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Author Topic: This year marks the highest losses of honey bee populations in the U.S.  (Read 30611 times)

Offline luvin honey

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Here's a thought, perhaps much more of people's diets should come from pollinated foods rather than grains and grain-fed meat.
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
---Emily Dickinson

Offline Finski

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Here's a thought, perhaps much more of people's diets should come from pollinated foods rather than grains and grain-fed meat.

 Sounds revolutionary.  You are going to abandon 90% of food stuffs.

80 y ago 20% of Finland's fields' harvest was used as fuel : hay and oats. It was horse's food.
Then come tractors and now we have only toy horses everywhere.
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Cow is a creature which need pollination. Otherwise it does not start to give milk.
Hen does not need pollination.

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Language barrier NOT included

Offline D Coates

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Here's a thought, perhaps much more of people's diets should come from pollinated foods rather than grains and grain-fed meat.

Sure.  That would be great.  How and who's going to police that?  A nanny state with PC food police makes my skin crawl.

Fortunately, for the most part we have the freedom here to eat and drink what we as individuals want.
Ninja, is not in the dictionary.  Well played Ninja's, well played...

Offline luvin honey

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I would never suggest policing it or forcing it. But I would say that meat, dairy and grains have enormous lobbies that push in Washington for all things that benefit them. If you think we eat grain and meat-heavy diets today simply because that's what we've always wanted most, I would argue that they've been pushed on us by some powerful lobbies. And subsidized into cheapness.

Fortunately meat and grains are not 90% of the food diversity in the world. It just seems that way since 90% of our diets come from them.

But, back to the topic at hand, does anyone have good information on foods that truly rely on honeybees for pollination? Or even bees in general?
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
---Emily Dickinson

Offline BeeMaster2

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Here's a thought, perhaps much more of people's diets should come from pollinated foods rather than grains and grain-fed meat.

Sure.  That would be great.  How and who's going to police that?  A nanny state with PC food police makes my skin crawl.

Fortunately, for the most part we have the freedom here to eat and drink what we as individuals want.
As long as you do not live in NY.
Jim
Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Ben Franklin

Offline D Coates

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As long as you do not live in NY.
Jim

Hense "for the most part".  It's shelved currently as it's working through the court but Bloomburg appears to have his eye on food police.
Ninja, is not in the dictionary.  Well played Ninja's, well played...

Offline rdy-b

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 take time to read this and find out whats realy going on---         

 
http://gallery.mailchimp.com/5fd2b1aa990e63193af2a573d/files/What_Happened_to_the_Bees_This_Spring2013_opt.pdf
 

Offline Finski

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Bees have allready died 8 years. How long it is going to continue?
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Language barrier NOT included

Offline Jim134

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Here are a few more problems for a commercial beekeeper

http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=5fd2b1aa990e63193af2a573d&id=d35e939f49&e=c77bf64a2f



            BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may  remember,involve me and I'll understand"
        Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."
 John F. Kennedy
Franklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

Offline hardwood

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Citrus sprays got me last year. Found out the poison was mustang.

Scott
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Offline CapnChkn

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Foods that don't need bee pollination are the main foods the world eats because they produce, are more easily planted, store easily, and grow under harder conditions.

There's a reason foods like this are considered sacred in some cultures.  Rice, Wheat, Barley, and Maize have all been lifted to a "holy" status in different times, under different cultures, and even in ours.

"Bread."  Made from wheat.  It's used at communion to remind us of the sacrifice Jesus Christ made.  Barley was the symbol of Demeter or Ceres, and where we get the word Cereal.  Rice is the most widely grown crop in the world, and rice flour is used to bless with; though I can't think of an example, and Maize is the sacred food of Native Americans and has been for thousands of years.

Even the Lakota, who are hunter-gatherers traditionally, have maize as one of the four sacred foods.  To make offerings with.  Spring water, Dried meat (Preferably Buffalo), Dried berries (Preferably Chokecherries), and Corn (Maize)...

The simple truth is:  If we tried to feed the world using nothing but the foods bees pollinate, we would starve.
"Thinking is like sin, them that doesn't is scairt of it, and them that does gets to liking it so much they can't quit!"  -Josh Billings.

Offline hardwood

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If we ate only the foods don't pollinate it would be one bland diet!

Scott
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

Theodore Roosevelt 1907

Offline Jim134

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  :th_thumbsupup: :goodpost:



             

                       BEE HAPPY Jim 134 :)
"Tell me and I'll forget,show me and I may  remember,involve me and I'll understand"
        Chinese Proverb

"The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways."
 John F. Kennedy
Franklin County Beekeepers Association MA. http://www.franklinmabeekeepers.org/

Offline luvin honey

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Both quite true--I'm grateful for easy staple foods, and I'm grateful for all the rest, too :)
The pedigree of honey
Does not concern the bee;
A clover, any time, to him
Is aristocracy.
---Emily Dickinson

Offline melliferal

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take time to read this and find out whats realy going on---         

 
http://gallery.mailchimp.com/5fd2b1aa990e63193af2a573d/files/What_Happened_to_the_Bees_This_Spring2013_opt.pdf
 

That is a measured and well-researched paper by Mr. Oliver. 

Pesticides are of course a problem; but it's too easy to say "neonics" every time any issue comes up with the bees; it's like announcing that every dead-out is "CCD" - in both cases it's some problem you personally cannot avoid, and therefore there's no reason to scrutinize your own beekeeping.  I certainly applaud the efforts of those working on the Pesticide Problem, but what's going on with our bees is more complex than that any one thing and we owe it to our industry and our bees to explore every corner of what's going on.  That means honestly identifying what problems are neonics, what problems are neonics-plus-x, and what problems aren't pesticide related at all.
Recently moved; re-keeping in 2014.