# John muir among the bee pastures; different than the almonds today



## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

Since I posted the article from the bee-farmer who lost 2,150 hives I have been under sustained, highly personal and highly co-ordinated attack from the industry shills, both on the UK beekeeping forum, and also to some extent here.

I am not going to respond to any of the personal attacks which emanate from those we already know are professional industry shills, since they have been doing this for 5 years in the UK and we know who they are.

By way of some light relief and hopefully inspiration, I hope you might enjoy the following passages from the writings of John Muir, the Scottish emigrant who saved most of what natural beauty still survives in California (Yosemite, the redwoods, Muir beach, Muir woods etc). He was an eye-witness to the bee-paradise which existed in the Central Valley *before* it was destroyed by industrial agriculture, and by 825,000 acres of almond monoculture. It is a vision worth sharing - and maybe points to what will return when pesticide-based, industrial agriculture finally runs into the buffers; which may happen this year as far as the almonds are concerned.

The State was an ecological paradise before the advent of industrial scale farming - and it remains the most productive agricultural area on Earth - because of the year-round abundance of sunshine, water and warmth.

It was also once the most botanically rich and diverse area in the whole of America, but pesticide-based, high input, industrial-scale 'farming' has destroyed 99% of that richness.

When John Muir - the Scottish conservationist - made his famous walk from San Francisco to Yosemite Valley around 1869 - he had to cross the Central Valley - an area which now contains 825,000 acres of Almond monoculture.

This is what he wrote:

*http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/chapter_1.aspx*
*- The Yosemite (1912) chapter 1. 'The Range of Light' *
*"Looking eastward from the summit of Pacheco Pass one shining morning, a landscape was displayed that, after all my wanderings still appears as the most beautiful I have ever beheld. At my feet lay the Great Central Valley of California, level and flowery, like a lake of pure sunshine, forty or fifty miles wide, five hundred miles long, one rich-furred garden of yellow Compositae. And from the eastern boundary of this vast golden flower-bed rose the mighty Sierra, miles in height, and so gloriously colored and so radiant, it seemed not clothed with light but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some celestial city.... Then it seemed to me that the Sierra should be called, not the Nevada or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light. And after ten years of wandering and wondering in the heart of it, rejoicing in its glorious floods of light, the white beams of the morning streaming through the passes, the noonday radiance on the crystal rocks, the flush of the alpenglow, and the irised spray of countless waterfalls, it still seems above all others the Range of Light*." 


When Muir walked across the Central Valley in 1869 he trod upon a single, uninterrupted bed of wildflowers: 400 miles long by 50 miles wide. It had existed there for thousands and thousands of years. It has now been completely destroyed. Here is another passage from Muir's wonderful essay *'The Bee Pastures'*:

http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_...hapter_16.aspx (read the whole chapter here - it is superb)

_*"Wherever a bee might fly within the bounds of this virgin wilderness--through the redwood forests, along the banks of the rivers, along the bluffs and headlands fronting the sea, over valley and plain, park and grove, and deep, leafy glen, or far up the piny slopes of the mountains--throughout every belt and section of climate up to the timber line, bee-flowers bloomed in lavish abundance. Here they grew more or less apart in special sheets and patches of no great size, there in broad, flowing folds hundreds of miles in length--zones of polleny forests, zones of flowery chaparral, stream tangles of rubus and wild rose, sheets of golden compositæ, beds of violets, beds of mint, beds of bryanthus and clover, and so on, certain species blooming somewhere all the year round. 

But of late years ploughs and sheep have made sad havoc in these glorious pastures, destroying tens of thousands of the flowery acres like a fire, and banishing many species of the best honey-plants to rocky cliffs and fence-corners, while, on the other hand, cultivation thus far has given no adequate compensation, at least in kind; only acres of alfalfa for miles of the richest wild pasture, ornamental roses and honeysuckles around cottage doors for cascades of wild roses in the dells, and small, square orchards and orange-groves for broad mountain belts of chaparral. 

The Great Central Plain of California, during the months of March, April, and May, was one smooth, continuous bed of honey-bloom, so marvelously rich that, in walking from one end of it to the other, a distance of more than 400 miles, your foot would press about a hundred flowers at every step. Mints, gilias, nemophilas, castilleias, and innumerable compositæ were so crowded together that, had ninety-nine per cent. of them been taken away, the plain would still have seemed to any but Californians extravagantly flowery. The radiant, honey-ful corollas, touching and overlapping, and rising above one another, glowed in the living light like a sunset sky--one sheet of purple and gold, with the bright Sacramento pouring through the midst of it from the north, the San Joaquin from the south, and their many tributaries sweeping in at right angles from the mountains, dividing the plain into sections fringed with trees."*_


So, California - was once a bee-paradise (though the honeybee was only introduced in the 1840s) - for native bees and bumblebees. Contrast the above eye-witness description with the pesticide-drenched monoculture of the central valley today.
[

*Conclusion*
The original article I posted is an honest and truthful eye-witness account of the experience of one bee-farmer; someone with 40 years of experience of running a 5,000 colony migratory operation. This is his *'hypothesis'*; his attempt to make sense of the situation, drawing on his lifetime's knowledge and experience of migratory beekeeping. You don't have to agree with him. You are welcome to pose opposing views, preferably within the bounds of reasonable discussion. 

This man knows how to feed and water bees, he knows how to treat for varroa, he knows how to secure and fulfill pollination contracts. I will pass on the various questions about how he feeds, waters, inspects and treats his bees for varroa. I suspect he may be too busy to answer right now, but I will ask him on the off-chance.


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## Stromnessbees (Jan 3, 2010)

borderbeeman said:


> "Wherever a bee might fly within the bounds of this virgin wilderness--through the redwood forests, along the banks of the rivers, along the bluffs and headlands fronting the sea, over valley and plain, park and grove, and deep, leafy glen, or far up the piny slopes of the mountains--
> ...


So beautiful, I nearly cried when I read this.

Thanks for posting it, Bbman, every now and again we need a reminder how things used to be.


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## mac (May 1, 2005)

Denial is a river in Egypt. Ignorance is bliss. Pave paradise put up a parking lot. Concrete jungle. On a road to nowhere.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

Seems to me hes never been to this region in CA..... there is no water. its all brought in by MAN.... without Mans intervention this place is a desert.... look along the I5 corridor...... the redwoods he refers to are costal, and dont live in the valley.... man its sounds cool when you make stuff up


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

That's right Charlie, there are no rivers in the Central Valley of California. I'm just 'making this stuff up'

The natural annual discharge of the *San Joaquin* before agricultural development is believed to have been between 6–7.9 million acre feet (7.4–9.7 million dam3), equalling a flow of roughly 8,300 to 10,900 cu ft/s (240 to 310 m3/s).[5] Some early estimates even range as high as *14 million acre-feet* (17.3 million dam3), or more than *19,300 cubic feet per second (550 cubic metres/s). *The numerous tributaries of the San Joaquin include: – the Fresno, Chowchilla, Merced, Tuolumne, Mariposa Creek, Calaveras, Mokelumne, and many others – (wikipedia)








*Click to see enlarged Map of California's Central Valley
double click to see LARGER version*

There's no rivers here . . . oh except maybe these ones between San Francisco and Bakersfield
The San Joaquin
The Cosumnes
Sutter Creek (lotta gold around there!)
The Stanislaus
The Mokelumne
The Calaveras
The American River
The Tuolumne
The Merced
The Bear
The Mariposa
The Chowchilla
The Fresno
The Kings River
The Kaweah
The St Johns
The Tule
The Kern

So I must have been hallucinating when I fished for trout in the Merced and Tuolumne and the Kings River
I must have imagined swimming in the Merced in Yosemite

That's my problem, I just make stuff up Charlie.
Thanks for pointing out that there's 'no rivers' in the Central Valley. It's really helped me 'get my mind straight' (Cool Hand Luke)


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

http://www.eldoradocountyweather.com/californiaannualprecip.html
the blue areas north of San Francisco are where the Redwood Forest are at, the blue area to the east is where Yosemite is at. The big light colored area in the middle is the where the agricultural areas are at. They never did contain any Redwood trees. It becomes increasingly drier as you go south. The valleys are almost totally dependent on irrigation, I guarantee you Mr. Muir didn't pitch his tent down there anywhere except along a river for long as much of it is a desert without piping in water. An argument about whether it is a good or realistic long term plan to be farming desert areas is a good one but an argument claiming the magnificent Redwoods were cut down to make way for Almond trees is a silly and uninformed one.


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

Nobody ever said the redwoods were cut down to make way for the almond groves. The coast redwoods grow along the coast - at Muir Woods, Big Sur and many other places - including the coast ranges; there are plenty around San Frnacisco and up around Napa.The mountain redwoods grow up in the High Sierra - from Mariposa to Sequoia - there were very few mountain redwoods in Yosemite Valley itself. But Muir's description of the Central Valley being filled with compositae flowers for hundreds of square miles is an accurate eye-witness account that nobody has ever questioned before, as far as I am aware. Muir was a profoundly serious Christian and, although he never entered a church after his marriage, he took 'truthfulness' as the foundation of his personal and professional life.
He was an evidence-based, science based advocate for conservation. The valleys - as you say - are drier these days, but that is largely because almost all the small rivers have been canalized and incorporated into the industrial water system. in Muir's day the entire area flooded with snow melt in Spring and then bloomed extravagantly. Later in the summer, the valley flowers died off - but those in the hills that surround the valley gave a much longer season for the bees. His famous narrative, of walking over the valley from Pacheco Pass specifically says that it was 'The sprintime of the year'; he didn't claim that the flowers lasted for 12 months.

John Muir's first employment in California was as a migratory shepherd with a flock of a thousand or more sheep. He fed the sheep in the valley, then loved up into the foothills as the year advanced, and ended up in the Hi9gh Sierra Valleys in high summer, where the water never failed. It was because he witnessed the destruction of the alpine meadows of flowers by the sheep that his mind first turned toward 'conservation' - though the actual word was not coined until much later.


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Why Mr. Lyon! Are you one of the shadowy shills of BIG ALMOND! Or is it BIG PESTICIDE?

I have sympathy for the loss of wild places and old ways, but possibly the resident of a foggy island that cannot feed itself, should not dertermine what porportion of the world would starve without American agricultural production and science. We need balance in all things, Choices are sometimes hard and long term results unknown. But resourses are made to be used by those who posess them.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

I'm not questioning Mr. Muir's account at all. I would agree it no doubt had its own unique beauty. It's an unfortunate reality and a much deeper non-bee related discussion about the changes mankind brings to the planet. It is, as you correctly point out, perhaps the most productive agricultural area on earth though I think your characterization of the farming as having destroyed 99% of its richnes is an unfair one though . In any case clearly mankind in its effort to feed its own makes dramatic changes in the process. I think the southern portion may well return to some form of what it once was years ago since it may well turn out that there simply isn't enough water available to consistently grow crops down there. It should be pointed out, though, that the almond has dramatically grown in popularity because it is a pretty nutritious food, is its wide scale cultivation necessarily a bad thing?


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

Well last time I looked the UK was feeding itself just fine. As Aneurin Bevan once remarked - "an island of solid coal surrounded by a sea full of fish will never be too cold or too hungry". Secondly the reason why the Roman Army of Emperor Claudius invaded Britain circa AD 43 was because Britain was so abundant in wheat and barley that it was known as 'the bread basket of Europe' - so we have 2000 years experience of feeding ourselves. But leaving your nationalist and chauvinist digs aside - I do like your last comment:

_*"Resources are made to be used by those who possess them"*_

An interesting theological slant on 'Manifest Destiny', originally used to dispossess the original 'possessors'. isn't that the rationale for the invasion of every country that's every been invaded? Lets go take their oil - and bring them 'democracy'? 

You might find this link to the original 330,000 'possessors' of California's Central Valley interesting:

http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/anth6_central.html

'Mankind' is an abstraction and 'the good of Mankind' has been used to start just about every war from Napoleon's invasion of every European country, to the German invasion of Russia - it's always being done 'for the good of Mankind'.

Industrial farming corporations aren't using neonics on 243 million acres of American crops 'for the good of Mankind' or 'to feed the world' - they are doing it to maximise profit. 

The line they are selling is that: "you can't grow crops without universal, prophylactic, use of pesticide seed treatments'" - which is a lie. There are thousands of organic farmers across America growing crops of every kind without pesticides - and last time I looked, many of them were making a good profit.

The 2001 census of India recorded 760m million farmers in that country:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_farmers_are_there_in_India

So India has about twice as many *farmers* as the USA has *people*. the vast majority of them are small, village farmers and the vast majority of them are 'organic' for the simple reason that they have never farmed any other way. They still farm the way American farmers did before WWII and the coming of pesticides on a large scale (derived from WWII chemical weapons).
Indian farmers have been self sufficient in most food crops for around 7,000 years - that's roughly 20 times longer than the United States has existed. So, the idea that we cannot 'feed the world' without drenching it in pesticides, is a false idea. Most of the rest of the world has never had any other choice than to feed itself by traditional farming - and today - industrially farmed commodity crops account for less than 33% of global food production.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

borderbeeman said:


> Well last time I looked the UK was feeding itself just fine. As Aneurin Bevan once remarked - "an island of solid coal surrounded by a sea full of fish will never be too cold or too hungry". ."


apparently borderbeeman doesn't even know the facts about his own country, not sure I would take his recommendation for our continent too

seriously.





http://www.foodsecurity.ac.uk/issue/uk.html




– Britain is not self-sufficient in food production; it imports 40% of the total food consumed and the proportion is rising


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## Keith Jarrett (Dec 10, 2006)

borderbeeman said:


> Sutter Creek (lotta gold around there!)


Hey, I live in Sutter Creek, where's that stuff at anyway. You can feel free to PM me if you would like.


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## Mbeck (Apr 27, 2011)

Perhaps the valley wasn't so natrual? 100,000 Indians burning woodfires, raw sewage and stripping the land of its resources? Maybe they intentionally burnt large tracts? Maybe there actions altered the landscape?


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Keith Jarrett said:


> Hey, I live in Sutter Creek, where's that stuff at anyway. You can feel free to PM me if you would like.


Could it be that we have discovered Keith's ingredient? Could it be his sub actually contains an antidote to neonicitinoids?


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

wildbranch2007 said:


> apparently borderbeeman doesn't even know the facts about his own country, not sure I would take his recommendation for our continent tooseriously. – Britain is not self-sufficient in food production; it imports 40% of the total food consumed and the proportion is rising


I didn't say that Britain is not a trading nation - Britain has made its living as a trading nation for centuries. 
But - as I said - I have not seen any people starving in the streets recently; quite the opposite in fact, obesity in the UK is rapidly catching up with the levels seen in America - but then the same corporations that sell junk over there, sell the same stuff over here now; coca cola, burger king, macdonalds, pepsico, oreos, general foods, nabisco, starbucks, google, amazon; its all over here - and we are fast acquiring the same diseases as you guys: adult onset type II diabetes, childhood diabetes, childhood obesity. The BIZ is global, owes no allegiance, pays hardly any tax locally.


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

Keith Jarrett said:


> Hey, I live in Sutter Creek, where's that stuff at anyway. You can feel free to PM me if you would like.


well I did the 'gold trail' there about 8 years ago and had a go at panning for gold. They swore to me that there was still plenty of gold buried in the rocks - though not enough to be commercially viable; yet. I just kept panning and thinking of Gabby Hayes, but that didn't help either.

I did meet the sister of a guy who was organising the 2013 World Gold Panning Championships and she gave me two tiny flakes of gold in a vial of water, but I didn't pan them.:no:


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

borderbeeman said:


> So India has about twice as many *farmers* as the USA has *people*. the vast majority of them are small, village farmers and the vast majority of them are 'organic' for the simple reason that they have never farmed any other way. They still farm the way American farmers did before WWII and the coming of pesticides on a large scale


Fact check



Impact of Pesticide Use in Indian Agriculture - Their Benefits and Hazards

http://www.shamskm.com/env/impact-of-pesticide-use-in-Indian-agriculture.html



The pattern of pesticide usage in India is different from that for the world in general. As can be seen from Figure 1, in India 76% of 
the pesticide used is insecticide, as against 44% globally9. The use of herbicides and fungicides is correspondingly less heavy. 
The main use of pesticides in India is for cotton crops (45%), followed by paddy and wheat.

Tremendous benefits have been derived from the use of pesticides in forestry, public health and the domestic sphere – and, of course, in agriculture, a sector upon which the Indian economy is largely dependent. Food grain production, which stood at a mere 50 million tons in 1948–49, had increased almost fourfold to 198 million tons by the end of 1996–97 from an estimated 169 million hectares of permanently cropped land. This result has been achieved by the use of high-yield varieties of seeds, advanced irrigation technologies and agricultural chemicals (Employment Information: Indian Labour Statistics, 1994)

Other major input for Indian agriculture is use of various pesticides, like insecticides, weedicides, fungicides, rodenticides etc. As the cropping pattern is becoming more intensive use of these pesticides is also increasing. Consumption of insecticide in agriculture has been increased more than 100% from 1971 to 1994-95. For instance, insecticide consumption in India, which was to the tune of 22013 tonnes has increased to 51755 tonnes by 1994-95 (www.indiastat.com). Consumption of all of these pesticides in same duration has increased more than two times, that is from 24305 tonnes to 61357 tonnes.

Fig: 4 Consumption of Pesticides in India


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## psfred (Jul 16, 2011)

I have a near neighbor who has been a beekeeper for about thirty years now, and who buys bulk honey to re-bottle. He commented the other month that one of his suppliers dropped by to visit on a trip and said "I can't believe you can actually keep bees here, this is a bee desert". He's right, anything that looks like something other than wheat, corn, grass, or soybeans is immediately sprayed with herbicide. No hedgerows, no fencerows, no thickets, no trees, just asphalt, empty farm fields, and close mown lawns. Only one cattle farm up the way, used toe be dozens of people raising dairy cattle on clover, now it's just mono-culture Monsanto GMO crops...

And somehow my bees make honey!

Peter


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

Regardless of your 'facts' I spent three months in Kerala last year and met hundreds of small farmers who were virtually all 'organic'. india is a country of 1,241,491,960 people - and in 2001, 760 MILLION of them were farmers. I guess what that probably means is that that about 750 million of those people are one-family farms with less than 10 acres of land - subsistence farming, organic farming. I am fully aware that the large-scale farming of India - post the 'green revolution' has been under a western-imposed industrial farming model.
They were sold the whole package: tractors, pesticides and GM seeds in return for signing mortgages; millions lost their land to the multinationals and their local Indian agents; there have been over 200,000 suicides by Indian farmers as a result:
c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers'_suicides_in_India#Causes

The reason is that a farmer's debt dies with him - and for over 200,000 of these small farmers - this was the only solution - other than handing over the land, the house and the animals to the corporations. Some dilemma eh? Live and your family starves; kill yourself and they starve because you are not there to do the work of the farm.


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

borderbeeman, what do you think we can do to remedy the harm done?


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

xx


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

Well, in America - you have the National Honey Board campaigning on some level and a few people like Dave Hackenberg and Tom Theobald who are really trying to raise awareness. But in terms of American beekeeping organisations , we don't see any signs of any co-ordinated action at all? It is no better here in the UK - where our national beekeeping organisation was taking money from Bayer and Syngenta for over a decade - 2000-2010 (£200,000 in ten years). There is no hope there at all they are in bed with the Crop Protection lobby, tucked up nice and warm. Both Germany and France have large, well organised National Professional Beekeeping Unions - who lobby government and organise BIG demonstrations - 17,000 people marched through Berlin last month.

But at present, the beekeeping organisations in America and Europe appear to be dead in the water as far as real political action on neonics is concerned. If I am wrong I'd be real happy to be enlightened. All the hard work is being done by environmental NGOs like PANNA. Beyond Pesticides, The Sierra Club and Centre for Food Safety. They are spending lots of time and effort and money trying to get a legislative ban.

Think about it - the beekeeping industry in America has lost - allegedly - 10 million colonies since 2003 -with no end in sight - and there has been no leadership, no organised campaign, no real education, - as far as I am aware. The exact same is true here in the UK. Our own national BKA has got its buttocks stuck on the fence so hard that its throat is full of splinters.

The pesticide companies have played it real good - and after all, they have more than a $billion a year in neonic sales to fund their control strategy. They have bought the regulators on both sides of the Atlantic. They have bought the government silence; they have paid off most of the university researchers, apart from those pesky independent ones in France, Germany and Italy. They have professional. well paid teams of PR people on both sides of the Atlantic, spreading media distraction/ smokescreen stories about microwaves, aliens, mobile phones, varroa, wierdly rare fly parasites, even rarer viruses . . .and it has been incredib;ly successful. It seems extremely likely that they have paid contributors to this Forum and to the British ones, and they have paid 'advocates' who tour the country and international conferences, spreading the Party Line - which is: _[/I]*"neonics have never killed a single bee; it's all about varroa and 'multifactorial influences'; so shut up and eat your pesticides"*


In terms of Europe, the Science has actually WON the argument but that does not mean it has won the political battle.- There will be a vote in the European Commission on March 14th - triggered by the mounting Scientific Evidence from the report produced by *European Food Safety Agency*, which recommends a ban. Here in the UK many of us are asking our MPs to lobby our own govenment to vote FOR the European ban. We already know that the British Minister of Environment is going to vote AGAINST the ban, because of intense lobbying by Bayer, Syngenta and the entire farming lobby - which is the most well-organised and well funded lobby in the UK.

So - it looked like they were going to lose - and the ban was going to go ahead on the Feb 25th vote. They have now finagled a delay of the vote until March 14th - so they can pork-barrel some deals with smaller EU countries like Finland, or Latvia - or anyone who can give them an extra 10 votes. I think the vote will be lost on March 14th - and by that I mean 'beekeepers' will lose.
I may be wrong - but even so it would not bring any immediate relief. Canola is often planted in winter - so we have millions of acres of neonic treated crops coming up right now and we will ahve at least another year of bee losses. You are in a far, far worse situation because there is no chance whatever of the EPA withdrawing the licenses - even if Europe does. So next year, America will have another 92 million acres of neonic treated corn - and another 140 million acres of neonic treated soybeans, wheatm canola and cotton; the bees will continue to die.

On a personal basis - I know that I have to move my bees away from industrial-crop areas, which probably means moving house since I am surrounded by thousands and thousands of acres of OSR and barley here. I have moved my few remaining hives to a woodland garden - about a mile long - where they may find enough nectar to keep them away from the neonic-canola. I am trying to find a way to get them into the National Park which is largely sheep country - but the flora there is spring flowers, then heather in July-August.

I would be very interested as to what YOU think could be done by beekeepers in America - and of course I mean by those beekeepers who accept that the peer-reviewed science is correct, and that systemic neonics on almost 240 million acres of US crops really ARE killing the nation's bees and wildlife on an unprecedented scale.
This should be a self-selecting group, and from what I read here it would be a small minority. Maybe Barry could dedicate an entire section just to beeks who want to do something about this, in a practical sense?_


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

Vance G said:


> One last retort to my friend from the iland of easily hurt feelings. Chauvanism is blind loyalty to ones nation of origin. We do indeed feed a lot of people around the world and our agricultural technology many more. Because your island could once feed itself does not mean that it has been able to for some time. We were embroiled in two wars feeding and arming you, or you would be Herr borderbounder today. The brits slaughtered more than enough people around the world in their period of hegonomy than this country ever thought of troubling. Pesticides are a problem and we all know it, but broad flailing and gnashing of teeth on the subject throws much more noise and smoke than elucidation. Funny you didn't work global warming into the holy trinity of handwringing.


1. The word is [B]Chauvinism[/B] - named after Monsieur Nicolas Chauvin, a French soldier and patriot who is supposed to have served in the First Army of the French Republic and subsequently in La Grande Armée of Napoleon. His name is the eponym of chauvinism, a term for excessive nationalistic fervor. He is said to have been wounded 17 times in the service of his country.

Your entire posting is one of the most Chauvinistic I have ever seen  you can't spell it, but you sure know how to 'be it'

2. Hegomony? The word is Hegemony - Marxist term meaning 'sphere of influence' Do try and get it right!
The British Empire does indeed seem 'bad' to modern eyes, and like all Empires it did some appalilng thing; the current American Empire will be judged in about a hundred years. Nixon and Johnson between them DID kill 3.1 million Vietnamese - as well as 58,000 US troops - so i don't think the poor old Limeys ever played in that league?


3. My feelings are not hurt by your chauvinist attacks; water and ducks backs come to mind. 
Your attempts to start a Yanks v Limeys 'who killed most people' discussion is an attempt to drag the debate down into the gutter of nationalism and chauvinism. You should hang your head in shame, but I doubt you will.

Just for the record, in September 1939 Britain stood alone against Nazism as the only light for democracy, for over two years before America came into the war. But the Yanks and the Russkies DID save our asses. We did help - just a little, by gifting America: radar,the cavity magnetron, the Enigma code and the machine, the Jet engine, antibiotics, the Merlin Engine for the P51, . . . you know, just a few B] little [/B]things

I could go on . . . but you'd only start going on about Yanks and Limeys again :lookout:

I do like your last comment about *global warming* though. . . maybe there IS a way to work that into the soup? Why didn't I THINK of that??? Maybe THAT could explain why 10 million American bee colonies have died since 2003. I mean, there's gotta be an explanation - right?


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

borderbeeman said:


> I would be very interested as to what YOU think could be done by beekeepers in America


If you are a large scale beekeeper pollinating almonds killing off bees is beneficial to you. It raises the cost of pollination and it doesn't affect your area (in America). You are not raising these bees in the areas of mono-culture, you are trucking these bees to the area. I am concerned about what mono-culture is doing to the future of our food supply. Bees are only a small part of that. You would have to be a fool to think that we will be feeding the world 20 years from now. Agriculture is just another industry that will be concentrated in another land, just like textiles, electronics and manufacturing in general.


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## Honey-4-All (Dec 19, 2008)

Boy am I glad someone found the answer to all the worlds bee problems.....

Will be completing my visa and work permit application for India later today. Already speak the language. I do spend a lot of time talking with them after being on hold with one person or the next who can't solve either my computer or phone issue without getting the answer farther up the food chain. NOT!!!!!!


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

borderbeeman said:


> Regardless of your 'facts'


not my fact I don't speculate when the data is available.


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

Last edited by Vance G; Today at 04:47 PM. Reason: fools game sorry

Ya but its winter and I can afford to waste time now.


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

you think it a desert here, tye the sacremento valley! I took my first long trip out there last spring to shake bees...... theose guys have 0 fenrows, and the orchards are bare ground....... dangdest thing I ever seen.....NOTHING but the crops are allowed.... and no one waste water on lawns.....


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

borderbee, why don't you give up beekeeping or figure out how to keep bees where there are GMO and neonics.... thats what us normal folk do.... not all of us are looney enough to try to move our homes to keep our bees on "wildflowers" cause they do better.......

Personaly the BILLIONS of dollars surrounding me for ag helps me a lot more than the pesticides hurt me.......
As for CA and rivers, yup I knew they were there, but 50 feet from water is desert. funny part is arizona used to be green also... but once them limey sheep at all the grass it never grew back.... Just like the valley. without leveled fields, dikes and irrigation, it would be a wasteland of desert weeds...... instead it feed literaly Billions of people all over the world.... but yea lets revert it back to save a few thousand colinies of bees!....
As for the 10 million hives lost.... I don't have the numbers to be exact, but most if not all and more have been replaced. at a cost of course, but replaced nonetheless. I am thinking what we really need to do is revert england back to the wolves..... 200 years ago they were everywhere.....wonder if pesticides were used???


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## mac (May 1, 2005)

wildbranch2007 said:


> Fact check Impact of Pesticide Use in Indian Agriculture - Their Benefits and Hazards


 Fact check Impact of Pesticide Use in Indian Agriculture - Their Benefits and Hazards
As the cropping pattern is becoming more intensive use of these pesticides is also increasing.mption of insecticide in agriculture has been increased more than 100% from 1971 to 1994-95. For instance, insecticide consumption in India, which was to the tune of 22013 tonnes has increased to 51755 tonnes by 1994-95 Newer facts check em out. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/16/india-rice-farmers-revolution?CMP=twt_gu Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India's poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record a group of poverty-stricken Indian rice and potato farmers who harvested confirmed world-record yields of rice and potatoes. Best of all: They did it completely sans-GMOs or even chemicals of any kind. http://grist.org/food/miracle-grow-indian-farmers-smash-crop-yield-records-without-gmos/ not being able to feed the world without chemicals was never true


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

borderbeeman said:


> Regardless of your 'facts'


ha ha ha ha, ya, you about summed it up!


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

...and for those of you that wanted to know how others were faring during that idyllic year of 1869 while Mr. Muir was making his poignant observations. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajputana_famine_of_1869
Im betting some of the folks in Rajputana would have loved a daily helping of Almonds.


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

mac said:


> Fact check Impact of Pesticide Use in Indian Agriculture - Their Benefits and Hazards
> As the cropping pattern is becoming more intensive use of these pesticides is also increasing.mption of insecticide in agriculture has been increased more than 100% from 1971 to 1994-95. For instance, insecticide consumption in India, which was to the tune of 22013 tonnes has increased to 51755 tonnes by 1994-95 Newer facts check em out. http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/16/india-rice-farmers-revolution?CMP=twt_gu Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India's poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record a group of poverty-stricken Indian rice and potato farmers who harvested confirmed world-record yields of rice and potatoes. Best of all: They did it completely sans-GMOs or even chemicals of any kind. http://grist.org/food/miracle-grow-indian-farmers-smash-crop-yield-records-without-gmos/ not being able to feed the world without chemicals was never true


Thanks for that Mac - I had read that a while ago and it is a great example of seing through the lies of 'big Ag.'
When I was in Kerala I met small scale family farmers who put on an exhibition of their products for the conference I was at. They explained that, currently, India still has 300,000 distinct varieties of rice - and we saw some amazing kinds: red rice, purple rice, green rice, brown rice - even a 'diabetic' rice. This last was fascinating, but the farmers were 'tickled' by our Western ignorance: 'everybody knows that if you eat 'diabetic rice' your diabetes is under better control, and you can reduce medicines'. These varieties have been selected and bred in a million villages over thousands of years. They told us they were fighting for their livelihoods. Monsanto is lobbying the Indian govt to allow its GM rice into the country; $billions are being promised to politicians. If the deal goes ahead, they said that ALL of those 300,000 varieties of rice would disappear within a few years, since the GM rice would cross-pollinate the old varieties, and under WTO law, if they find Monsanto's gene in your rice, your crop belongs to them. End game. Thousands of years of genetic diversity and strength may be thrown away for the sake of one corporation's profits. The existing system uses few, or no, pesticides and relies on the massive bio-diversity of the rice paddies to kill off pests. The fields are full of ducks, dragonflies, preying mantis and ladybugs. Under the GM crop proposed systems there is massive use of insecticides (genetic and systemic) and of herbicides; wildlife takes a dive, bees take a dive.


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

You don't even need to leave California to read about how 'others were faring' in 1869. Muir's eye-witness descriptions of San Francisco at that time are of a place filled with drugs, crime, booze and prostitution. After just one day Muir asked a carpenter to show him 'the quickest way out of town'. 

He was appalled by the ruthless money-grabbing he witnessed in California - writing:

"If possible, and profitable, every tree, bush and leaf, with the soil they are growing on, and the whole solid uplift of the mountains would be cut, blasted, scraped, shoveled and shipped away to any market, home or foreign. Everything without exception, even to souls and geography, would be sold for money could a market be found for such articles. "
("Forests of the Sierra," San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, June 29, 1889.)

Thankfully, Muir spent over 40 years fighting to save the best parts of California from 'ravaging commercialism' - and he succeeded in creating Yosemite National Park - and in founding the Sierra Club. He also wrote:

Garden- and park-making goes on everywhere with civilization, for everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul. This natural beauty-hunger is displayed in poor folks' window-gardens made up of a few geranium slips in broken cups, as well as in the costly lily gardens of the rich, the thousands of spacious city parks and botanical gardens, and in our magnificent National parks -- the Yellowstone, Yosemite, Sequoia, etc. -- Nature's own wonderlands, the admiration and joy of the world. *Nevertheless, like everything else worth while, however sacred and precious and well-guarded, they have always been subject to attack, mostly by despoiling gainseekers, -- mischief-makers of every degree from Satan to supervisors, lumbermen, cattlemen, farmers, etc., eagerly trying to make everything dollarable, often thinly disguised in smiling philanthropy, calling pocket-filling plunder "Utilization of beneficent natural resources, that man and beast may be fed and the dear Nation grow great." *


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## borderbeeman (Dec 16, 2010)

gmcharlie said:


> borderbee, why don't you give up beekeeping or figure out how to keep bees where there are GMO and neonics.... thats what us normal folk do.... not all of us are looney enough to try to move our homes to keep our bees on "wildflowers" cause they do better.......
> 
> 
> I am thinking what we really need to do is revert england back to the wolves..... 200 years ago they were everywhere.....wonder if pesticides were used???





> You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use the Beesource Beekeeping Forums to post any material which is knowingly false and/or defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise violative of any law. You agree to be civil and "observe with both friend and foe the ordinary rules of courtesy."
> Be civil. Personal attacks are never okay. We can disagree and debate a subject, which is fine.


I believe you CAN read can't you?


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

borderbeeman said:


> I believe you CAN read can't you?


You agree, through your use of this service, that you will not use the Beesource Beekeeping Forums to post any material which is knowingly false


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## gmcharlie (May 9, 2009)

There was no personal attack or deformation, just a general statement. And a observation of the obvious. Trying to ban something that is good for ag, is as off the wall as trying to revert England back to the way it was 200 years ago. You seem to want to use goverment intervention in a country thats not even yours. to regulate what MILLIONS of people use, and appreciate. Much like the cutter companies that made Margarine color the product pink, you want to change the world back to your ideal of perfect...... to do so it appears very much that YOU have been writing articles devoid of facts or references, and trying to drum up support for some sore of global ban, and worse yet trying to convince people who haven't seen the real studies, that you know whats best for them......... We all have choices.... and I haven't heard of anyone who would move there home to find some panacea of flowers just for their bees.....
Last guy I saw that odd was Timothy Treadwell, and that one worked out kinda cool.......

http://www.yellowstone-bearman.com/Tim_Treadwell.html


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## BlueDiamond (Apr 8, 2011)

borderbeeman said:


> So, California - was once a bee-paradise (though the honeybee was only introduced in the 1840s) - for native bees and bumblebees. Contrast the above eye-witness description with the pesticide-drenched monoculture of the central valley today.


Nowadays the Central Valley is a paradise for almond trees and the honeybees that pollinate them as you can see in this video I shot 4 days ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fECyZ9vjz8


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## Ian (Jan 16, 2003)

Is it common to leave the hives in a stack as that?


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## Vance G (Jan 6, 2011)

Looks like the bees are happy to me Blue Diamond. Mine are foraging snow banks. I wish they were there.


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## Spark (Feb 24, 2011)

I believe Blue Diamond only posts to GMO and pesticide type threads and has been called a shill in the past so I don't think any info provided by them(?) has any real relevance here. Believe what you want but wasn't Agent Orange acceptable at one time too or maybe it still is:

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/food/genetically-engineered-foods/24-d-corn/


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## mac (May 1, 2005)

still is.


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## JD's Bees (Nov 25, 2011)

One mixture of Agent Orange used equal parts of 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T. The 2,4,5-T was contaminated with dioxins and that is what caused the health problems.
2,4-D has been used in agriculture for over sixty years.


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## Nabber86 (Apr 15, 2009)

borderbeeman said:


> They explained that, currently,_* India still has 300,000 *_distinct varieties of rice - and we saw some amazing kinds: red rice, purple rice, green rice, brown rice - even a 'diabetic' rice.


I dont know is you just like to make up numbers to further your cause or you are just plain ignorant of the facts, but the number of rice varieties _*worldwide is around 40,000*_. 

Here are a few sources for you that back up the 40,000 figure: 

Nipunarice Mills in Sri Lanka http://nipunarice.com/rice-o-pedia/major-rice-producing-nations

Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rice_varieties

The Rice Authority: http://www.riceauthority.com/rice-varieties/

Please note the term ignorant is used in the literal sense and is not meant to be an insult.


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## oblib (Oct 28, 2011)

Nabber86 said:


> Please note the term ignorant is used in the literal sense and is not meant to be an insult.


From websters:

Definition of IGNORANT

1a : destitute of knowledge or education <an ignorant society>; also : lacking knowledge or comprehension of the thing specified <parents ignorant of modern mathematics> b : resulting from or showing lack of knowledge or intelligence <ignorant errors> 
2: unaware, uninformed 

OR

Willfully ignorant...Of their own will, they ignore facts, sound advice, accurate information and the truth...They are willfully ignorant


Hmm I sometimes wonder.


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## Nabber86 (Apr 15, 2009)

oblib said:


> Willfully ignorant...Of their own will, they ignore facts, sound advice, accurate information and the truth...They are willfully ignorant
> 
> 
> Hmm I sometimes wonder.


That sounds really close to the legal term of willfully negligent, as in providing willfully negligent advice.



Hmm I sometimes wonder myself.....


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## jonathan (Nov 3, 2009)

Nabber86 said:


> I dont know is you just like to make up numbers to further your cause or you are just plain ignorant of the facts,


Do the math!

http://www.beesource.com/forums/sho...-2-000-hives-in-one-month&p=899846#post899846


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## Acebird (Mar 17, 2011)

BlueDiamond said:


> Nowadays the Central Valley is a paradise for almond trees and the honeybees that pollinate them as you can see in this video I shot 4 days ago:


Why are they spraying the trees when the bees are there?


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## wildbranch2007 (Dec 3, 2008)

Acebird said:


> Why are they spraying the trees when the bees are there?


I was more impressed with the fact the person doing the spraying didn't have any breathing protection on. Even with fungicides I use protection.
does save on retirement saving and soc. sec.


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