The Druid Sustainability Resource Forum

[PanIdaho]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_Collapse_Disorder

This is pretty upsetting - not only will it likely make honey and beeswax tremendously more expensive, but it affects pollination of many important commercial fruit crops.

I don't know about you folks, but I'm planning to look up what sorts of other pollinators are out there and see what I can do to improve their chances for survival in my backyard orchard. Natural pollinators like non-hive making bees and such can do the trick, but they often need special conditions to encourage them to stick around and do their pollination thing.

I'll post updates as I find more info on what we can do on a small scale to help native bees in our areas thrive.

Teresa

[Tully]

Hmmm...

I could see a connection between this and Genetically Modified Crops, if that were the only factor.

Interesting.

Well, tallow candles anyone...
_________________
"Cattle die, kinsmen die, one day you yourself must die....I know one thing that never dies:
the dead man's reputation."

Havamal- Sayings of the High One

[Maggie]

Actually, it appears this isn't new.


http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/20070114210251data_trunc_sys.shtm


According to this article similar collapses have been documented back to 1896, pre-dating both GMCs and cell phones. The last was back in the 1960's. It would be interesting to see if these episodes correlate in any fashion with solar flare cycles--the excessive EM might interfere also.

This is an example of yet another web. We have a lot of people, the most efficient, really the only way, to provide these fruits to a large population is to have large orchards. Native populations of bees are not always around in either large enough numbers or at the right time to pollinate these orchards. And--it's an example of people on the move bringing what is familiar to them along with them. When the colonists came to this area they brought the bees they knew with them. Sustainability in this case means finding a way to balance a need for large amounts of fruits with a dependence on a non-native bee while figuring out a way around the biological facts of the native bees.

Maggie

[Maggie]

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/honeybee-die-off-threatens-us-food/20070502195509990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001


And more information.....

Maggie