# TED Talk by Marla Spivak



## Chip Euliss (Sep 2, 2010)

Marla gave a recent presentation that should be of interest to all beekeepers. It's at: http://www.ted.com/talks/marla_spivak_why_bees_are_disappearing.html


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## SS1 (Jun 1, 2013)

Thanks Chip!


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## Daniel Y (Sep 12, 2011)

Very good simple basic presentation done in a way that is easy to digest. I shared this on my facebook. I would hope it is seen by everyone that has a yard to plant a flower in.


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## CtyAcres (Apr 8, 2012)

Thanks Chip- The question is how many landowners will listen and obey Marla's wishes and that includes local,
state, and federal governments everywhere????


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## Chip Euliss (Sep 2, 2010)

CtyAcres said:


> Thanks Chip- The question is how many landowners will listen and obey Marla's wishes and that includes local,
> state, and federal governments everywhere????


Good question and one that I can't answer. Sometimes, the best we can do is get the word out. Sort of like fishing-you have to have your hooks in the water to have success. I do know that honey bees have caught the attention of our agencies and there are plans in place to get important honey bee plants into the mix for conservation grassland mixes, etc. It is too early to assess the impact but certainly a step in the right direction. I gave a talk in DC last June that summarized some of our studies that generated a lot of interest that wasn't there a decade before. But my glass has always been half full, as they say.....


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

The last thing a Midwest farmer is going to do is try to make the beekeepers more money. Field breaks of diverse flowers will make the landowner nothing, while it would line my pocket book. Let's be realistic. Things are going to get lots worse for the American beekeeper before they get better. And let's face it, that's what makes it sooooo good to be in the bee industry right now. Who would really benefit from an over abundance of easy to keep alive bees?? Let's be grateful things are as they are!!


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## Chip Euliss (Sep 2, 2010)

I think the focus will be on seed mixes for future enrollments in conservation programs.


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## CtyAcres (Apr 8, 2012)

Marla doesn't seem to be grateful to leave things as they are and neither to I. Let's hope beekeeepers ,landowners, and
all homeowners will make an effort to plant more flowers and get the word out that society needs to do this! Along with
planting a tree, also plant some flowers nearby. Let's be realistic, if we don't make this effort we are headed to the 
unsustainable cliff of death. Now that doesn't help the pocket book, does it??


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Seed our ditches to clover, alfalfa and wild flowers. 
If farmers will not save us space, maybe we can reclaim the ditches. 
But then again , farmers will complain about dirty ditches as well. 
No room for nobody else....


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

No, realistic is that for large beekeepers we count on large land owners generally farmers to provide the needed amount of acres for our bees. It's nice that a towns person plants a flower bed or a fruit tree but that helps so little when the rancher/farmer is spraying his pasture for thistles thus killing every flowering plant that grows. Or when the alfalfa is starting to bud and the farmer cuts it with a self propelled mower in what seems like minutes. Maybe I could ask them to stop their farming practices to allow me have healthier bees???????????


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

The counties spray the ditches where I live in south dakota. Makes a nice boring colorless drive through, but not any noxious weeds!!


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## mnbeekeeper (Jun 30, 2010)

ya same here. think how much money can be saved by the counties and state if we cut way back on ditch spraying and mowing. seems like a real no brainer. people are uneducated and really anal, they want things to look clean and cut. 

look how much money is spent. around here they all drive brand new ditch mowing tractors, they all make big government dollars. and it all comes out of our taxes.


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## Chip Euliss (Sep 2, 2010)

I'd like to see something done to improve the quality of our ditches too. Here, ditches are hayed and the timing is generally at a time when the flowers are just starting to attract bees. I don't farm so don't know why it couldn't be postponed. Incentive programs for farmers or landowners would help. I don't remember the total acreage but we estimated the total area using standard ditch widths for various road types in the northern Great Plains and it was of impressive size!


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

Our math said 4 acres per mile. In South Dakota my dad always said ditch mowing couldn't start until after July fourth because of a law for the pheasant hatch, but I see guys mowing much earlier now. If it is four acres per mile of a variety of flowers just think of how many section lines an average bee yard could reach. One of my beekeeper friends said back in the day he saw a air powered seed shooter. I can't seem to find one, but if I could I would be proactive and seed in the ditches in my area that don't get sprayed.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

I run bees between three municipalalities , one of them cut back on their ditch spraying enough that all the natural wild flowers have come back and FILL the ditches. I see a huge dufferance between the yards in spring time growth, soo much so that I'll hold many of my summer yards back a couple weeks from being set into their summer locations just to feast on all the ditch flowers. 
I'll drive from one Municipality to the next and it's like driving from a rich moist bountiful ALIVE landscape to a barren dry dead desert. Lots of diverse life flying and feeding on the flowers to nothing to be found alive at all but grass. 

I lobby my councelirs every year. But what I see as richness, the grain farmer sees as weeds. They have a very strong voice. 

We also farm 3000 acres if crop land and a few more thousand acres of ranch land. I know the issues farmers present because I am one. Farmers are completely out of touch with natural life and only focus on one living thing for four months of the year. This is not the way it use to be. 

I'm not in favour of government intervention on most issues , keep the bureaucrats as far away from my business as possible. But in this case I believe government needs to step in and help conservation initiative take hold and survive. We need shelter belts , we need wet lands , we need ground water, we need slow releases of surface water run off. 

Not only for the bees sake but for diversity to exist, period


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## CtyAcres (Apr 8, 2012)

AMEN. Ian. Amen.


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## Chip Euliss (Sep 2, 2010)

I don't know if what I've observed is true or not but maybe one of you from Iowa could comment. I pull a boat to Louisiana each summer for my family fishing trip and am always impressed with the flowers in the ditches along the interstate in Iowa. Noticed some spot mowing that looks like it was done to control weeds. Is that from some sort of program? Don't know what the ditches along other road types look like though.


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## Danpa14 (Jun 12, 2013)

Of course grown up roadsides will mean more car/deer collisions with human injury and deaths. I just planted several acres in prairie grasses and wildflowers. The flowers are very expensive. Almost did not buy them.


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## jfb58 (Sep 10, 2013)

We must stop burning food in our cars, and eliminate the subsidy for corn monoculture.


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

Corn prices are much higher than the subsidy prices thus no direct subsidies. The corn prices were so high the past few years that it pushed land rent and value so high that the only way to make money is corn on corn for the farmers. Lots of them sold their cattle because it is more economical to sell the corn than to feed it.


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## mgolden (Oct 26, 2011)

My local county just cuts a single mower width, 12 of 14 ft, along the edge of the road. Do it about twice during the summer. Think this is a nice compromise that keeps deer and moose away from the road edge and also makes them more visible when driving at night. Rest of the ditch remains wild flowers. Always seems to be something in bloom for most of the season.

This saves the county money and if they believe in a full mow to control brush, encourage them to time it after first frost.


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## jfb58 (Sep 10, 2013)

babybee said:


> Corn prices are much higher than the subsidy prices thus no direct subsidies. The corn prices were so high the past few years that it pushed land rent and value so high that the only way to make money is corn on corn for the farmers. Lots of them sold their cattle because it is more economical to sell the corn than to feed it.


I should have said eliminate the mandate for ethanol--in effect a subsidy--that would bring down the price for corn, and remove the incentive for corn monoculture.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Ethanol is but just a small piece of the high price commodity puzzle. The mandate still exists, yet corn is back down to normal price fluctuations. 
Talk of reducing the 15% mandate to 10% has softened the market further.


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## jfb58 (Sep 10, 2013)

Ian said:


> Talk of reducing the 15% mandate to 10% has softened the market further.


I think this supports my point.


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

The market is bearish, because of other world trade issues. Ethanol is but a very small part of that puzzle . 
If it drove the corn market, talk if reducing mandated ethanol would tank corn prices, not just soften the market


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## jfb58 (Sep 10, 2013)

If you want to see a tanking of corn prices, try eliminating the mandate--I'd take that wager any time. Manitoba sends 24% of its corn crop into ethanol production!


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

$3.50 for corn in the pit. Drought gave us the $7 corn last year thanks to speculators finding themselves short on their trade


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## babybee (Mar 23, 2012)

What is a good corn yield that far north, Ian?


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## TWall (May 19, 2010)

> If you want to see a tanking of corn prices, try eliminating the mandate--I'd take that wager any time. Manitoba sends 24% of its corn crop into ethanol production!


I can't imagine corn production in Manitoba has much impact on the world market.

I remember in my undergraduate Ag Econ class we calculated the impact of losing all the corn from the top producing county in Iowa. At that time, early 1980's, the impact was around 2 cents per bushel.

The agriculture of pre-WW II is gone forever. Individuals farmers/landowners can choose to improve habitat for pollinators on a small scale. But, large scale township/county/statewide changes will not happen without outside economic stimulus. As long as landowners can make more money raising crops/renting land for crop production then they can off government payments monoculture cropping will dominate the landscape. In the past I would have said the midwest. But, that no longer true. This type of cropping rotation has spread to most areas of north america.

Tom


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

100-150 bu per acre

One thing I like about the way honey is traded, is it almost purely works on fundamentals. Virtually no speculative trading goes on and because if that the true value of our honey commodity proves true


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