Rocky on the Ropes

No pandemic would send Rocky Balboa or the folks on the World War II home front into a black hole of loneliness and depression. Follow their advice: Get physically fit. Activate you own version of Rocky's raw egg concoction and his run up Philadelphia's Art Museum steps. Grow your wealth. During World War II, Captain America advised citizens to fight for freedom by investing $37.50 in a war bond that would yield $50 in ten years. Today, bonds are sold online at treasurydirect.gov. Discover farming. Pick apples, berries and watermelons at local farms, buy fresh corn at stands along country roads, plant tomatoes in your own Victory Garden and grow flowers to attract the honeybees that pollinate crops. Enjoy home entertainment. Once listeners gathered around the radio to hear a closet full of items tumble out on "Fibber McGee and Molly" or they read comic books in lighted closets during blackouts. Choose from a much wider variety of ways to enjoy home entertainment today. Hone your arguments. While sheltering in place, take time to scroll through social media, listen to talking heads, read up on the issues and then express your opinions in "Letters to the Editor" and elsewhere.

Killer Hornets v. Lovable Honeybees

     Giant Asian "murder hornets" seem poised to attack hives just as World Bee Day approaches on May 20, the birthday of Anton James, teacher in the world's first beekeeping school, founded by 18th century empress, Maria Theresa. Modern day beekeepers already struggle with the impact of collapsing honeybee colonies on the world's food supply.   

     With spring planting in progress in the Northern Hemisphere, a review of recent findings regarding bee health is important.

• Honeybee-killing pesticides containing neonicotinoids have been banned throughout the world,
• Global warming that makes hives too hot, strong winds and cold winter temperatures require protective hive designs,
• To compensate for the loss of pollen from fewer natural wildflowers, gardeners need to plant bee-friendly blooms such as zinnias, cosmos and lavender,
• Every effort should be made to leave clusters of woody debris and leaf litter undisturbed in breeding areas where bees forage and nest.

Local bees deserve nurturing care, since the introduction of foreign bees rarely compensates for hive collapse elsewhere. Not only can a different species be unable to adapt to a new area, it may introduce a foreign disease harmful to local bees.

     What can be done to protect honeybees from the exceptionally long stingers of attacking hornets? Maybe the research that shows some success in eliminating malaria-carrying mosquitoes might help.

Plant Flowers, Help Bees

To bees, a sweeping lawn, parks, and golf courses look like deserts, writes Thor Hanson in Buzz: The Nature and Necessity of Bees. Without pollen from flowers, bees cannot survive and neither can people without the pollination bees provide for many food crops. Of the 20,000 different species of wild bees, some 40% are in decline or threatened with extinction. Domestic bees suffer from lost habitat, parasites, pesticides, and diseases picked up when transferred from farm to farm.

After "colony collapse" began to cause hive losses, dangers to bees and ways to help them often have been covered in previous posts:

• Bumble Bees Have Special Needs
• Don't Take Food for Granted
• World's Food Supply Needs Bees and Bees Need Help
• Be Kind to Bees
• The Bees and the Birds

Bumble Bees Have Special Needs

Like honey bees, fruit farmers depend on bumble bees to pollinate their crops. Unlike honey bees, that shy away from working in cool climates, bumble bees even will be out pollinating in wind and rain. They need flowers constantly available to supply nectar and pollen, because they don't store food in hives the way honey bees do.  Cranberry blossoms feed bumble bees that pollinate cranberry crops in the middle of summer, for example, but the queen also needs food in spring, when she lays eggs, and in late summer to get her through the winter. Backyard gardeners can help farmers by planting wildflowers that grow in as many seasons as possible.

     To avoid using seeds and plants treated with bee-killing insecticides, gardeners are urged to shop at nurseries or to find plants from organic sources, since efforts to require pesticide and insecticide labeling have been unsuccessful. Seeing an endangered rusty patched bumble bee on a flower is cause to take a photo and report your sighting to bumblebeewatch.org. The site provides much more information about bumble bees and where rare ones have been photographed.

   

   

Don't Take Food for Granted

We all agree we need food to live. Drought in Africa and hurricanes in Haiti endanger lives. When the sunny, warm weather of June replaced May's surplus rainfall, Wisconsin't "Fabulous Farm Babe," Pam Jahnke, had good news for her radio audience: corn planting was 91% complete; soybean planting, 73% complete; and oats planting, 96% complete. Potato, pasture, alfalfa, and hay conditions also were coming along well.

     Besides the right amount of sun and rain, food crops require pollination and freedom from damaging pests and disease. The trouble is the neonicotinoid pesticide and glyphosate herbicide that crops, such as corn, soybeans, and alfalfa, have been genetically modified to survive cause bee pollinators and the milkweed wildflowers butterfly pollinators eat to die. Research indicates almonds, strawberries, peaches, avocados, and up to 140 crops depend on pollination. The cross-purpose of treating crops to resist pests and disease by killing the bee and butterfly pollinators many crops need to survive requires a major research solution.

     Monsanto, the seed and chemical company criticized for playing a role in every study that claims genetically modified crops are safe, donated a $10 million biotech lab facility to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in January, 2017. The installation's 28,000 square foot space accommodates 20 greenhouses and controlled environments in shade houses and light rooms that enable the university to do research on a scale with major companies. Although there has been no mention of studying the impact on bees of treating Monsanto's corn and soybean seeds with neonicotinoids or of creating plants that do not attract the insects that can destroy them, these would be excellent projects for what has been named the university's new Wisconsin Crop Innovation Center.

     Meanwhile, small scale farmers are in a position to plant crop seeds, untreated by neonicotinoid insecticide; to grow bee- and butterfly-friendly flowers (colorful zinnias, cosmos, and lavender), milkweed, and herbs; to leave woody debris and leaf litter undisturbed for bee breeding areas; and to avoid applying pesticides and herbicides to blooming flowers, weeds, and possible bee nesting areas.

      Finally, research suggests gardeners who want to discourage mosquitoes from ruining their outdoor activities should plant marigolds, citronella, lavender, basil, and catnip (mint).

World's Food Supply Needs Bees & Bees Need Help

One study found 40% of bee and butterfly pollinators are in decline around the world. As if bees didn't have enough problems with the neonicotinoid type of insecticide that has been causing their colonies to collapse since 2006, now they have to deal with the effects of climate change. When spring-like warming occurs too early, flowers can bloom before bees are ready to make their rounds. Crops of at least 140 nuts, fruits, and vegetables can suffer from a lack of pollination.

     In the US, clocks are about to be moved an hour ahead this weekend to signal the beginning of daylight saving time and the time to get seeds for planting flowers and food crops on commercial farms and in backyards, rain gardens at the curb, and community plots. The Sierra Club has been sending members packets of what the organization calls a "Bee Feed Flower Mix." These packets contain seeds for bee-tasty nectar and pollen from forget-me-nots, poppies, asters, blue flax, white sweet alyssum, lavender, fleabane daisies, and purple coneflowers. What is important is the seeds in these packets are Untreated.

     Untreated seeds are important because treated seeds, such as corn and soybean seeds, are coated with neonicotinoid insecticide to kill pests as soon as the seeds sprout. Frequent exposure to neuro-toxic pesticides that spread through a plant's leaves, pollen, and even nectar damage a bee's nervous and immune systems. While insects destroy plants, so too are strawberries, avocados, peaches, almonds, and other crops lost due to a lack of pollination by bees.

     Presented with a decade of evidence about simultaneous bee colony collapse and neonicotinoid use, the European Union suspended the use of neonicotinoid in 2013. In the US, the Department of Agriculture continues to study the problem, and the Saving America's Pollinators Act of 2015 failed to get out of a House of Representatives subcommittee.

     US consumers and farmers began to take matters into their own hands. There have been consumer campaigns against stores that sell neonicotinoid-treated plants. Gardeners started to grow bee-friendly flowers and to leave woody debris, leaf litter, and bare soil where bees can breed. You can find more on this subject in the earlier post, "Be Kind to Bees."

     Some farms also began to meet the bee health challenge. Besides planting vegetables, an organic farm couple in Minnesota planted flowering dogwood and elderberry hedgerows to attract bees, butterflies, and other insects that pollinate their crops. General Mills, a company that uses honey, fruit, and vegetable ingredients requiring pollination, is working with the Xerces Society and the Department of Agriculture to preserve pollinator habitat on 100,000 acres of US farmland. A plan to grow flowers and shrubs in narrow strips around crop fields is designed to restore seven million acres of land for pollinators in the next five years. But for farmers who usually grow single crops, a shift to diversify with flowers that attract pollinators is not easy. It requires analysis of farm land, how wet and dry it is, for example, and which plants will not attract the insects that could destroy their farm's crops.

     The battle to save bees, and the world's food supply, continues.
   

Be Kind to Bees

With the planting season about to begin in the Northern Hemisphere, this is a good time to look at the health of bees, those little pollinators that some call nature's migrant farmer force. Pollination of California's 90 million almond trees, for example, depends on almost 1,600 beekeepers from everywhere in the US who bring their hives to the state every February. Nathan Clarke, who owns Mad Urban Bees in Wisconsin, loads 2,400 hives into semi trailers for the westward trip each year. The revenue from pollinating crops, not only almonds but also other fruits and vegetables, can be as much as two times more than the income selling honey to consumers and beer brewers. Plus, US beekeepers face competition from low cost honey imports.

     While bee health benefits from leaving harsh winter climates for warmer areas, healthy bees can be infected when they mingle with sick ones when they pollinate away from home. Then, they continue to transmit disease to healthy bees when they return home. But disease is not the only threat to bees and beekeepers. By limiting crops to corn, alfalfa, and soybeans that have been genetically modified to be pesticide-resistant, farmers use chemicals that only kill the weeds that provide pollen for bees and the bees themselves, if these pesticides are sprayed while bees are pollinating in the area. To support their bees, beekeepers find it necessary to provide their own flowerbeds and weeds where their bees can find pollen.

      During the past ten years, researchers have identified causes of the bee colony collapse that began around 2006. Pollinator protection plans have given homeowners, gardeners, farmers, and beekeepers a list of ways to help bees survive:

• To provide bees with pollen and nectar, plant a diverse array of colorful zinnias, cosmos, and lavender; milkweed and other wildflowers; and herbs, such as mints, oregano, garlic, chives, and parsley. Because they have been modified by breeders, tulips, daffodils, petunias, and roses do not feed bees.
• Bees need a place to nest in messy woody debris and in leaf litter and bare soil.
• To keep pesticides away from what bees might eat or where they might nest, remove dandelions and clover before spraying and do not apply pesticides to blooming plants and possible nesting areas.

Neonicotinoid pesticides that weaken pollinators' immune system abilities to survive mites and diseases seem to be a major cause of colony collapse. Not only does spraying fields and urban areas with the pesticides leave bees no safe place to hide in the immediate area, but dust kicked up by applying pesticides spreads neonicotinoids far afield to the dandelions and clover that bees eat in early spring. Since chemical companies have been able to gain exemptions to labeling and regulations, consumers may not always be able to avoid purchasing neonicotinoid pesticides or plants and seeds treated with these chemicals. Corn and soybean seeds, for example, can be coated with neonicotinoid pesticides to protect young plants when they are most vulnerable. Research has shown, however, that treating soybeans has little value because the pesticide is not timed to provide protection during major pest attacks.

     For additional thoughts about problems bees encounter and ways to help them survive, see the earlier post, "The Bees and the Birds." 

Resolve to Help Kids Observe Their World

While I was picking up pine needles in the kitchen this morning, I knew our cat had brought them there on her feet from our Christmas tree in the living room. Observing this phenomena I thought how this kind of observation would illustrate, not just tell, kids how animals and birds around the world help spread seeds and bees provide the necessary function of pollinating the world's crops. (See the earlier blog post, "The Bees and the Birds.")

    Next time we go to an art museum, I mused, I should help kids observe why the light and subject matter in Italian paintings is different from that in British and Japanese ones.

     Watching a nature program on TV and taking a walk present opportunities to ask if Mexican children know what eagles are and if Chinese children have ever seen squirrels. (See the earlier blog post, "Talk with the Animals.")

     While I was waiting to pick up my granddaughter at school, I noticed how it was possible to see different wind currents by watching the way furnace smoke coming out of the school at roof level some times moved forcefully, but, at the same time, about twelve feet lower in front of the school, flags were moving very little. (See the earlier blog post, "Climate Control.")

     Seems there's a great many reasons to LOOK forward to 2015.