permaculture

[LINDARAY@att.net]

Hi Eugene,

Thanks for your very insightful and informative post. I'm sorry to hear about 
the loss of your bees last year. At the same time I am grateful that it was 
*last* year, and that you were able to rebuild with a new population.

It sounds like a uniquely specialized set of problems beekeepers must deal 
with in an urban setting. I see you positioned with a singular opportunity to 
develop answers and to further the spread of Stewardship, which is an 
admirable thing IMO. I can see the title of your future book now- 
'Specialized Problems Of The Urban Backyard Beekeeper'.

I have to say that I disagree with the statement about backyard beekeeping 
being 'evil'- I see it as a benign and valuable expression of Stewardship.

The dried sugar cane juice sounds like a far better/healthier option for the 
bees than the white-sugarwater. I am not a beekeeper, but I applaud you for 
your obvious caring and your careful attention to detail. 

BTW I want to make it clear to everyone on the list and especially to you, 
Eugene, that my previous post was not intended to be a criticism of 
*anybody*. Those were/are my thoughts, that's all, and I thank you for your 
response.

Sincerely,
Linda Ray, Founder
Linda Ray Research
(Urban S FL)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Eugene Monaco" <efmonaco@comcast.net>
>
> Last year I didn't feed my bees because I believed that they would be
> stronger (immnuo or otherwise) if they fent for themselves. Turns out they
> starved because there wasn't enough food.  I felt like a jackass for not
> paying closer attention but I was learning (there is no failure, only
> feedback). 
> The moral of that story is that it's hard to gauge how much food is out
> there.  Some say it's damn near impossible.  One can assume that there is an
> infinite supply, but there's not.  This year I'm watching and I'm worried.
> The freeze Easter weekend knocked out a lot of plants and trees haven't come
> back yet, notably the tulip poplars, which are the main event for bee food
> around here during the spring flow.  They will probably come back, but will
> there be any nectar; and if so, how much?
> How can you tell in late winter how many colonies to try to raise?
> If you're not moving your hives around to the ag fields full of GMO plants,
> which I'm not, or if you're not in the midst of some huge organic garden
> that you have planted yourself and have greenhouses to manage the weather
> variables, which I'm not either, then you're dependent on the plants in the
> area for that year.  Either that or you feed.  One cool thing about
> apiculture is that it forces you to pay attention to the food in the area
> and the phenology.  IMO this is the hardest thing to do (at least for me),
> but it is the essence of permaculture design.  If you go off and design
> something thinking you understand the way nature works, but you're wrong,
> well then you get some, uh, feedback.
> Our longtime friend Peter Bane wrote in an Activist article awhile back
> (Keith can find it) that the Oaks vary the number of acorns each year
> (running on 3-year cycles) to keep the squirrel and deer population guessing
> so they will not eat every acorn in site hence killing the new oaks (I ran
> around yelling Eureka for a few days when I heard that one!).  This year the
> oaks came out 3 weeks early and then froze, with no signs of life yet.
> Maybe no acorns at all this year!  But why did they come out 3 weeks early?
> If the oaks are confused, the humans are quadrupally confused.
> Ignoring for a moment the notion that humans are actually a part of
> nature... 
> Somebody posted that we have no business raising apis mellifera en masse
> anymore than we have any business raising monocultures of GMO corn  This is
> a good point.
> The challenge is that we are already stuck in the middle of 10,000 years of
> agriculture that has gotten us to this point.  There's no turning back
> without a massive die off, which is possible, maybe even likely; but let's
> ignore that for a moment.  So what to do? (permaculture anyone?)
> If the answer is in the garden, then backyard beekeeping may not be such an
> evil thing after all.  We grow what we can and what we're guided by spirit
> to plant.  This includes the bees.
> Well, if the plants need water, we water them.  If the bees need feed, we
> feed them.  If the cows need milked...
> I'm raising 3 new colonies this year and I want them to build up their brood
> now and collect nectar to make honey during the spring flow which normally
> would be on now.  I'm not sure if there's enough food due to the crazy
> weather, so I have the feed on them.  I am using organic dried cane juice
> from the health food store (ordered in bulk); equal parts dry volume of cane
> to liquid volume of filtered tap (or collected rain) water.  The cane juice
> has at least some trace minerals in it.  I'll pull the bottle away from the
> babies as soon as the Keepers let me know that there's enough food out
> there.  Now if I could just shut up my logical mind long enough to hear
> their call.
> 
> 
> Gene Monaco
> Knoxville, TN