On May 16, 1:32 am, use...@mile23.c0m (Paul Mitchum) wrote:

Jos <jose...@ziplip.com> wrote:

I was watching  a report on how honeybees are dying-off en masse and
we wont have pollination of our food crops without them on tv.
They also stated they were not sure why it happening

It's pretty well understood that the stresses of industrialized
beekeeping is pushing hives over the limit. Organic hives that aren't
trucked around aren't disappearing. It's basically stress from overuse
of the bees.

If you raise almonds (or whatever), just maintain your own hive and life
goes on.

--http://www.xoverboard.com/cartoons/2007/070416_argument.html

It would be nice to see the small apiaries flourish again. We have 26
hives here and while it's not the easiest task to maintain them what
with the cold winters and all the reward is pretty amazing. We have an
incredibly high yield in our veggie and flower gardens and 55 Gal
drums full of Clover and Alfalfa honey pretty much all the time.
I don't think the general population realizes just how important the
honeybee population really is but once they see the prices of produce
at the market go through the roof ( I can't wait to see how much
oranges will go up this year!) they'll start to realize things need to
change. Sadly, it'll take another year or two at least to bounce back.

Rick