Perpetual Innovation

Category: biodiversity

  • World Bee Day, May 20

     It’s World Bee Day, May 20th. 

    There are lots of people worried about bees, and rightly so. To mix a metaphor, bees are the canaries in the coal mine. When bee colonies get wiped out (like colony collapse), it indicates that things are not right in the environment.&nbsp (When your canary dies in the coal mine, the methane levels are high enough to cut off oxygen, and to explode with any spark.)

    Pollinators like bees are necessary for 90% of the world’s wild flowers pollination and about 75% of the world’s crops. Bees and other pollinators have a triple whammy because they are exposed to: pesticides, herbicides, and diversity (flowers) loss. Think of the monarch butterfly where the demise of milkweed (Monarch’s host plant) have devastated the Monarchs. 
    The UN has designated May 20th as a single day to contemplate, respect, and even to protect our tiny furry friends. (Well, hairs, not really fur.)
    Cool article about 5-facts about bees, and tips for helping bees and other pollinators at Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN. 
    Will all the attention that honey bees have received over the last 10-20 years many people have concentrated on growing/maintaining honey bees. (See our discussion of Colony Collapse Disorder.) However, the artificial emphasis on honey bees pushes out other, often more efficient, pollinators. When the honey bees push out other pollinators, they can jeopardize entire ecosystems associated with them.
    #Honey #Pollinators #Ag #AgricutlureEconomics #Polution #Pesticides #MonarchButterfly #Diversity #BioDiversity

  • Bees in Peril. Costco Connection – July 2017

    The Costco Connection – July 2017 – Page 34-35:

    Bees in Peril: Working together to find a solution

    What to do when the canary (bees) stops singing (buzzing)?

    This is a great (short) overview of where we stand on bee front, written by Stephanie Ponder. (You gotta wonder if that’s a pseudonym!:0)

    This should worry people everywhere for soooo many reasons. The economic impact of a massive, or total loss of bees, is obvious. But bees are simply an indicator of our unhealthy impacts. It’s like amphibians (frogs). Frogs live in both the water and the land, so a little pollution in one or both, can totally wipe them out…. giving a strong indicator of what destruction a lot of pollution will do.

    Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is not so much the problem anymore. The big killer now is the vorroa mite.

    We still having a die-off of 40% of the bees each year, continuing to make a huge challenge for the beekeepers to maintain and replenish. This is hard to wrap the mind around. Imagine, that 40% of your cattle crop died each year. Beekeepers are going through some major gymnastics to try to replenish the hive(s) each year.

    The 4Ps are pests (vorroa mite), pathogens, pesticides and poor nutrition.

    Massive monoculture like almonds are providing poor nutrition (and no diversity). The article compares the mono-crop of flowers to a human diet of 100% steak. Farmers are introducing (or not killing) flowers and wild-flowers among the mono-crop. This also suggests that the monocrop itself is not so healthy.

    SustainZine has prior blogs related to CCD and healthy Bees. Think of bees as the Canary in the Coal Mine. When the canary dies, its a pretty strong hint that all is no longer well in the mine; when the bees die en mass, all is not well on the land.

    ‘via Blog this’