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Subject: Orange County, NC Beekeepers

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  • From: Ken <kkrebs AT mindspring.com>
  • To: ocba AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [ocba] Buzzing about Climate Change [NASA]
  • Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 10:38:33 -0400 (EDT)

 From NASA Landsat:


http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Bees/bees.html


Part of the text:  
When urban and suburban areas grow, some of the impacts on surrounding natural and agricultural ecosystems are obvious: “green space” simply disappears, along with the wildlife that lived there. The vegetation that remains—in parks, along roads, or at the fringes of cities and town—is changed by the development as well. Spring comes sooner because urbanized areas are often warmer than the surrounding landscape; pavement, vehicles, and heat created by energy use can raise the temperature up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit compared surrounding rural areas.
NASA scientist and Maryland resident Wayne Esaias believes that urbanization is behind a dramatic change in the timing of honey production by his backyard bees. Since 1992, the bees he keeps at his house in central Maryland have been producing honey earlier and earlier in the year. Since the bees are largely dependent on flowering trees for nectar, the advance in honey production means that trees nearby must be flowering earlier, too. Esaias thinks that if he can establish a network of beekeepers to collect data on the timing of honey production in many areas, it will help ecologists better predict how the species in an ecosystem will—or won't—adapt to global warming. To read more about how honeybees may be indicators of climate change, please read the Earth Observatory feature Buzzing About Climate Change.



  • [ocba] Buzzing about Climate Change [NASA], Ken, 09/19/2007

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