive & transporting it to it's permanent location.
Good on You!

Cheers
Ektar

Cool thread. I know honey bees have been almost completely eradicated on the UK mainland since the introduction of European bees, but I know there are keepers on the western Islands of Scotland and also in places such as Limerick, Ireland, keeping their colonies 100% black bees as they are / were native to here originally, and they make the best honey. If the European bees were to mix with them they would be killed off.

I don't know if you've seen this BBC docu. "Who killed the honeybee?". well here it is.

reply to post by Ramcheck


I'll be watching that in my freetime. Hour long show, so I'll want to be free to sit a spell.

Thanks for the vid!

Wow, this bee issue seems to be a big one. It is scary, because we need the bees to pollinate. I guess there are a lot of things that could affect them - pesticides, GMOs, and I hadn't thought of the strange weather patterns brought on by global warming.

reply to post by darkbake


There are MANY things that affect the bees, as well as the whole eco-system. It's a delicate balance. Very.

However, it is very encouraging to seeing awareness increasing. Corporations can only profit so much before the environment is destroyed.

Thanks for posting this very interesting thread. Really enjoyed seeing the pictures of how you were able to capture all the bees. I have only seen two or three bees in the last several years here in the Nashville, Tennessee area. We DID however, find a really great honey maker named Ed out in Gallaton. Super nice fellow. 82 years old and swears his long, healthy life is attributed to the natural honey he and his bees create. He eats Honey everyday. I'm hooked on honey, honey =)

reply to post by ladytamatha


I'll link this thread that talks about the honey conspiracy.

Honey has many benefits, too many to mention here. It's all natural, and what nature intended. Pretty much every thing we need to survive is provided by nature.

I commend you and your fathers efforts sir. You have come to the rescue & gave this precious hive a good home.

reply to post by Druid42


Awesome stuff!

Well done

I would really love to get into bee-keeping at some point. Right now, we don't really have the room for it and i'd like to have a lot of land to be able to do it properly.

It's very interesting and great that the bees are reproducing too vigorously! So often we hear about bees dying, it's great to hear about bees being born and making a comeback even if it is just a localized one.

Cheers!

Leave them alone, let them live in wild. I'ts the only way to help them survive. Don't give them damn sugar instead of honey you steal from them every year. No wonder they are ill eaiting sucrose in your slavery, you would be too.

Human and especially beekeepers are bees' nightmare!

reply to post by Druid42


Interesting OP!

I had a good read there of how it's all done.

I hope you can continue to help these Bee's survive!

S+F

Great Thread, well deserved S&F.

As an amatur biologist Iv'e been collecting various types of bees from my local area (dead and alive) in the UK and taking them to the University Lab. The drop in bee numbers across the EU nevermind the UK has been alarming.

I always find the alive specimens crawling around on the floor, dazed and confused. I have not been able to link any of the bee's activities to local use of pesticides even after swabbing and chemical analysis but have noticed a trend in many of them.

It seems for both the vast majority of alive and dead specimens two things have been recurring factors. that is parasites and heavy metals. I've been through the list of obvious suspects such as the Varroa mite, 'zombie fly mite', Tracheal mites but can't find a match to any commonly documented species.The heavy metals could be from the local industrial estate but don't match the air pollution records of last years samples. Very strange for which i have no answer. I will be taking a local soil sample to see if i find similar results.

Either way there is good news. There is now pilot schemes across EU to help out the honey bees. One such programme is to plant more wild flower orchards and meadows. It seems the city bee keeping piolt has had less success then initially hoped due to adverse weather over here.

Here's a short about the new scheme posted on the BBC today.

Short-haired bumblebees to be released on nature reserve

Keep it up and enjoy the great work you and your father are doing Cheers.

Originally posted by PapagiorgioCZ
Leave them alone, let them live in wild. I'ts the only way to help them survive. Don't give them damn sugar instead of honey you steal from them every year. No wonder they are ill eaiting sucrose in your slavery, you would be too.

Human and especially beekeepers are bees' nightmare!

edit on 3/6/2013 by PapagiorgioCZ because: (no reason given)

I never thought about that but maybe letting them live out in the wild is a good idea (at least for a while). Let the Colonies grow!

What does the OP think?

A most informative thread. I have a small yard and try to grow bee & butterfly friendly plants. Our city centre which underwent a major redevelopment a few years ago is placing some hives, about 10,000 bees, on the rooftops of some of the retailers. Hopefully more cities/towns will follow this trend. Here's a link to the local press article.

ww.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Buzzing-City-Centre-Honey-bee-rooftop-garden/story-19080239-detail/story.html

Originally posted by Druid42
...Mind you it only takes 160 bee stings at once to override your nervous system and for you to go into cardiac arrest, bee venom is very toxic in large doses. You die. Bees are nothing to fool around with.
...

Out-freaking-standing!
Great piece Druid42
I'm sure all kinds of factors may come into play on the quote statement...but:

When my son had just turned 2...we were visiting my uncle and his close friend. They lived in separate houses on the same rural property outside Austin, Texas.
The friend had at least two hives.
My son was dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, cowboy boots, had a holster for his toy pistol...and, I guess, was trying to re-enact some cartoon drama. I was at work... The women-folk (*!) were tending to other things (to include his newborn baby brother)...and he was "outside playing". I'm sure cowboy boots and pistols made him feel invincible...not counting the fact that he'd never been around a hive before... But - he "kicked" one of the hives, and found his cowboy boots and pistols were no match.
By the time I got home, he was already on his return trip from the hospital. They said his mouth and nostrils and ears were "full of" (stuffed with) honey bees. On the right side of his face and neck, I counted more than 200 stings. He had well over a thousand more stings on his torso. I stopped counting, then. Just extremely relieved and grateful that he survived.

As an aside -- It's interesting, to me, that these "women" (and even a few children), who would normally stay as far from bees as possible...threw caution to the wind, when they saw him covered in bees...and even stuck their fingers in his mouth and throat to dig out the bees. Only a couple of them were stung (and only one or two stings, at most) in the process.

reply to post by TruthxIsxInxThexMist


It's the same reason we don't let wild animals roam the streets. They are dangerous in our populated areas, and wild bees go wherever they want.

With an average of 30,000 bees per swarm, and a toxicity rate of 160 stings, a wild hive has the potential to kill 187 people. Imagine if a swarm lands in a school playground. Not good, and in fact, irresponsible. Imagine a wild hive at the entrance of your local Walmart. What if one of those customers gets stung, and dies from anaphylactic shock because they are allergic to bee stings?

We culture bees for the same reasons we culture goats and cows and chickens and pigs, and that's to ensure a safe and continued supply of the resources we want.

reply to post by WanDash


You have one lucky little guy there. Amazing story, as he definitely had his guardian angel watching him.