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  • From: Jay Woods <woodsjaya@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Bees - was Confronting the Context: Permaculture and Capitalism
  • Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 07:11:24 -0700

I was out in the sagebrush and Pinyon pines on Friday here in Nevada on the
east slopes of the Sierra Nevada. The honey bees were working rabbit brush.
It
took a while to be sure that they were honey bees as the rabbit brush pollen
was green. Also there was a desert willow growing well which had been
drilled
by a wood pecker. There were house flies and honey bees working the holes for
sap. There is plenty of evidence for leaf cutters. And there is usually a lot
of bumble bees but not that day. They grow a lot of alfalfa around here and
it
is in bloom being worked by alkali bees. (Alkali bees also pollinate pears
and
onions well. Honey bees don't like either one because of high potassium
chloride in the nectar I'm told.) The humming birds have pretty well given up
for the year as we have snow at 7,000 feet. (I'm at 5,400 ft.)

On Sunday, September 29, 2013 01:45:47 AM Lawrence London wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 29, 2013 at 1:05 AM, Lawrence London
<lfljvenaura@gmail.com>wrote:
>
> Bees.
> Late winter/early Spring 2013 I saw about a dozen honey bees foraging in
> my fields. Since then I have not seen a single one, Zero. Rien, Nada; Zero
> bees on my property. This time of year I have a bumper crop of goldenrod in
> bloom, offering prime food for bees. Not one bee has been seen amongst the
> flowers. Growing up, I always assumed that bees were a fixture on the
> landscape and that
> good local honey would always be available and affordable in the grocery
> stores. Not so, it seems. Herbicides, nicotinoid fungicides, lack of
> diverse food sources for bees are all factors to blame for this.
> Will native honeybees every return? Wild bees? Successful commercial
> apairies? One wonders. I have seen large populations of bumblebees,
> carpenter bees, wasps and other alternative pollinating insects at work on
> my land this year. One wonders how long even those will be around. Is it
> just my region of N.C. or is this situation common throughout the U.S.?
>
> LL
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