What’s Up with the Media?

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jul 2, 2008

I briefly mentioned that there was a House Hearing on June 26th, during National Pollinator Week.

Manany beekeepers, growers and govt. folk were on hand. Haagen Dazs and Burts Bees were also there to testify how important bees are. 

The need for money was discussed. As well as the need to conduct more pesticide-related studies. Not to mention food security and the rise in prices.

There was only one news crew present on the floor. And while all these important CCD-related topics were discussed, NBC focused on Haagen Dazs.  Now I have nothing against HD; they are one of our sponsors and their new Vanilla Honey Bee is yummy.

But doesn’t the media have a responsibility? 

After watching this do you get a sense we are admist a honeybee crisis? Maybe it’s just me.????/???

http://video.nbc4.com/player/?id=269909 

Let me know what you think……

SAY NO NO NO NO TO Plastic Bags

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jul 2, 2008

I’ve been using my chico bag that a friend gave me and only consuming paper. I make it a point to tell cashiers that plastic bags are evil.

Beekeeper John McDonald sent me this. Feel free to pass it on to others…. Hive Mentality makes a difference.

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/MULTIMEDIA02/80505016

http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080506/MULTIMEDIA02/80505016

Order stings beekeeper

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jul 2, 2008

In a case of good intentions versus city laws, a Denver woman is told her backyard beehives aren’t allowed! It is illegal to keep bees in many counties including Los Angeles. We need to turn this around! We need to be able to have the choice to grow our own food, keep our own bees.
If people out there want to effect change, try to change the laws..!

We need bees!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

BYLINE: Christopher N. Osher/ The Denver Post

SECTION: DENVER & THE WEST; Pg. A-13
Marygael Meister learned about the wonders of bees during classes at Denver Botanic Gardens, but now that she has set up three beehives at a cost of $1,500 in her backyard, the city of Denver has ordered her to get rid of the insects.

This week, she received a notice of violation from the city’s neighborhood inspection services department stating she has until June 25 to comply.

She could face a penalty of $999 and up to a year in jail if she doesn’t.

She wonders why the city is going after her for doing something that is helpful to the environment. Classes at the botanic gardens gave her a certification to keep bees, and residents throughout the city, she said, are covertly doing the same thing in their backyards.

 

“Bees harm nothing that lives,” she said. “They just take nectar from the flowers. They don’t kill the flowers. They just help more to grow.”

 

And it’s a myth that bees are aggressive, she stressed. Wasps are the aggressors. Bees are passive unless provoked, she said.

 

Robbin Bruning, a senior city inspector, said he is investigating whether there is a provision that would allow the licensing of beekeeping in the city. But so far, all he can find is a city ordinance barring beehives from residential yards.

 

He said the issue of what is and isn’t allowed in yards is a growing controversy as residents increasingly get eco-friendly. More residents are getting into the act after taking classes in urban farming at the botanic gardens, along with the certification classes for becoming a beekeeper, he said.

 Bruning said that after an urban-farming session ends, his department receives a surge in complaints about people raising chickens, which are allowed - but roosters aren’t.

He said he received an anonymous complaint about Meister’s bees, which thrive in her Highlands neighborhood backyard amid more than 300 rose plants.

 

Meister put up her hives and bought bees to help pollinate her roses. On a recent afternoon, the bees buzzed in and out of the hives as she described her flowers and how she maintains them.

 

A black chow mix named Foo she rescued from the streets two years ago padded quietly among the flowers.

 Her pet parrot, Jack, also has grown fond of the bees, she said.

“I just think it’s an enormous waste of time and energy that the city is pursuing this,” she said. “Maybe we should just put a bunch of concrete down.”

 
  

CCD Versus Straight Out Pesticide Kills

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jul 2, 2008

The below blurb written by a Doug McRory explains what happened in Germany. I would tend to agree that what happened in Germany isn’t CCD as we know it. Why? Because CCD is more insidious. If you use to much pesticides of these neonics no one argues that it will kill bees. Yet the sublethal doses seemingly seem to disorient the bees and affect their homing devices.. Read below and tell me what ya think: From Doug McRory’s email newsletter.

EPA Acts to Protect Bees

EPA has received a number of inquiries about recent bee deaths in
Germany associated with the use of the pesticide clothianidin and
whether this incident might be related to Colony Collapse Disorder
(CCD).  Based on discussions with German authorities, EPA believes this
incident is not related to CCD.  Although pesticide exposure is one of
four theoretical factors associated with CCD that the United States
Department of Agriculture is researching, the facts in this case are not
consistent with what is known about CCD.  CCD is characterized by a
relatively rapid decline in the adult bee population of a hive;
typically only the queen, a few nurse bees and brood remain in the
CCD-affected hive.  Reported incidents of CCD have detected few if any
dead adult bees.  The recent incident in Germany, however, was
associated with large numbers of dead adult bees in and around the
hives.  Additionally, clothianidin residues were detected in the dead
bees and their hives.

According to German authorities, the May 2008 incident resulted from
inadvertent exposure of the bees to clothianidin, an insecticide used
for corn seed treatment, resulting from a combination of factors.  These
factors include the specific formulation of the pesticide used, weather
conditions and type of application equipment:

–The formulation of the pesticide clothianidin used to protect seed
corn from corn root worm did not include a polymer seed coating known as
a “sticker.”  This coating makes the pesticide product stick to the
seed.  Although the formulation used in the US also does not require a
“sticker” on corn seed, it is typical practice to use “stickers” on corn
seed in the US.

–Normally, corn is planted before canola blooms and attracts bees.
Because early, heavy rains delayed the corn planting in Germany, the
seeds were sown later than usual when nearby canola crops were in bloom
and bees were present.

–A particular type of air-driven equipment used to sow the seeds
apparently blew clothianidin-laden dust off the seeds and into the air
as the seeds were ejected from the machine and into the ground.

–Finally, dry and windy conditions at the time of planting blew the
dust into the neighboring canola fields that were in bloom and where
honey bees were foraging.

Together, these factors helped create the circumstances under which this
incident occurred.

While this incident is not related to CCD, EPA is examining its
practices with respect to label requirements for seed treatment
pesticides and will revise them as necessary to prevent the types of
exposure that led to the bee deaths.   Our initial focus will be on seed
treatment pesticides that we know are toxic to bees and whether the use
of stickers or coatings should be required.  In many situations, the use
of pesticide-treated seeds results in less human and environmental
exposure than would the use of the pesticide later, after the crop is
growing.  We want to make sure that seed treatment is done according to
best practices that minimize human and environmental exposure.

Earth to Orca

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jun 30, 2008

I feel it is an honor when i dream of the animals. I’ve had more than half a dozen dreams where the bees appear.

This morning, i dreamt of an ex boyfriend  who was showing me his new place. He is the man who came into my life to help me when i had my accident. He bathed me and fed me and took care of me when my own family didn’t come to see me. My love for him is a deep and appreciative love that can never be erased. I am in gratitude for the love he showed me.

Our love transformed as he became my caregiver.

In any case, I haven’t seen him in more than eight months as he was in Australia and New Zealand shooting Wolverine with Hugh Jackman. He just got back and i am hoping i can see him before I leave.

So back to the dream. He was showing me his place and we stepped out onto the porch which overlooked a body of water. Then all of a sudden there was an animal of some kind swimming toward us.

At first I believed it to be a shark but then I saw it was a baby Orca. “It’s an Orca,” I exclaimed in delight. Actually it turned into three orcas. My sister magically appeared and two of the orcas touched him and my sister. But the third didn’t go after me.

Just to note, this is the second time that i dream of Orcas. I dreamt of killer whales about a year ago. There was nothing in my yester day that could have lent to this dream. Although we did bump into our executive producer and she talked about swimming with the dolphins.
So this morning I opened my medicine cards to learn about whale medicine. “Whale teaches us to use the sounds and frequencies that balance our emotional bodies and heal or physical forms. To recall why the shaman’s drum brings healing and peace is to align with Whale’s message.”

So the other day I didn’t ask why the drum moves me/us so. Literally when i dance in front of drummers, I fall into a trance. It moves the core of me.I read on.  “The drum is the universal heartbeat and aligns all beings heart to heart.”

And so during our next trip we will be moved by the drum. We will partake in Layne Redmond’s Bee Priestess workshop. And hopefully we will be able to go and drum for the bees; with the bees.

 Here is the description of the workshop:

The frame drum is the world’s oldest drum and was played mainly by women
for thousands of years as the primary trance-inducing technology for religious
and ecstatic rituals.

In ancient myth and legend, the frame drum is associated with the Bee Goddess, who is said to awaken a buzz of ascending consciousness and descending spiritual grace in those who practice these drumming rituals. During this powerful weekend, we will use all the tools of the ancient priestesses as we will learn a synthesis of frame-drumming techniques from India, the Middle East, and North Africa.

We will invoke the elemental energies of earth, water, fire, and air, creating sacred space through ritual, and focusing on the heart chakra to help bring balance to ourselves and the world.

We will also practice bhramari pranayama (bee breath), and the traditional mantra and mudra of the Hindu Bee Goddess.” Wow.  

I continue to read: “Whale signals a time of finding your origins, of seeing your overall destiny coded  in your DNA, and of finding the sounds that will release those records. You may never bee the same again. “

  

Invoking the Muse

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jun 29, 2008

Right now I feel like the great goddess Kali who has just swallowed millions of potential lives.

I am listening to Invoking the Muse by Layne Redmond, ”an acclaimed drummer, composer, author, mythologist, and a lifelong student of yoga.”

We are going to see her in a couple of weeks. 

So here I was laying in my Epsom-salt-filled bath listening to her rhythmic drumming. ( i am taking a bath because i tweaked my lower back badly in Spin class. One minute i felt like wonderwoman and the next like a decrepit bent-over strega. I am trying to get my back back before my trip).I was trying to work up the strength to read another chapter of Spring Without Bees but then i figured i might as well play with words and write on my blog. It is after all almost one a.m. The track i just heard was Golden Hive. Now i am listening to tranc-ey piece called Sweet Desire. Seemingly, “Redmond has always had a penchant for the mystical and mythological side of drumming, especially as it relates to the feminine, and her music has gravitated towards sound healing, chant, and trance.” Her music seems to literally tap into something primordial and ancient. We are going to North Carolina to attend her Bee Priestess workshop and interview her about her book When the Drummers Were Women and her take on bees as they relate to the divine feminine. 

In herstory there were many bee priestesses. In herstory many drummers were women. I however was a dancer. The woman who communed with the spirit of the drum, letting it move me. There is something so moving about the ancient drum.

There is a beekeeper and film maker in N.C. who knows Layne. She would like to gather a group of women to drum for the bees, with the bees. Wow! Can you imagine? I am trying to manifest that so we can film it. Come women come!

Mysterious Bee Disorder Could Sting at the Supermarket

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jun 27, 2008

This was the headline that appeared in Environment News Service on the house meeting that transpired yesterday. I ask you ~ do the bees have to hit people’s pocket books for them to wake up and see what we are doing to ourselves?

 

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, June 27, 2008 (ENS) – Honeybees are vanishing at alarming rates across the United States and researchers are struggling to pinpoint the exact cause of the decline, experts told a Congressional panel Thursday.

U.S. beekeepers have lost a record 36 percent of their colonies this year, about twice the amount lost during a typical winter, and they warn that the mysterious disorder afflicting the bees could have serious environmental and economic consequences.

“This is more than just a beekeeping problem,” said David Mendes, vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation.

“There is something in the environment that is making our bees sick.”

 It is not just the $15 billion honeybee industry that is at risk, the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture was told. A third of U.S. crops, including most fruits and vegetables, rely on the commercial bees for pollination. Food prices, already rising due to high fuel prices and weeks of Midwest floods, are likely to rise even higher with the scarcity of healthy bees.

“Bees are as important to our crops as the water and sunshine,” said North Carolina farmer Robert Edwards, who said the lack of bees has forced him to cut his cucumber crop in half. “No bees, no crops.”

Ed Flanagan, president of the Maine company Jasper Wyman & Son, top U.S. grower, packer, and marketer of wild blueberries, said the same thing. “In our business it is simple,” said Flanagan. “No bees, no blueberries.”

Researchers have labeled the problem colony collapse disorder, CCD, a syndrome characterized by the sudden and complete collapse of a bee colony. Frustratingly for beekeepers and researchers, few if any dead bees are found at the colony.

CCD was first identified in late 2006, but efforts to unravel the mystery have provided no definitive answers to date. The latest survey provides evidence it is getting worse in the United States - the 36 percent losses reported this year are up from 31 percent a year ago.

 “We have had rough years from time to time with higher than usual losses, and in history there have been a few epidemics in the bee world,” said Steve Godlin, a California commercial beekeeper. “But nothing has been on the levels we are facing now.”

Researchers are studying possible causes including viruses, parasites, environmental and transport stresses, poor nutrition and pesticides. All of these factors may be contributing, Mendes said, but a growing number of beekeepers believe pesticides are the main culprit. Relatively new nicotine-based pesticides are known to affect the immune and nervous systems of insects, disrupting feeding behavior and causing memory loss.

“That is what we are seeing in our hives,” Mendes told members of the subcommittee. “The frustrating thing is the cause and effect seem separate. They don’t come apart right away.” The pesticides do not kill the adult bees, he explained, but compromise their immune systems. The adult bees also carry the chemicals back to the hive, where they contaminate pollen fed to developing bees. “You could be exposed in March or April and your bees look fine,” Mendes said. “But come October … they are coming apart.”

Mendes is one of several beekeepers who has collected samples of bees, comb, pollen and honey from his hives for testing, gathering the material each time each hive was moved during a 10 month period. The samples tested showed much higher levels of pesticides than expected, he said.

“Of the 18 hives that began this study in March 2007, only four of these hives were still alive 10 months later,” Mendes told the panel. “Of these four hives only one was of sufficient strength to pollinate almonds in California in February.”

Germany last month banned a nicotine-based pesticide due to concern the chemical was causing CCD, said Mendes, but U.S. regulators lack the data to make such a decision. “I would love to have the data to either prove or disprove,” he said. “If we are wrong, nobody is going to be happier than us.” “It would be wonderful if it were just a specific bee virus that was causing this problem,” Mendes added. “We just don’t see that happening.” “My own experience and the experience of several other beekeepers is you bring bees to an area where these products are being used and several months later they are collapsing. The bees that you left in the woods far away from those crops are just fine,” said Mendes.

“This has happened for two years now.” Flanagan urged the lawmakers to heed warnings sounded by Mendes and other beekeepers and to give their anecdotal evidence greater weight.

“The CEO of a beekeeping company is the same guy that drives the truck up to your land, that puts the bees out, that watches them,” he said. “So when these guys give anecdotal evidence about what they are seeing - that is the essential common sense of the matter. It has caused us to wonder … about the growing impact of chemicals.”

Maryann Frazier, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University, agreed pesticides are likely to be at least one factor contributing to CCD. “In the past, pesticide poisoning of honey bees has been associated with lethal exposure and the obvious symptom of a pile of dead bees in front of the hive,” she told the subcommittee.

“We are becoming increasingly concerned that pesticides may affect bees at sublethal levels, not killing them outright, but rather impairing their behaviors and their abilities to fight off infections.”

A top official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, USDA, research division cautioned that more research is needed before pesticides can be blamed for the disorder. Research suggests CCD is “caused by an interaction of multiple factors stressing the colony rather than a single cause” and has yet to confirm an association with pesticides, said Edward Knipling, administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research division.

Knipling said his agency is “tackling CCD as vigorously as we can with the resources we have.” He said the Agricultural Research Service spent some $6 million on honeybee research last year and has requested an additional $780,000 for fiscal year 2009.

Critics contend that sum does not reflect the urgency of the problem. “A quote by one of our CCD working team colleagues helps put the situation into perspective, ‘How would our government respond if one out of every three cows was dying?’” Frazier said.

Subcommittee chair Dennis Cardoza, a California Democrat, expressed frustration with Knipling’s reluctance to ask for more money or to tell lawmakers what additional resources are needed to accelerate research. “This is a crisis we cannot afford to ignore,” he said. “I am just putting USDA on notice today that if next year or six months from now we get back and we hear again that funds are a problem, there is going to be some hell to pay.”

The worry about colony collapse disorder has also prompted several companies to funnel money into researching the issue. Ice cream giant Häagen-Dazs, for example, has launched a “Help the Honey Bees” campaign and pledged $250,000 to fund pollinator research.

Pollination is essential for ingredients in more than 40 of the ice cream maker’s flavors, according to company brand director Kathy Pien. “Häagen-Dazs brand has a major stake in the health of America’s honeybees,” she said.

The head of Burt’s Bees, which manufactures personal care products from natural ingredients, also appeared at the hearing to urge for more help from the federal government. The company has started a public service campaign to inform consumers about CCD and pledged to donate some of its profits to fund bee research. “So go the bees, so goes the health of all Americans,” said John Replogle, Burt’s Bees president and chief executive.

Mendes said time is running out, adding “much of the frustration felt by beekeepers is directed at the lack of any concrete actions to address the causes of CCD.”

He urged USDA officials to devise a comprehensive program to sample hives across the nation and to test them for pesticides, arguing it is unfair and unrealistic to expect beekeepers to shoulder the financial burdens of researching the disorder. “If a person is sick, the first thing a doctor does is take their vital signs and run lab tests,” he said. “This is the place to begin with CCD. The answers to this problem will only be discovered if we take the time to look inside our hives.”

Hearing to Review Status of CCD

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jun 26, 2008

As I write this there are several key people talking about the status of CCD up on the Hill. Incidentally it is national pollinator week.

We weren’t able to attend as there is so much two people can do so we have a friend of George’s shooting the hearing on our behalf.

For example David Mendes, the vice president of the American Beekeeping Federation and the one who owns Agnes will be present. He only has five measly minutes to speak.

 David Hackenberg will also be there as well as Mary Ann Frazier who is conducting tests on pesticides as part of the CCD working group.

I will keep you posted on the developments of the hearing…
I wish i was there!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The B Team

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jun 25, 2008

Bee Stung Lip

Posted by Maryam Henein on Jun 25, 2008

“You wanna piece of me?”

George took this picture of me in Carver, Mass. I got stung on my bottom lip and I was pointing my chin up to show him.

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