Monin’ Christy. It’s a beautiful spring day here outside of Annapolis. Thanks again for all you and the others do. Your reporting on Gonzales’ testimony was outstanding. Here’s my shorter version…

Abu’s Wheel of Testimony

Spin the wheel
“I don’t remember”
Spin the wheel
“no recollection”
Spin the wheel
“I don’t recall”
Spin the wheel
“not about the election”

Spin the wheel
“Nothing improper”
Spin the wheel
“I wasn’t involved”
Spin the wheel
“I should have been clearer”
Spin the wheel
“It was Sampson’s call”

:)

Christy!

Morning all. Love this cartoon linky on Saturdays.

Good morning, Christy.

Morning, Pups! Christy! I was getting desparate for some morning chat. Thanks to twolf1, from downstairs, who alerted me to come upstairs.

Morning all — coffee just finished brewing, it is a gorgeous day here…life is good.

Brownandserve — that is hilarious.

Good morning, Christy!

Going to the botanical gardens today [suburban, not DC].

Re bees, my brother-in-law is a beekeeper in rural CT, he had an unexplained collapse of his colonies last year, lost something like 1/3 of them and couldn’t figure out why.

Morning.
The bee topic is new to me.
First question off the top of my head would be
“Are geneticly modified crops a factor?”

Good morning from L.A.

Always been a recycler. Cutting down on waste of all kinds keeps this planet blue, so personally throwing away as little as possible is primo.

Happy to say I recently bought a Prius. What a great car :)

Looks like the Sierra Club is asking my question.

That’s an excellent book Christy(so is Democracy’s Edge,which would be a good book salon choice,ahem,lol).

Because our winters in Metro Atlanta have been so mild and wierd,we now have a proliferation of red wasps. Mean little suckers too.Owie.

Bees are still around,though I have noticed not quite as many as in prior years. I have an old apple tree in my back yard,and this year the bees were happily buzzing in and out of all the blossoms. I need to plant more bee friendly plants/flowers,maybe we all should.

I’m trying to grow as much of my own food as possible. And looking for places to buy local. America’s suburbs aren’t friendly to any of that,but I’m not giving up. My son and I hope to grow and sell our own pumpkins,gourds,sunflowers and herbs this year. We won’t get rich,but it will be a pretty hefty return on our investment.(100 pumpkins,if we can sell all of them for 5 bucks a pop is 500 dollars. The seed was free,the garden space already cleared,all that’s needed is weeding and watering,not a bad deal.The trick will be finding buyers)

I’m looking at using worms in the compost heap too,I’ve noticed a decline in earthworms where I live. We need worms in places where we grow food.

Christy – I agree that we need to come up with ways to help save the planet. I also might add that reading Diet For Small Planet years ago (when I was in college) made me feel very guilty. In fact, my roommate and I, who frequently made the Savory Onion Quiche recipe, used to call it “The Self-Righteous Cookbook.” Now I feel guilty for so much disrespect.

Oh,I forgot,duh,I’m also thinking of keeping bees,I just have to save up some money to buy the equipment and the bees.

Great topic, now that spring is finally here in the northeast (the morning birdsong is fabulous!).

One of my favorite food-environmental writers is Michael Pollan, and I can’t recommend his Omnivore’s Dilemma highly enough.

He puts forward a great argument for eating both seasonally and locally, as much as possible. And he is a real foodie, in that he loves to both cook and eat and writes beautifully about the pleasures of both.

OT for a discussion of small steps, but:

Scientists have long considered using thorium as a reactor fuel — and for good reason: The naturally occurring element is more abundant, more efficient and safer to use than uranium. Plus, thorium reactors leave behind very little plutonium, meaning that governments have access to less material for making nuclear weapons.

http://www.wired.com/science/d…..5/07/68045

Mack @ 8

Morning.
The bee topic is new to me.
First question off the top of my head would be
“Are geneticly modified crops a factor?”

Good morning everyone. There are several possible reasons being put forth, one of which is genetically modified crops. Pesticides have been mentioned too, but the newest theory is the possibility that cell phone towers are responsible for affecting the bees’ navigational systems. Bill Maher had quite a bit to say about that last night.

I picked up a cookbook several years ago entitled “More With Less” that I remembered a Great Aunt using when I was a kid. Thought it might be of interest to other folks who are trying to reduce their environmental footprint a bit — the recipes in this are fairly simple, but the intent is to be more careful about the choices we make and the impact that those choices have on the world around us.

wangdangdoodle: I’m in (north)…Texas and there are no high-powered transmission lines in my ‘hood (we have underground); no cel phone towers close by either.

Underground lines actually emit more radiation to the surface than overhead lines because they are closer, and the ground doesn’t appreciably attenuate radiation at such a low frequency (60 Hz). Also the intensity of the radiation is so low there’s just no way it could have any effect on organisms (like bees or people). Frontline did a good show on this a few years back.

Cell phones– I don’t know cell phones. But I think this is one good way to approach the problem– look at the things that have changed recently that could be causing the problem.

Several years ago when I heard of the bee problem I noticed that it was rare to see a honey bee in my flower garden. But last year I saw more so I thought maybe they were coming back. You’d think anything this important would immediately cause the government to announce a major effort to address the problem. But haven’t heard of anything.

‘Morning, Christy!

Let’s see:

– Most of our high-use bulbs are the low-wattage compact fluorescents (we’ll have the rest switched over soon)

– We recycle aluminum, glass, plastics, cardboard and paper, to the point where we only need to throw out one small bag of actual garbage each week

– We don’t own a Prius, but our Mazda 3 gets 30-35 mpg and gives us 140 HP

– We use warm or cold water when washing clothes and low heat when drying them

– We put 3M window insulation sheets on the insides of our windows each winter (saves $$ on heating costs, plus it keeps condensation from rotting our windowframes)

We could do a lot more, but we’ve been amazed so far at just how much a few easy-peasy actions can do.

retirin’ in five @ 3

Morning all. Love this cartoon linky on Saturdays.

Ya know, you’ve been with us for a long time now. Shouldn’t it be “retirin’ in four”?

I noticed a drop off last year around my house since I photograph a lot butterflies, bees and flowers. I didn’t give it much thought iuntil I started reading about the collapse of bee colonies.

Switch away from petroleum based cleaning product. From the label of Seventh Generation Dish Liquid. Bold is theirs

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one bottle of 25 oz. petroleum based dishwashing liquid with our 25 oz. vegetable based product, we could save 81,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 4,600 homes for a year!

Seventh Generation Products

And more importantly cut our dependence of oil.

Another brand that I’ve used and liked trhe results of
http://www.methodhome.com

Create the demand and these companies will thrive.

Re environment, I’m pushing myself to walk much longer distances. The grocery is about 1.5 miles away, and that will be within range by midsummer if I keep up my program.

Yeah, right. Typical left-wing narrative:

1. Find an enemy of America, who wants to harm the Homeland and take away our Security.

2. Portray said enemy as oppressed victims of America.

3. No, not just victims, actually our friends, who just want to help us.

4. Destroy American liberties and economy in order to accommodate the polleno-fascists.

Colony Collapse Disorder is in fact just another fantasy from the hate-America-first crowd,
with about as much scientific basis as global warming.

Oh, wait…

Years ago in Boulder, CO I rented a room from an “animal rights activist”. She said one of her friends refused to eat honey because she thought it was exploiting the bees!

denise @ 16

Mack @ 8

Morning.
The bee topic is new to me.
First question off the top of my head would be
“Are geneticly modified crops a factor?”

Good morning everyone. There are several possible reasons being put forth, one of which is genetically modified crops. Pesticides have been mentioned too, but the newest theory is the possibility that cell phone towers are responsible for affecting the bees’ navigational systems. Bill Maher had quite a bit to say about that last night.

I remember reading recently that there was a bee die off in France in the 90s, and that they identified certain genetically (and patented, btw) modified crops and ended up banning some of them.

This makes particular sense to me, because some are being modified to be insect resistant (hello????) and others so that they don’t reproduce–so as to force the farmer to continue to buy seeds from the big companies like Monsanto.

The demise of the honey bee has been greatly exaggerated. This is precisely the same group of alarmists that have been warning about the end of chocolate due to cocoa dying out.

Honey bees are not somehow immune from harm because they are environmentally and economically important, but the resources people are willing to invest to protect their bees should not be underestimated.

If you really want to protect the bees, go buy some honey or fruit that is pollinated by bees. Agribusiness isn’t very friendly on a number of issues, but one thing it does very well is look out for its own interests.

It’s pretty obvious when you think of it… that life is a web and if you undermine a part of it.. it puts severe strains on the rest.

We are almost at the point where we have emptied the oceans of many species of fish and we may not be eating them for dinner.. but neither will other fish and they will then die out and we will have a pretty dead ocean in very very short order.

The bee population collapse will have catastrophic effect.. and I wonder if it is a world wide thing of just a north american thing?

Man has done a nice job of destroying nature wherever he treads and “develops” civilization. We’re not dealing with over population and the carrying capacity of the planet.

The rich nations are using enormous resources… one american uses as much as the next 24 largest nations is something I recall. That is frightening. We waste, consume, and pollute all in the pursuit of comfort and wealth (more comfort).

The solutions are going to be very painful to selfish unthinking americans and they won’t be doing it voluntarily. But the third world has to seriously stop the breeding… too many people means more and more poverty.

When gasolene is chaper than milk… we gonna drive drive drive.

Personally I consume as little as I possibly can, take public transport and sail which is quite environmentally friendly. Next a smaller car. We changed all our bulbs to fluors and next it will LEDs. Almost anyone can do this and should.

We buy locally grown produce from farmer’s markets whenever possible.

We need more Inconvenient Truths and less media liars in our faces all the time.

I personally don’t think we will make it much further…But I suspect I will be gone before the real pain hits. It will be very ugly.

Read: The Long Emergency by Howard Kunstler. He paints a picture of the not too distant future and it is not pretty.

Also you can choose the source of your electricity in the Midatlantic area here.

http://www.cleanyourair.org.

egregious @ 20

retirin’ in five @ 3

Morning all. Love this cartoon linky on Saturdays.

Ya know, you’ve been with us for a long time now. Shouldn’t it be “retirin’ in four”?

Somebody asked that yesterday. In this BushCo economy, the five’s on hold. But I only de-lurked last fall so it’s still valid for a while longer.

‘Morning, FirePups, Christy.

Making the rounds of greenhouses and landscape shops today, will watch for bee counts. I only know I have a LOT more wasps than I’ve had in the past. Is there a correlation? Do wasps not have issues with navigation or GMO crops?

I also don’t remember seeing a single bee while I was in central Florida for ten days, again only wasps. ??

Will check in later. We are so screwed if we have to learn how to pollinate all our own foods by hand…

I don’t think WE need to save the planet.

I think we have done enormous damage and Gaia needs to rid itself of homosapiens.

The beautiful blue earth will be a lot better off without human pollution… and hence without humans.

Homosapiens = a failed evolutionary experiment

Wow! I’ve been offline for the weekend staying on the beach in Naples Florida and imagine my surprise when I saw this here computer in the hotel lobby……anything new since Friday?

There’s a time limit so please be short…Is Bush still pResident??

This is sort of tangential to the discussion but I’ve become a fan of Freecycling. The Goal of a Freecycle group is

to reduce waste by connecting individuals who are throwing away goods with others who could use them.

Whether you’re looking to discard or acquire an item, this is the place to do it.

EVERYTHING must be FREE- no trading, no buying, and no selling!

Sometimes things still have usable life in them but they end up in the landfill because people have upgraded or otherwise no longer have use for them. By posting a message to your local Freecycle message board (there are currently 4,026 local groups) you can arrange to put it out on the porch if someone offers to pick it up.

And lastly before I go and plant some bird food wildflower seeds and sunflower seeds, use canvas bags at the grocery store, or big box retailers, talk to the check out people and let them know that more then 3 items can fit in one bag, and think about how you spend your money.

Consumerism with all the packaging, use of resources, exploitation of manufacturing countries with lax environmental and labor laws, and all the trash that rampant consumerism produces, creates a big enviromental challenge.

Reward the comapnies that do it right, and create the market that will allow them to thrive.

DefJef @ 30

I don’t think WE need to save the planet.

I think we have done enormous damage and Gaia needs to rid itself of homosapiens.

The beautiful blue earth will be a lot better off without human pollution… and hence without humans.

Homosapiens = a failed evolutionary experiment

I think you should lead by example, DefJef. I remember when you were lecturing Christy about doing her Christmas shopping online and I know you think we should all take responsibility for doing our small part to make the world a better place.

Also, it is worth noting that this issues is one that we can build common cause with, with a growing segment of Evangelical Christians.

This article from the NY Times is particularly interesting.

Many are calling it “Creation Care” and have published the following manifesto.

Millineryman reminded me of our shift recently to ordering flowers and plants which are organic.

If you simply look at all the garbage in the streets of NYC and surrounds you can see we are a nation of slobs.

Look at the train right of ways in NY.. they look like continuous garbage dumps. Who owns and maintains these right of ways? Why… our government and it is a major slob… and example setter.

We are a nation of slobs with a few people of evolved conscious scattered about. Not much hope for merikans.

Re politicization of the EPA: In 2003, my husband applied for a position, fairly high, in the EPA. He caught their interest and a phone interview was set up. In the interval between arranging the interview and the actual phone call, he signed a petition of Vietnam Vets Against the Iraq War. The interview began with, “Well, have you heard from the President about your objection to the Iraq War?” Chilling then, chilling now. He expanded his job search abroad at that point.

NZexpat—

Great to see you! How was your move back to the States? Hope things are going well with your family.

That story is chilling indeed.

Rayne @ 31

‘Morning, FirePups, Christy.

Making the rounds of greenhouses and landscape shops today, will watch for bee counts. I only know I have a LOT more wasps than I’ve had in the past. Is there a correlation? Do wasps not have issues with navigation or GMO crops?

I also don’t remember seeing a single bee while I was in central Florida for ten days, again only wasps. ??

Will check in later. We are so screwed if we have to learn how to pollinate all our own foods by hand…

In general, most wasps are not pollinators. Some are scavengers and others are predators preying on flies and other insects.

Fischer…

Excuse me.. I was lecturing someone about online shopping?

I try to leave a small footprint here… when I pass there will be no accumulated junk and I have not polluted the planet with children… nor has my sister. Our brother has two kids… so people with families are all about accumulating property to pass along.

I don’t think I need to be an example… and I don’t think anyone else does. You need to think rationally and leave a clean wake and a small footprint.

Brownandserve @
1

Monin’ Christy. It’s a beautiful spring day here outside of Annapolis. Thanks again for all you and the others do. Your reporting on Gonzales’ testimony was outstanding. Here’s my shorter version…

Abu’s Wheel of Testimony

Spin the wheel
“I don’t remember”
Spin the wheel
“no recollection”
Spin the wheel
“I don’t recall”
Spin the wheel
“not about the election”

Spin the wheel
“Nothing improper”
Spin the wheel
“I wasn’t involved”
Spin the wheel
“I should have been clearer”
Spin the wheel
“It was Sampson’s call”

:)

Hilarious!

Requesting permission to include my favorite on the wheel;

“I searched my memory about that“

Gives me the image of Gonzo sticking a flashlight to his ear to look around.

The Bush administration is a good example of what happens when all possible cross-pollination is eliminated.

Deny admission to anyone who has any opposition to their ideas, and Presto!! The rot begins from within.

Politicization to the bone.

I heard an elementary teacher explain to her students that “throw away” is not something we do but rather a place.

This is her intro to recycling and the prelim for a landfill field trip.

DefJef @ 37

If you simply look at all the garbage in the streets of NYC and surrounds you can see we are a nation of slobs.

Look at the train right of ways in NY.. they look like continuous garbage dumps. Who owns and maintains these right of ways? Why… our government and it is a major slob… and example setter.

We are a nation of slobs with a few people of evolved conscious scattered about. Not much hope for merikans.

NYC uses far less energy “per capita” than any other place in “merika” because of those train right of ways. Most of us do not even own a car and we walk and ride public transit. We live in smaller dwellings, and we buy less “stuff” because we have no place to put it.

If you took the population of NYC and spread it out into the average suburban dwelling (house, yard, driveway), it is estimated that it would cover 6 New England states.

Yes, there is garbage in the train right-of-ways, but when you consider the literally millions of people who travel through them on a daily basis, it is not all that bad.

I have seen worse garbage strewn by the side of the road in rural areas with a tiny fraction of NYC’s population.

Which is to say that most people here are considerate and conscientiously use can’s on the platforms, which happen to be divided into recyclable categories in some places like Grand Central Station.

Actually, I am somewhat optimistic about the future. I follow alternative/renewable energy trends quite closely, and there are discussion groups that keep up on these trends.

As for the bee population, I have only followed it in a cursory manner so I can’t say anything with authority about it.

Still, there is enough solar and wind and bioenergy available in the US for us to be completely independent. Sorry I don’t have links at the moment, but I will work on it and report later.

As for organic foods, it is growing at a very rapid rate and small organic farmers are efficient if only there were the political will to support them rather than the megafarm industry.

STTP in Ohio @ 44

Requesting permission to include my favorite on the wheel;

“I searched my memory about that“

Gives me the image of Gonzo sticking a flashlight to his ear to look around.

I thought that was code for: “I asked Karl Rove”

There’s a time limit so please be short…Is Bush still pResident??

’bout as much as he ever has been.

I have been worried about the bees. All of my fruit trees seem to have been pollinated this year.

Except for one tree that was growing in my yard when I came, all of the trees now there are due to composting.

I have several new peach trees sprouted this year. . .found one when I was in the compost last night too.

BTW, I again raise my objection to calling the WaPoo the Compost. Because compost makes something good out of miscellaneous clippings and such. The Wa is just Poo.

Hey egregious! I thought I had waited long enough to avoid the cold weather (unseasonably warm March here), but there was a real cold snap and snow in mid-April. But it is warming up here now.

It may be life with kids again, but I have been in a car more and in stores more in two weeks here than in two months. I’m trying to cling to my more peaceful Kiwi ways, but there is pressure to hurry up and do more. And the amount of choices in the stores is overwhelming and unnecessary.

It is glorious, though, to be with my daughter after a year and a quarter of not seeing her. And reunited with the sweet galumph of a son, age 16, whom I hadn’t seen for three months. He has been particularly kind and affectionate, even as he seems so mature.

I haven’t heard that Europe is facing this bee problem and they have cell towers all over. They do have underground power lines though.

I was in banking for 25 years and when our bank was bought by one of the big banks, I knew my job would be eliminated so I waited for that severance package, thinking that would give me the time to retool. (I was wrong, but I learned to live cheaply.) All I knew is that that I wanted to be self-employed and work on community redevelopment projects. I discovered that unless you have a lot of money (which I didn’t) to finance your own projects, it’s tough to get contracts working on these projects. For the last year, I’ve been studying alternative energy and eco-industrial development, and will soon try my hand at convincing businesses, particularly industrial plants, to convert to geothermal and solar energy. Installation of a geothermal pipe field and use of ground source heat pumps can cut heating and A/C energy usage by almost 50%, and that’s a big chunk of energy usage. If solar panels are added, the company starts generating its own energy, and in my state (OK) the utility (unless it’s a rural electric co-op) is required to allow net-metering, so if excess electricity is generated, the electric meter essentially runs backwards. If they add battery backup to the solar panels, they can keep essential systems running even if there is a power outage and the sun doesn’t shine for a few days. With the ice storms we had this winter, that is a real benefit. And the third benefit (in addition to cutting utility costs and being able to operate during power outages) is that it will reduce the company’s carbon footprint. I’m hoping that I can make living while doing a small part in helping the planet.

STTP in Ohio @ 43

Requesting permission to include my favorite on the wheel;

“I searched my memory about that“

Gives me the image of Gonzo sticking a flashlight to his ear to look around.

Yeah, that was one of my favorites too. I also like “This was a process that was ongoing that I did not have transparency into.” Talk about being opaque ;)

For the bee experts: can you tell me if Africanized bees suffer from the same “lost colony” syndrome as European-strain bees? I have never see this reported and I expect that is because African hoey bees (killer bees) are not highly regarded. On the other hand, I hear they do the same sort of work (pollinating things) in the environment. SO what I am getting at is: does this mean a niche opens up for the spread of Africanized bees albeit naturally, not industrially?

It is finally warm here and sunny!!!
We had snow/ice storm last weekend and sunny and 60 this weekend!!!

I know Cornell University is worried about the bees and rightly so. The last I heard, it was a world wide problem. Yesterday was the first warm day, the bees usually take a while to show up. We have had lots of birds at the feeder and they are providing hours of joy.
Happy Weekend to Everyone!!!
PS Didn’t Gonzalas look like an idiot on the stand? This is our best and brightest?

Emma,

You might want to study the LEEDS guidelines and contact Mays Lin (she’s in NYC) who is very involved with green buildings and energy use reduction, recycling and so forth.

the problem wrt to feeling guilty is, imo, that i don’t think it really is completely (or even mostly) possible to live in a way that is consistent with our values.

or at least i have’t found it.

just think of the social injustices and environmental damage done by the manufacture (and disposal) of the computers we are all typing on.

we need to make major social/cultural/political changes…. but, in the mean time, while we’re working on systemic change… we can also try to be honest and careful about the everyday choices we make.

at least that is what i tell myself. not saying there is even one day that i live up to it…. a goal to be persued…

p.s. i found “hope’s edge” to be, well, hopeful… not depressing or guilt inducing…

Emma @ 53
That is a truly inspirational story

Good morning everyone. Back from my vacation in TX where I met a fellow firepup GrandmaJo. Had a great time and she taught me to make fish soup. Really. Quite good. Have made it twice and it has been widely ‘eaten with gusto.’

Am up to my armpits in boxes. I have to be out of my house next Friday. I will be living with my daughter for a while so she can go back to school and work on her small business. But between the ‘get out’ date and the ‘move in’ date there is a gap. I will be calling in alot of favors among friends I guess. Have small bag — will travel. Wondering if I need to buy me a traveling computer.

Speaking personally, there are lots of bees here in Minnesota in my small town. And they all prefered my shed vent for their home. I guess the combination of all the weeds I had let bloom and the warm coziness of the protected shed was irresistible. But the problem is very real.

sofistic @ 48

Actually, I am somewhat optimistic about the future. I follow alternative/renewable energy trends quite closely, and there are discussion groups that keep up on these trends.

As for the bee population, I have only followed it in a cursory manner so I can’t say anything with authority about it.

Still, there is enough solar and wind and bioenergy available in the US for us to be completely independent. Sorry I don’t have links at the moment, but I will work on it and report later.

As for organic foods, it is growing at a very rapid rate and small organic farmers are efficient if only there were the political will to support them rather than the megafarm industry.

solar manufacture:google
in US Konarka is one.sorry no links
also dye sensitized solar cell

i’m pretty sure there is a thriving permaculture
scene in US.
it’s not hard to do and the results are good
google again.

for the person with few earthworms.
sheet mulching starting with wet ground layered newspaper underneath grass clippings or hay
or wood chips etc,will give the right breeding conditions.avoid inorganic pesticides and detergents.they dont mind soapy water.
if you are real country,horse or cow or sheep manure or blood & bone under the newspaper.
cheers.

Here’s an interesting (if not scary) link to a UK article on this topic. Makes me think if we’re doing our children a favor by popping cellphones in young one’s hands for their “safety”?

In a different direction, I attended a funeral this week (my dentist’s 57 year old wife…AGHH!)but a poem from her to her family was included in the service. I thought it was amazing, especially during this week of horror in this country as well as Iraq, and a reminder of our humanity.

TO THOSE I LOVE (Isla Paschal Richardson)

If I should ever leave you whom I love
To go along the Silent Way, grieve not,
Nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk
Of me as if I were beside you there.
(I’d come, I’d come, could I but find a way!
But would not tears and grief be barriers?)
And when you hear a song or see a bird
I loved, please do not let the thought of me
Be sad..For I am loving you just as
I always have..Your were so good to me!
There are so many things I wanted still
To do..so many things to say to you..
Remember that I did not fear..It was
Just leaving you that was so hard to face
We cannot see Beyond..But this I know:
I loved you so..’twas heaven here with you!

At Arizona State, Tuscon, they have developed a mathematical model of Bee Population modeling

Good morning Christie, from a fellow West Virginian. We live in the eastern panhandle, and used to keep bees. But about 5 years ago when the varroa and trachael mites moved in we started losing our colonies every winter and gave up. After that, it became very rare to see any honey bees at all, and even native bees seemed rare. Last year,we decided to try beekeeping again. It was that or sell off all of our equipment. So far so good, they survived the winter. But other beekeepers out here have been losing many of their colonies for no apparent reason, and CCD comes to mind. Every beekeeper I know is very concerned about this.

Emma @54

Thisd is an interesting little company too. I read about it in Architectural Record…wind power for the home without having to be in the Great Plains or the Beach!

http://www.aerotecture.com/

Selise@58 you make an excellent point. Makes me think of the obnoxious argument used by nut-job-Inhofe and wingnut cohorts against Al Gore. By accusing Al of not being 100% consistent with his principals (which, you are correct is impossible) the wingnuts’ next argument is, since you can’t be 100% consistent with protecting environment, then no one should do anything to protect environment.

here in MA… spring has arrive today. sunny, with a forcasted high of 77!!!!

and this, after snowing last week. wow.

headed out to enjoy the day….

wvng at 65 — Wow, if the eastern panhandle area is having bee issues, that isn’t good. You all produce a heckuva lot of the apple crop every year, along with a lot of other fruit (including some of my favorite peaches). Am glad your current colony is doing well, but if we’re having problems in WV then I am really going to have to dig into this issue a bit more. We still have so much of a rural setting in so much of the state (although the easter panhandle has really built up the last few years as the DC sprawl has moved our way).

All it takes is imagination and will (Duh). But seriously, we need to change (or return to) a culture we once had. There is no need for Americans to consume 25% of the world’s energy. That means some serious changes in cultural values.

There is an old Vermont farmer’s saying: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”

Mae @ 67

Selise@58 you make an excellent point. Makes me think of the obnoxious argument used by nut-job-Inhofe and wingnut cohorts against Al Gore. By accusing Al of not being 100% consistent with his principals (which, you are correct is impossible) the wingnuts’ next argument is, since you can’t be 100% consistent with protecting environment, then no one should do anything to protect environment.

i think it is a convenient way to deflect feelins of guilt about their own personal responsibility for the choices they make.

the truth is not convenient.

It seems to me that we are not losing our bee populations in small suburban areas but in large farm belts where genetically modified seeds are used. The number of cell towers are not that concentrated in those farm belts. It doesn’t look like too much research is needed to answer this question. It’s a matter of which large corporate interest will squelch the research.

selise at 68 — It is absolutely gorgeous here today. We are definitely going to have to get outside a bit today — it is too pretty to keep The Peanut in this afternoon.

I’m wondering how many of us use any form of renewable energy. Our first step will be solar water heating, followed by small scale solar generated electricity. WV doesn’t have any state incentives for this yet, but many states do. You can find out what your state offers here. There are also federal subsidies and incentives. If you can combine them, you can end up paying only about a third of the cost.

sofistic @ 70

All it takes is imagination and will (Duh). But seriously, we need to change (or return to) a culture we once had. There is no need for Americans to consume 25% of the world’s energy. That means some serious changes in cultural values.

There is an old Vermont farmer’s saying: “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without”

thats not just a Vermont saying.
we had it drummed into us as children here on the other side of the world

DefJef,

Yes, LEEDS offers a great blueprint for going green. I attended a sustainability conference last year and there was a presentation by Paul Westbroo, an engineer at Texas Instruments who convinced the company to build their new plant in TX rather than overseas (as TI had originally), and to make it a green building. They agreed, but only if the plant could be built for 25 or 30% less than their previous plant. The new plant met the LEED requirements, cost 30% less than the previous facility, and saves more than $4 million in operating costs a year. If you want to read about the TI plant, here’s a link:

http://www.analogzone.com/grnrept26.htm

A number of years ago Marshall McLuhan sagely observed that the medium is the message.

Do you realize that FDL’s interactive live-blogging is a new medium? The implications of its message is a bit mind-bending.

With Gonzales I participated here during the day. That night I caught the first hour on the tube. I discovered the medium did impact the message. You are really onto something good.

Good morning FireDogs! A gorgeous day in central Indiana, gonna work on that honeydo list today…

old gold at 77 — Thanks — very cool perspective on the liveblogging. Much appreciated.

One of the simplest, smallest things taught to me by my mother was the use of heavy drapes (unfashionable, I know). In the deep cold of winter, they were closed. In the intense heat of a Kansas summer (we had no air conditioning), they were closed. She would just spend a few minutes closing the drapes on the east side in the morning, then open them in the afternoon as she closed the ones on the west side in the afternoon.

My father planted shade trees all around the house in 1947, even before he finished building the house. When my husband and I moved in here in 1989, the house had been here for 13 years and no trees had been planted. My dad brought up starter trees, more than enough for us. My neighbors took them so there are other trees on the street, tall and shady, besides our own from him. Dad died in 1997, but of course, I see his tall legacy here on our street.

Don’t let the teevee tell you that you need the new this or that. Get out your old toys and enjoy them again. Play catch with an old rubber ball. Simplify and save. Teach your kids to enjoy the simple things. Slow down and breathe. Let’s all do our homework and save some cash while we’re at it.

Oops…typo above. The engineer’s name is Paul Westbrook, not Westbroo. For some reason the K key on my new laptop is sticking this morning.

Mac…thanks. I only wish I had taken physics and electrical engineering classes….I have the business and accounting background, but I have a liberal arts degree…the one thing I avoided in high school and college was science…funny how those ‘who’s going to need it in the real world?’ statements come back to haunt us. So I have had to learn the basics so I could understand how all the solar and geothermal systems work.

Off Topic-
Larry Johnson has an amazing post up at DKos

dailykos link

Brownandserve @
1

Monin’ Christy. It’s a beautiful spring day here outside of Annapolis. Thanks again for all you and the others do. Your reporting on Gonzales’ testimony was outstanding. Here’s my shorter version…

Abu’s Wheel of Testimony

Spin the wheel
“I don’t remember”
Spin the wheel
“no recollection”
Spin the wheel
“I don’t recall”
Spin the wheel
“not about the election”

Spin the wheel
“Nothing improper”
Spin the wheel
“I wasn’t involved”
Spin the wheel
“I should have been clearer”
Spin the wheel
“It was Sampson’s call”

:)

Uh, you forgot a couple:
Spin the wheel
“You can’t prove anything”
Spin the Wheel
“You can’t catch me”

:})

NZ Expat, now in KS @ 80

One of the simplest, smallest things taught to me by my mother was the use of heavy drapes (unfashionable, I know). In the deep cold of winter, they were closed. In the intense heat of a Kansas summer (we had no air conditioning), they were closed. She would just spend a few minutes closing the drapes on the east side in the morning, then open them in the afternoon as she closed the ones on the west side in the afternoon.

My father planted shade trees all around the house in 1947, even before he finished building the house. When my husband and I moved in here in 1989, the house had been here for 13 years and no trees had been planted. My dad brought up starter trees, more than enough for us. My neighbors took them so there are other trees on the street, tall and shady, besides our own from him. Dad died in 1997, but of course, I see his tall legacy here on our street.

Very nice. ;0)

For the record, I live SW of Austin, and I have millions of honey bees on my flowering trees and wildflowers. I too, do not have any major power lines in the vicinity.

dude,

Wow! I had never heard of Aerotecture. This is a very cool concept. Thanks for the link!

denise @
42

In general, most wasps are not pollinators. Some are scavengers and others are predators preying on flies and other insects.

Waiting for my partner in greenhouse touring to arrive…My question was really whether wasps’ larvae deposited in caterpillars that eat GMO plants are not affected. Seems odd that they wouldn’t be, or maybe they are affected in a different way, being almost 2nd generation removed from the GMO material.

This is a very important issue. Currently, the scientific community has not been able to figure out the cause. I’m hoping that progressive websites don’t start proclaiming otherwise.

There is lots of good information in the Celsias article, however, I disliked its anti-science attitude. Solving this problem is going to take lots of time from people who have dedicated their lives to science. Too many people take this work for granted.

Riesz Fischer @
18

wangdangdoodle: I’m in (north)…Texas and there are no high-powered transmission lines in my ‘hood (we have underground); no cel phone towers close by either.

Underground lines actually emit more radiation to the surface than overhead lines because they are closer, and the ground doesn’t appreciably attenuate radiation at such a low frequency (60 Hz). Also the intensity of the radiation is so low there’s just no way it could have any effect on organisms (like bees or people). Frontline did a good show on this a few years back.

Cell phones– I don’t know cell phones. But I think this is one good way to approach the problem– look at the things that have changed recently that could be causing the problem.

I worked on a Navy communications program over twenty years ago that was called “ELF” (Extremely Low Frequency) where low frequency transmissions were/are broadcast from sites in northern WI and the UP of MI. Sen Proxmire was vehemently opposed to this program on environmental grounds. Sounds like he wasmost likely correct. Again.

from Cathy’s link at 83, Larry Johnson on George Tenet:

“The reality of Iraq demonstrates that fruits of your efforts have in fact made our country less secure.”

More of that pollination problem at the White House.

I am proud to say I am an exterme green Demo.

I bicycle my 18-mile round trip to my job every day, except when it snows, then I take the bus. We line dry our laundry, Colorado weather permitting, which it usually does. We have a low-flow shower head. We use compact fluorescent light bulbs. We recycle everything we can, using Denver’s excellent program;

http://www.denvergov.org/recre…..fault.aspx

I use a push lawn mower. Our front yard has mulch, which decreases the need for scarce water. We own one car, a Honda Civic. We live in an older, central neighbourhood where we can walk to stores, or take a bus downtown, or take light rail out to many suburban destinations. I still don’t think we do enough. I don’t think “enough” is an appropriate term.

Check out Chelsea Green publishers, a great resource for practical books on how we can do more;

http://www.chelseagreen.com/

Democracy = public service
BushCo = public, serve us.

Bookwoman, thank you for sharing that remarkable poem.

Plant a tree, plant a seed, save a planet.

Morning, Gang! I rarely make it here for Pull up a chair, but I’m off to judge more band contests this morning. It is time for HS solo and ensemble contests in Alaska, which means school’s out soon.

No GM crops in Alaska – yet. And less cell phones in the whole state than in, oh I don’t know, but probably less in Alaska than in Spokane. But I can’t see the sign of a single bee anywhee. Oh, yeah! I’ve still got a foot or so of snow in the northern shadows of the front yard, and it is 30 degrees F. But the sun is coming up in a few minutes – it barely got dark last night. It’ll get into the mid-fifties today.

The bees start showing up in two weeks. But I brushed a huge mosquito out of my dog Strider’s hair late yesterday evening.

Somebody above recommended Michael Pollen’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma. I’ll add my hearty endorsement!

Its a beautiful day in northern Ohio.
Hey, DefJeb in #43, I don’t see my children as pollution. Also, people with families are not ALL about accumulating property.
Many parents want to leave their children a legacy of hope, humor, resilience, connection, love, and public service– All things with no atoms.
The accumulation of property sometimes just happens to hard working people. Any passing along can be seen as recycling.
I’m glad you were born. No footprint-guilt I hope. You add to the conversation and appear to think a lot about the world.

ET at 95 — Ahhh, I remember the concert band competition and judging. Loved it when I was in our high school band. Great memories…thanks for bringing this up this morning. :)

The “cartoons” are terrific this week, but I must say, they ceased to be funny some time ago. They are brilliant, incisive, thought-provoking, etc, but the subject’s they’re forced to cover are horrifying. The dominant emotions are anger, frustration, disgust — but not humor. Maybe it’s just me.

Scarecrow @ 97

The “cartoons” are terrific this week, but I must say, they ceased to be funny some time ago. They are brilliant, incisive, thought-provoking, etc, but the subject’s they’re forced to cover are horrifying. The dominant emotions are anger, frustration, disgust — but not humor. Maybe it’s just me.

It’s never the ‘funny’ quality that appeals to me. It’s the fact that graphically, succinctly, a political statement is made and conveyed. Thousand word kinda thingie.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 97

ET at 95 — Ahhh, I remember the concert band competition and judging. Loved it when I was in our high school band. Great memories…thanks for bringing this up this morning. :)

Solo and ensemble! Preparing for that filled my spring evenings for many years. Played piccolo in band in HS and college.

in re: environment.

I try to do the little things. Like drive a small car. Keep the car reasonably well tuned. Walk when I can. Turn off lights when I’m not in a room. Disconnect some of the power vultures (things that draw power even when supposed to be turned off).

San Antonio has a fairly comprehensive re-cycling system which is helping. I don’t think it is mandatory as in some place I’ve lived but it is fairly easy. I just have to rag on the housemates (a couple of wing-nutters). But the city has passed out trash bins for auto pick-up and does once a week for trash/garbage and once a week for recycles. They accept plastics #1-7 (including meat trays from grocery – washed, egg cartons, etc), glass, tin/aluminum cans) and most all paper (including old phone books, junk mail, business paper, magazines, etc). About the only thing I have not done with this is check on recycling shredded paper but assume that would be accepted (I shred all old bills and credit card solicitations on GPs).

E. Teller, I spent a summer in the NWT. Up there, they used to say, “There’s not a single mosquito in the NWT. They’re all married and have large families.”

Thanks for posting this. I live in the DC suburbs (Springfield, VA), and have a dozen fruit trees in my front and back yards. Asian pears have always yielded the best. This year, the blossoms have pretty much all fallen off, and I haven’t seen a single bee. In past years, the trees were always brimming with bumble bees. I don’t know if this is related to the problems that are stressing the commercial bee industry, or a result of our weird weather that kept turning cold again and again. I’ll know in a week or so if the trees were able to pollinate themselves. (I did some manual pollination of some isolated trees in the back by cutting branches from trees in the front a waving them around the trees in need. I don’t know if it makes a difference, but I can claim to have “peachy” sex once a year).

Aw, Redd,

If you liked playing in band in HS or college, and don’t have the time anymore, you should think about checking out your local community band. Some are really, really funky and full of older folks dreaming of the good old days of Lawrence Welk. But most cater to all ages and play a good mix of music.

Thanks for the great job covering AbuG’s last chance to make it into the Guiness Book of World Records. On two categories – most times uttering “I don’t recall” and most times uttering sworn falsehoods before a congressional body.

>Here is a message from Sharon Labchuk, an organic beekeeper from PEI.
>
>—————————–
>
>I’m an organic beekeeper.
>
>Two things here. One, we would not be so dependent on commercial
>non-native factory farmed honey bees if we were not killing
>off native pollinators. Organic agriculture does not use chemicals
>or crops toxic to bees and, done properly, preserves wildlife
>habitat in the vicinity, recognizing the intimate relationship
>between cultivated fields and natural areas.
>
>Two, factory farmed honey bees are more susceptible to stress from
>environmental sources than organic or feral honey bees. I know alot
>of people think beekeeping is all natural but in commercial
>operations the bees are treated just like livestock on factory farms.
>
> I’m on an organic beekeeping list list of about 1,000 people,
> mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world,
> including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on
> this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they
> put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites and they
> feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck
> all over the place to make more money with pollination services
> which stresses the colonies.
>
>Bees have been bred for the past 100 years to be much larger than
>they would be if left to their own devices. If you find a feral
>honeybee colony in a tree, for example, the cells they lay eggs in
>are about 4.9 mm wide. This is the size they want to build, the natural size.
>
>The foundation wax that beekeepers buy have cells that are 5.4 mm
>wide so eggs laid in these cells produce much bigger bees. It’s the
>same factory farm mentality we’ve used to produce other livestock -
>bigger is better. But the bigger bees, for alot of easy to
>understand reasons, do not fare as well as natural sized bees. It’s
>now possible to buy foundation with these smaller sized cells but
>most beekeepers in Canada don’t have a clue, or aren’t willing to
>put the effort into going organic this way. Certified organic
>honey, as in the President’s Choice brand, still allows chemicals to
>be put in the hive.
>
>So the factory farm aspects of beekeeping, combined with all sorts
>of negative environmental factors, puts enough stress on the
>colonies that they are more susceptible to dying out.
>
>More info on this:
>
>Organic Beekeeper list
> http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/g…..eekeepers/
>
>Michael Bush’s site:
> http://www.bushfarms.com/bees.htm
>
>Also BeeSource:
> http://www.beesource.com/pov/lusby/index.htm
>
>
>Sharon Labchuk
>Earth Action

DefJef @
43

Fischer…

Excuse me.. I was lecturing someone about online shopping?

I try to leave a small footprint here… when I pass there will be no accumulated junk and I have not polluted the planet with children… nor has my sister. Our brother has two kids… so people with families are all about accumulating property to pass along.

I don’t think I need to be an example… and I don’t think anyone else does. You need to think rationally and leave a clean wake and a small footprint.

My wing-nut brother, sister, and I are all childless. Most of what we’ve “accumulated” is things passed down from earlier generations within both sides of the family. Most of these things will be passed on to our younger cousins. Antiques can be functional and usable for many many years.

In California, there have been mandatory standards for new buildings and appliances since about 1978-80. Every 3-5 years, the California Energy Commission, a state agency created during Jerry Brown’s reign as governor, updates/tightens these standards. I understand the latest onces will require hourly interval “smart” meters, so that building owners will know not only how much energy they’re using each hour but how much it costs to produce during that hour. And the meters can then be tied into the controls that turn major energy-using appliance one/off at times depending on the costs.

The costs in California are directly related to environmental impacts, because the more energy they use, the more likely it is that fossil-fired power plants will be on the margin. Every kwh you save during peak is one less kwh that must be produce by a gas- or coal-fired plant. And of course, every MWh produced by solar/wind/geothermal is also one less MHw from the fossil sources.

Wow!! Thanks Christy, out of 7,000 emails… just wow.

Question for wvng, did you find bee carcases lying around after they died off? I had read that the bees just up and disappear, nothing left behind.

Got a little ham, some cheese and fresh green onions from the rose bed… who wants omelets?

The “choices” made by the dickweeds in Washington pretty much come to this: forced birth, forced religion, forced sexual mores, forced purchased of all of our food and other needs from “friends of the government” and forced death in a war waged on a lie. That’s pretty much all you need to know about republicans and their family, economical, social, and political “values.”

Oh, and you can do anything you want that’s against the law or immoral and unethical in sending other people’s kids off to war as long as you’re republican and/or white/wealthy/male/”friend” of Bush.

As for the bees — what a lovely idea if we would all plant bee-friendly stuff in our yards. Perhaps that would be a small start?

I just this year started buying locally produced raw honey.

selise @
71

Mae @ 67

Selise@58 you make an excellent point. Makes me think of the obnoxious argument used by nut-job-Inhofe and wingnut cohorts against Al Gore. By accusing Al of not being 100% consistent with his principals (which, you are correct is impossible) the wingnuts’ next argument is, since you can’t be 100% consistent with protecting environment, then no one should do anything to protect environment.

i think it is a convenient way to deflect feelins of guilt about their own personal responsibility for the choices they make.

the truth is not convenient.

bg @ 102

E. Teller, I spent a summer in the NWT. Up there, they used to say, “There’s not a single mosquito in the NWT. They’re all married and have large families.”

The big ones that come out in April rarely bite, but they LOOK ferocious. It is the itty-bitty ones from late May to late July that get you. We’re lucky. We live on a lake (with a dog and bonfires) that is part of a living system – sockeye ansd coho salmon spawn right off our little dock – but there’s little standing water in which skeeters breed, so around the house we don’t have problems with them. Lots of other insects, though. And many are friends. I let ladybugs loose in the garden in June and praying mantises loose in my greenhouse in July to keep the aphids and mites down.

I just received my new bumpersticker from moveon that says ENDLESS THIS WAR. I hope I get a lot of possitive feedback, because my other sticker that I have had on for a couple years now that says W-WORST EVER, gets nothing.

Bees, climate – after years of worrying what could happen, it seems that this has been the year that it starts happening. I was on the phone to my parents back in Australia earlier today, and it turns out that wetlands will be drained there, because otherwise whole towns are going to run out of drinking water.

The serious consequences that everyone thought we could avoid, are starting to happen.

My head is going to explode if I see one more post about this. I’m an entomologist, as my handle indicates.

There are any number of reasons why you might be seeing variations in bee populations. I have yet to see anything to indicate bee POPULATIONS are in decline, if anything they are on the rebound from a recent decemation from mites. This possibly accounts for slowing of the killer bee progress into the US.

There are reports of GMO impacts on insects but they are being monitored closely and always involve off-the-scale doses of pollen, with both the bee and monarch studies. These are valid research topics that show the sledge hammer approach to GMO that we currently employee is not precise enough yet.

HONEY BEES are not native to the US, and FERAL bees are an anomaly of man’s presence here. Currently in S. Fla. I am getting reports of a healthy twice yearly hive splitting. I don’t take seriously reports of missing hives, it could mean hive relocations, or competitors stealing them. Stranger things have happened, beekeepers are a strange lot.

Here’s a thought experiment: Suppose everybody bought a car when they were young and kept and maintained it all their lives. How much energy and extraction would that save? And would that savings be greater than the efficiency gained by new more efficient models?

One way I try to be greener is telecommuting. I don’t drive to the office unless I have to. I usually burn one tank of gas a month, unless I have a trip, which is rare.

Besides, I like working in my underwear. ;-)

Whatever their stripe, most businesses’ favourite colour is green. Big companies queue up to announce initiatives for cutting their carbon footprint. Timberlands, the rapper’s boots of choice, are sold with “nutrition labels” relating the amount of energy used in their manufacture and how much of it is renewable. British Gas has this week launched a green-energy unit to sell low-carbon products. Even Shell has a new advert in which an oil executive shows his sulky son how the employer is cleaning up its act. What is evidently intended as a bit of green mollification is unlikely to have that effect: not only does the ad paint the environmentally aware as sullen teenagers; it appears on the oil giant’s website next to details of a partnership with Ferrari.

Retailers can argue that they are in business, not charity, and it would indeed be an extraordinary turkey that voted for Christmas. But consumers who want to do their weekly shop while doing the minimum of harm to the environment are left to choose between a welter of individual, often unaudited, policies. All of which means that it is time to look beyond allowing shops to set their own environmental standards. The market has failed and government must play a bigger role.

from the Guardian.

Beekeepers in Sonoma County are being warned if they have a hive collaspe to treat it as thought the cause is contagious

http://www.sonomabees.org/disorders/

erh — to make the
world a better place,
i am busy connecting
my flux-capaciter to
my-second-gen-beta-2.0
version of the mr. fusion™-
powered-subpoena-burner. . .

‘mornin’ all — off to work-out. . .

so — keep on kickin’ it. . .

wangdangdoodle @ 108

had read that the bees just up and disappear, nothing left behind.

That’s only the fundamentalist and evangelical bees…

Evil corporation does the right thing;

http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWE…..-0,00.html

The wind farms are impressive to see. If anyone has visited northern CO or Wyoming, they will know that the wind energy potential is virtually limitless-it blows ALL the time.

Jerry Brown seems to be a good apple for conservation.

katherine graham cracker @ 117

Beekeepers in Sonoma County are being warned if they have a hive collaspe to treat it as thought the cause is contagious

http://www.sonomabees.org/disorders/

Lived for may years in Santa Rosa. How’s the 101 corridor these days? Perhaps it’s the smog killing the bees.

cathy @ 111

I just received my new bumpersticker from moveon that says ENDLESS THIS WAR. I hope I get a lot of possitive feedback, because my other sticker that I have had on for a couple years now that says W-WORST EVER, gets nothing.

I made my own (as big as legal – inside my rear window)

BU**
SH**

sign two weeks ago, and it is getting me lots of high fives and peace signs from people passing me on the freeway. Yesterday, a van full of soldiers all waved and cheered as they drove by.

NZ Expat, now in KS @ 80

One of the simplest, smallest things taught to me by my mother was the use of heavy drapes (unfashionable, I know). In the deep cold of winter, they were closed. In the intense heat of a Kansas summer (we had no air conditioning), they were closed. She would just spend a few minutes closing the drapes on the east side in the morning, then open them in the afternoon as she closed the ones on the west side in the afternoon.

My father planted shade trees all around the house in 1947, even before he finished building the house. When my husband and I moved in here in 1989, the house had been here for 13 years and no trees had been planted. My dad brought up starter trees, more than enough for us. My neighbors took them so there are other trees on the street, tall and shady, besides our own from him. Dad died in 1997, but of course, I see his tall legacy here on our street.

My mother did the same thing and lots of other thrifty things mainly to keep costs down (seven kids and she didn’t work outside the home until we were grown). Frugal ingenuity is what is was commonly known is our house. God I miss her!

This is a good example of how environmentally responsible energy policies generate not only clean power, but US based jobs, too! 400 in this case;

http://www.metrodenver.org/NewsCenter/Vestas.icm

Ed*ard Teller @ 123

cathy @ 111

I just received my new bumpersticker from moveon that says ENDLESS THIS WAR. I hope I get a lot of possitive feedback, because my other sticker that I have had on for a couple years now that says W-WORST EVER, gets nothing.

I made my own (as big as legal – inside my rear window)

BU**
SH**

sign two weeks ago, and it is getting me lots of high fives and peace signs from people passing me on the freeway. Yesterday, a van full of soldiers all waved and cheered as they drove by.

I’m surprised that I haven’t gotten any feedback because I’m in a blue state. But I have heard that Oregonians are over polite. Obviously, I’m not a native.

As is typical, I have to run off so don’t have time right now to read comments. I apologize if this has been mentioned. Home Depot is giving away a million energy efficient light bulbs tomorrow.

http://www.homedepot.com

Good Morning Christy & Firedogs,

don’t have anything to add to the excellent suggestions -

on a related note – I love this book

resources – geo political conflict

This is a very thoughtful and well-documented book that has been 20 years in the making–although it was actually researched and written in the past three years, the author is on record as having discussed water wars in 1980, and should be credited with anticipating the relationship between natural resources, ethnic conflict, and great power well before the pack

Very early in the book he puts the issue into context. In a time of globalization with more and more countries industrializing, there is a concomitant increased demand for finite resources, which is exacerbated by growing populations.

Resource Wars – Michael Klare

OT — (testing, pls ignore)

Scott Ritter spoke here in Scottsdale a couple weeks ago about his new book “Target Iran”. He said if BushCo starts a war with Iran and Ritter foresees that it could very well happen, that oil will not be $100-150 a barrel but $250-300 barrel. That oil production in that region would be shut down.

I read somewhere that the average miles every item in a standard grocery store travels 1300 miles. Now think of it in the terms of $300/barrel oil. A large portion of Americans have lost their connection to their food source. They think every thing comes from cellophane packages.

The difference in the 1930 depression and today is that most of Americans in 1930 were grounded in the land. Many survived because just like my grandmother who raised a truck garden & chickens on her residential lot in Souix City, canned food and traided with neighbors.

Then there’s the global warming related collapse in maple syrup production. I just stopped by my syrup guy’s farm the other day, abotu 20 minutes south of Lansing, MI. One of the guys told me there normal take from the maples is 4000 gallons. This year, they produced about 1500 gallons of syrup.

So I’m stocking up, because syrup guy is going to be sold out by August, apparently.

The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a recent study of “the Iraq effect” by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The “Iran effect” would probably be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that “an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III.”

Ed*ard Teller @ 95

Morning, Gang! I rarely make it here for Pull up a chair, but I’m off to judge more band contests this morning. It is time for HS solo and ensemble contests in Alaska, which means school’s out soon.

Enjoy! I hope you hear some wonderful performances, and that you don’t have any kids who cry (I usually get one or two a day… I’m ridiculously nice to the kids, but some of them are so wound up they start crying if they miss one note). I hope your writing hand/arm doesn’t hurt like mine does after a day of judging, too!

from Blake Fleetwood over at HuffPost

The problems of bullying are everywhere, in every school, town, and city in America. If nothing changes, the consequences and mayhem will continue to traumatize the entire nation, again and again.

Around the corner from me at an elite private school in Manhattan, a 13 year old boy has eaten lunch alone for the last three years, because it has become a game among the other students to get up and leave the table when he comes to sit. I wrote a letter to the headmaster, but never got an answer. I was told the administrators don’t want to interfere, because, “It is an age-old problem.”

Hopefully, he will never have access to a gun.

Ok.kiddo

101 remains a mess the good news is the SMART train backers are refusing to give us and it will be on the ballot again in 2008.

I live in West County Guerneville

Hu Christy:

Thanks for a change of pace from all the political garbage. I’ve become way too involved in that sort of stuff for my own good.

I just got divorced a year ago and moved into a house with a big yard and lots of clover and honeysuckle bushes outside my windows. I remember as a kid catching bees in baby food jars and the clover is where we’d go to look for them. I think I’ve only seen three bees, honeybees that is, since I’ve been here.

There are plenty of hornets and wasps around but not so many honeybees or bumblebees. I live an hour NW of NYC. There’s a brook in my yard, lots of deer, a couple of red-tailed hawks, but now I’m going to have to concentrate on how many bees I see this year.

The finches have already disappeared here, except for the goldfinch. But house finches, red finches, and other song birds aren’t around much.

It seems like just in the corporate jungle everything is consolidating and only the vicious species, the ones that hurt you for no reason are becoming prevalent.

Have a great weekend!!

Two things seem clear. If we don’t do something about global warming and our country’s proclivity to empire, meddle for greedy reasons, and to be the world’s policeman, nothing else will matter.

CCD is too important a problem for the limited coverage it has received. Among the many possible causes – why must there be only one? – several involve vested interests that would fight a recognition that they contribute to the problem and must contribute to the cure.

Just as the oil, coal, automotive and electricity industries have massive effects on global warming, CCD may be caused, at least in part, by the telecomms industry and entertainment industries, and/or the agribusiness and chemical industries that genetically modify foods.

Electromagnetic emissions from cell phones may or may not cause brain cancer in humans, but they may certainly disrupt bees’ navigation. GM plants contain foreign genes that cause their host plants to produce toxins to kill insect pests. They may also kill the bees that pollinate them.

Public awareness will be important in keeping pressure on the broader scientific community to find out what’s going on, and to avoid it being hijacked by bent govt’s that fund only “sound science” that doesn’t harm their contributors. That same awareness and pressure will be vital in implementing any change in behavior – and possibly whole industries – needed to save our crops, our foods and ourselves.

Sounds a lot like the problem with global warming, doesn’t it?

I saw plenty of bees this spring. We get only wild bees here on the Rez. Timing can be alot of the pollination issue for bees. Too much wind or no sun they will stay in the hive.

Now a politician who was getting some “pollination” done –

From the WSJ on Rick Renzi:

DEAL BREAKER
Land-Swap Plan
Causes Trouble
For Congressman
Mr. Renzi Offers Field
To Mining Companies;
Grand Jury Is ActiveBy JOHN R. WILKE
April 21, 2007; Page A1

SUPERIOR, Ariz. — As they dig for nickel, copper and other commodities in the far corners of the earth, the world’s largest mining companies, Rio Tinto PLC and BHP Billiton Ltd., are used to solving geological problems. Here, though, the problems they encountered were political.

North America’s largest copper lode is believed to be buried more than a mile beneath Apache Leap, the stark red cliffs that loom above this storied Old West town about an hour east of Phoenix. Resolution Copper Co., a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, wants to mine it. But first it needs Congress to approve a federal land exchange, under which Resolution would swap 5,000 acres of private land for 3,000 acres of public land near its planned mine.

In exchange for supporting the bill, the local congressman, Rick Renzi, a Republican, insisted on something in return: He wanted Resolution to buy, as part of the land swap, a 480-acre alfalfa field near his hometown of Sierra Vista, according to documents and people involved in the deal.

Resolution executives refused. For starters, they thought the land was overpriced, people close to the deal say. More troubling, they discovered it was owned by Mr. Renzi’s former business partner, these people say.

Resolution wasn’t the only party troubled by the congressman’s demands. His chief of staff resigned and began cooperating secretly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to witnesses and others close to the case. The FBI began a preliminary inquiry that was first reported in October, just before Mr. Renzi was elected to a third term.

…

Rotten Renzi

cathy @ 111

I just received my new bumpersticker from moveon that says ENDLESS THIS WAR. I hope I get a lot of possitive feedback, because my other sticker that I have had on for a couple years now that says W-WORST EVER, gets nothing.

I just put my “End This War” bumper sticker on the other day. I haven’t received any direct comments about it yet. However, the other night I was in heavy traffic and noticed someone who had a bunch of stickers supporting progressive candidates & criticising Bush – I let them cut in front of me. Later, we passed each other back & forth on the freeway, and I think they noticed my sticker and gave me a wave.

It’s too bad MoveOn.org ran out of those bumper stickers. It would be amazing if everyone who wanted this war to end had one on their vehicle, wouldn’t it?

landofthefree @ 133

Ed*ard Teller @ 95

Morning, Gang! I rarely make it here for Pull up a chair, but I’m off to judge more band contests this morning. It is time for HS solo and ensemble contests in Alaska, which means school’s out soon.

Enjoy! I hope you hear some wonderful performances, and that you don’t have any kids who cry (I usually get one or two a day… I’m ridiculously nice to the kids, but some of them are so wound up they start crying if they miss one note). I hope your writing hand/arm doesn’t hurt like mine does after a day of judging, too!

This is the first regional festival in seven or eight years in which I’m not also accompanying at least one of my students in his or her solo. I didn’t miss having to do all those extra rehearsals until yesterday. I watched an ex-student of mine kick butt on his solo, which I couldn’t accompany ’cause I’ve been recovering from rotator cuff surgery. I almost cried when I heard him, turning the tables on the usual scheme of tears.

There seems to be a movement afoot for tiny houses. here is a link to The Small House Society

Francis Moore Lappe was an inspiration with her Diet for a Small Planet decades ago. In the 90’s she was really involved in participatory democracy, had a magazine, and her slogan was “democracy isn’t something we have, it’s something we do”. Good slogan still.

In NW Illinois we have more bumblebees and flies that look like bees than honeybees. We’ve been planting for the birds and bees for 18 years in our little bit of paradise.

I read a study that proved that deer and pigs when given a choice between GM food, in fields and troughs, avoided the GM food. And those that ate it had significantly more birth defects and health problems.

AZ Matt @ 139
I thought Renzi was a Carpetbagger and only did his token 6 weeks residents to qualify in his first run. It was my understanding he was from VA or so and was sent out from RNC to take out a very democratic district.

I want to know where the 750,000 pages of documents that McCain had for his investigation into Abramoff. That needs to be released! That might finally put a nail in JD Hayworth.

Hooray! I got to participate in MY FAVORITE fdl thread for the first time in a long while. Off to water the starts in my greenhouse before I spend the day watching young teenagers learn the glories of teamwork and interaction.

We became a vegetarian house about a month ago, and I buy a lot of my clothes from a second hand shop and not from a regular store. Also, I walk or take the bus or bike to places instead of asking for a ride.

Almost all the lights in our house are CFB or reg flourescent, except for the 3-way.

I might think of other stuff we do.

katherine graham cracker @ 135

Ok.kiddo

101 remains a mess the good news is the SMART train backers are refusing to give us and it will be on the ballot again in 2008.

I live in West County Guerneville

Love and miss Guerneville, Russian River, Bodega Bay, Jenner and Armstrong Woods.

katymine @ 144

I want to know where the 750,000 pages of documents that McCain had for his investigation into Abramoff. That needs to be released! That might finally put a nail in JD Hayworth.

He’s been stuffing them inside of bomb casings being shipped out to his favorite place to sing about.

katymine @ 144

AZ Matt @ 139
I thought Renzi was a Carpetbagger and only did his token 6 weeks residents to qualify in his first run. It was my understanding he was from VA or so and was sent out from RNC to take out a very democratic district.

I want to know where the 750,000 pages of documents that McCain had for his investigation into Abramoff. That needs to be released! That might finally put a nail in JD Hayworth.

That would be good. It would keep the AZ Bushies on the defensive for a long time.

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/010208.php

This was nice.

A gorgeous day here in western Montana as well, though a bit chilly this morning. Hope to go hiking in the mountains this afternoon. Bee colony collapse is a serious problem here and there are several entomologists here at the University of Montana working on the problem. As yet, no one knows what causes it, but the consequences are potentially catastrophic. It really could lead to the collapse of our agricultural system. As several commentators have indicated there are a number of suspected culprits, but it is too early in the research to eliminate or focus in on any.

We need to hear from many Bee experts, not only one or two, on whether this is cause for concern. The Beekeepers seem genuinely alarmed.
We must unite to ban GMO foods, even though Food Corps. are lobbying Congress with tens of Millions of dollars. Even when these crops do not enter the food chain, they can still harm the crops that do, putting our food source at risk.
A meat- based meal consumes 6 times the resources required to produce a vegetarian meal. Increasing the vegetarian portions on your plate will help the environment and make you healthier – read Diet For a New America by John Robbins.

Katymine,

Don’t know if went to read the whole WSJ article but my impression is that Renzi is screwed now. He will probably go to jail over this. Probably his wife will go to. Repubs like throwing wives under buses for some reason.

Bugboy -

honeybees are not native to U.S. ??? guess I’m gonna have to do some reading

you’d love it here in Central TX. an entomologist ’s playground (there’s a Walking Stick straight out of Men In Black on the porch as I type!)

p.s. – thought your handle referred to apprentice jockey :)

Excellent point raised earlier about the roadmap of food. Same with the geography of living.

If oil prices continue to climb, because of war or depletion, the price of virtually everything else goes up. Food, for example, could no longer travel 1300 miles from tree or farm to your table. We would need to readjust to more locally grown foods, more (healthily) processed or preserved foods, and to seasonal availability. Low-energy preserved foods, too, not refrigerated or frozen ones. Those take too much electricity.

Where we live would change. Most suburbs are only about fifty years; they were built after World War Two, when gas, cars, labor and materials were cheap. Persistent high energy prices would make poorly built or insulated homes, and those too far from work, unaffordable.

Impacts will intersect. Those who live in high rises or condos couldn’t grow their own food, even in an emergency. No “victory gardens” for them. So there’s more to do than just avoiding plastic bags in today’s grocery store. But that’s a good start.

A bit of insomnia last night and I saw a rerun of Oprah doing some green things. we need to give up buying individual bottles of
water. The stats on energy savings were pretty amazing.

cbl @ 154

Bugboy -

honeybees are not native to U.S. ??? guess I’m gonna have to do some reading

you’d love it here in Central TX. an entomologist ’s playground (there’s a Walking Stick straight out of Men In Black on the porch as I type!)

p.s. – thought your handle referred to apprentice jockey :)

Domestic bees are from Europe.

sofistic @ 142

There seems to be a movement afoot for tiny houses. here is a link to The Small House Society

It doesn’t have to be tiny (sub-600 sq’), it just doesn’t need to be 4000 sq’of mostly empty space (great-room-cathedral-ceiling nonsense) like you see in the sprawlburbs that spoil the view hereabouts. One of the biggest impediments to curbing US dependence on foreign oil is the growth of auto-dependent exurbs. I would welcome $5 or $6 gas- it might stop this stupidity.

The genetically modified crops with insecticidal activity that currently are in production in the US derive their anti-insect properties from insertion of genes from a naturally occurring bacteria that produce protein toxins selective against larvae of a small group of caterpillars. Sprayable formulations of this same toxin (called Bt) are commonly used in organic production. Bt derived toxins are selective materials and have no effect on bees. This is one of the practical advantages of GM insecticidal crops like Bt cotton. Non-selective insecticides are a significant threat to bees. Use of GM crops reduce the amounts of non-selective insecticides use in agriculture because sprays formerlly needed for the caterpillar pests are eliminated or significantly reduced.
Major problems for bee keepers have arisen from invasive species that have moved into this country. The most important are 2 different species of mites – an external mite (think of being covered with ticks) and an internal mite (think of chiggers infesting your lungs). Hive beetles are another new pest. So – we have the continued use non-selective insecticides that reduce bee numbers and lower vitality of hives, we have the 2 species of mites that reduce numbers and vitality, and then we still have the all the other natural enemies of bees including diseases. If all of these factors are considered, bee colony decline is to be expected.
Very high levels of management by bee keepers is required. Bees are very susceptible to insecticides so how do you think beekeepers rid their hives of these mite infestations? It is extremely difficult. We have seen a steady decline of bees in Arkansas among “casual” bee keepers, and a virtual disappearance of wild bees. This started well before the 1996 introduction of GM crops (in our state this was Bt cotton) and certainly before cell phone towers.

Thanks to very lenient livestock laws inside the city of Seattle, we’re learning how to raise bees and plan on having a hive next year. It’s unfortunately too late this year.

On our property, which we don’t even own, we grow our own vegetables organically. What we can’t grow, which is a lot, we try to get from the local farmer’s markets, a couple of which are year round, as much as possible. We have a lot of medical issues, so don’t always have the money, but we try as much as possible.

I volunteered at a local wildlife rehabilitation center and plan on volunteering for a local project to teach people, especially school children, about the importance of the water supply and creeks in the city.

As most Seattleites, we recycle on a reasonably large scale and use compact flourescents through out the home.

I’m trying to work on other ways that we can contribute to the betterment of the world and cut down on our own footprint, but again, the health issues cause things to get a little hairy.

This has been a pre-coffee ramble, so I hope that it makes some kind of sense.

My boyfriend and I talked about the bee deaths last week in reference to the RF waves as a source of the CCD. What has us stumped is that there has not been any KNOWN changes in technology that would suddenly start missappearing the bees. He works in the TeeVee industry and the only changes is the increasing numbers.

The issue is that there has not been any KNOWN changes in RF transmissions, cell phones, removes, etc have been in place for years. Why now? That is why it makes me think that it is either a disease/parasite or GM crops which IS new AND under BushCo we will never know which crop is a GM or not.

And you will notice I keep saying any KNOWN changes in RF transmissions????

Awww, Ed*ard Teller! Great story!

I have one student performing at S&E today, a very talented 13 year old. She came to her lesson Thursday with a high fever, had missed school all day, and still played the snot out of a Sammartini sonata. Kid took her instrument with her on the family vacation down south so she could practice every day. I’m so proud of her.

Hope your recovery is going well. I know a LOT of musicians that have had that surgery in the past year – people who play all sorts of instruments. Everyone I know has had a very good recovery. I imagine it’s frustrating to take the time off to heal properly.

I’m off to try and practice, which is gonna be a challenge with this upper respiratory infection. Total laryngitis, can barely breathe, ears are plugged, and nosebleeds. I’m sure I’m gonna sound terrific for my two concerts today (heck, like I’ll know!) At least I’m not trying to judge S&E!

I hope everyone has a great day.

p.s. to SOS in MA: love the term “DogAteGate”!

Latest FaBlog: Sondheimfest 2007

I saw the funniest thing last summer. A wasp and a butterfly were drinking the sugar water out of my hummingbird feeder, and they both got territorial! The butterfly charged the wasp. The butterfly won. Must be a lesson in there somewhere.

I am happy to say I see bees here all the time – I’m in the Santa Monica Mountains, between the San Fernando Valley and Westwood.

Partly, I think, is that I have a fair amount of native plants, trees, & flowers. Bees like the bottlebrush, they love the roses, and when the flowering plum flowers they’re all over it.

Last month NPR had a story on this – in San Francisco, they’re trying to reintroduce the native wild bee population.

about to head out -

750,000 Abramoff Related Docs

haven’t seen anything about their distribution to other congressional investigative bodies yet -

BUT

everyone should keep an eye out for dengre over at DKos – this diarist has been on this story for close to 4 years and ‘broke’ the story of the docs last week end.

We started composting in Toronto – separating food scraps, teabags, paper towels and other items into a different bin from the ‘regular’ trash. There is a 60 – 70 % decrease in trash going to landfills, it’s now going to composting sites.
We also recycle paper and plastic, but the benefit of composting was beyond everyone’s expectations.
Get your cities doing this, every bit helps.

Petrocelli @ 167

We started composting in Toronto – separating food scraps, teabags, paper towels and other items into a different bin from the ‘regular’ trash. There is a 60 – 70 % decrease in trash going to landfills, it’s now going to composting sites.
We also recycle paper and plastic, but the benefit of composting was beyond everyone’s expectations.
Get your cities doing this, every bit helps.

The city does composting? Or each house by itself?

And this link to learn about bee-friendly flowers.

I talked about the honey bee thing last week. Being a huge fan of the Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, I figured Douglas Adams would have loved the irony of an entire species literally talking itself to death.

Okay, how weird is this? I went upstairs to change out of my sweats and into some nicer clothes to run out to the garden center…and found a honeybee walking across our spare bed. Took her outside and deposited her onto my pot of pansies, but really, what are the odds that I’d find a honeybee inside my house this morning?

I think my last post got eaten by the dog. OK Kiddo, I asked if you ever got up to our area, Humboldt county?

Christy—

It’s a sign. And I love that you took her outside.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 171

Okay, how weird is this? I went upstairs to change out of my sweats and into some nicer clothes to run out to the garden center…and found a honeybee walking across our spare bed. Took her outside and deposited her onto my pot of pansies, but really, what are the odds that I’d find a honeybee inside my house this morning?

Cool!

Christy Hardin Smith @ 171

Okay, how weird is this? I went upstairs to change out of my sweats and into some nicer clothes to run out to the garden center…and found a honeybee walking across our spare bed. Took her outside and deposited her onto my pot of pansies, but really, what are the odds that I’d find a honeybee inside my house this morning?

oooo weeeee ooooo

Yesterday on Oprah someone said if you use one less paper napkin a day many thousands of trees would be saved. Long ago I stopped using napkin and find my sleeve is quite functional.

Sacramento has been recycling for years. Just put your stuff in one can and they come get it twice a month. And they do yard waste, too. It is made into soil. And TREES. Sacramento and NASA work together to find the hot spots where trees are needed. SMUD (utility) gives away free trees. We have four in our yard. Sweet.

Christy Hardin Smith @ 171

Okay, how weird is this? I went upstairs to change out of my sweats and into some nicer clothes to run out to the garden center…and found a honeybee walking across our spare bed. Took her outside and deposited her onto my pot of pansies, but really, what are the odds that I’d find a honeybee inside my house this morning?

From her perspective, maybe you interrupted her break and sent her back to work. Soon her colony will be voting to unionize and then where will you bee?

Exceeding carrying capacity is typically something we can know only in hindsight, too late, in other words. This is why so many of us environmentalists have been trying desperately to get the world’s leaders to pay attention because by the time it is serious enough to jar the conscience, it may be too late.

Not to tip us all into despair this fine morning, but the alarms are going off all over the place. It may not be the end of honey bees or polar bears today, but their plight is a warning, one we ignore at our own peril.

egregious @
173

Christy—

It’s a sign. And I love that you took her outside.

Christy is Queen Bee for a Day.

When you bring your plastic bags back to the grocery store to the big recycle bin, how do they recycle them? doesn’t it take a lot of energy to recycle them?

So the Bush guys have decided to build fascistic walls.

AP – A wall U.S. troops are building around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad came under increasing criticism on Saturday, with residents calling it “collective punishment” and a local leader saying construction began without the neighborhood council’s approval.

Christy Hardin Smith @
171

Okay, how weird is this? I went upstairs to change out of my sweats and into some nicer clothes to run out to the garden center…and found a honeybee walking across our spare bed. Took her outside and deposited her onto my pot of pansies, but really, what are the odds that I’d find a honeybee inside my house this morning?

Righteous!

SnarKassandra @ 180

When you bring your plastic bags back to the grocery store to the big recycle bin, how do they recycle them? doesn’t it take a lot of energy to recycle them?

The petroleum-based plastic bags are much harder to recycle, which is among the reasons that San Francisco is banning them.

And, BTW, good morning Cassie!

Oklahoma kiddo @ 181

So the Bush guys have decided to build fascistic walls.

AP – A wall U.S. troops are building around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad came under increasing criticism on Saturday, with residents calling it “collective punishment” and a local leader saying construction began without the neighborhood council’s approval.

Isn’t it supposed to be an independent country? Ugh!

katymine @ 144

I want to know where the 750,000 pages of documents that McCain had for his investigation into Abramoff. That needs to be released! That might finally put a nail in JD Hayworth.

ME TOO: dailykos link

Mutant Poodle @ 183

SnarKassandra @ 180

When you bring your plastic bags back to the grocery store to the big recycle bin, how do they recycle them? doesn’t it take a lot of energy to recycle them?

The petroleum-based plastic bags are much harder to recycle, which is among the reasons that San Francisco is banning them.

And, BTW, good morning Cassie!

Good morning mutant poodle.

Well, it is off the the store for me. Fortunately, the local organic food store is only a few blocks away and is the closest grocery to me. Always nice when the right thing is also the easy thing. They also buy a lot locally (we have a lot of organic farmers in the area). They even carry local organic meat. In the summer (coming soon!) I buy all of my produce at the local farmers’ market, where almost everything is organic.

Lou Costello @ 185

katymine @ 144

I want to know where the 750,000 pages of documents that McCain had for his investigation into Abramoff. That needs to be released! That might finally put a nail in JD Hayworth.

ME TOO: dailykos link

Me Three: We have to make sure the Indian settlement offered by Gonzo doesn’t contain language somewhere in it preventing any further release of documents related to Indian Affairs.

AZ Matt, here is a little interesting little line at the end of the WSJ about Renzi who is being investigated for land swap deals…
Renzi

Mr. Renzi said Friday he would take a leave of absence from the House intelligence committee “until the matter is resolved.”
[ ](but)
Mr. Renzi continues to serve on the House Natural Resources Committee, which handles land-swap legislation.

Isn’t that like the Fox guarding the hen house?

Among other things, I bring canvas bags to the market for shopping and reuse the paper sacks that we get from time to time.

Our city, too, has a complete curbside recycling program. One barrel for organic recyclables (yard waste, kitchen scraps), one for paper/plastics/metal, and one for everything else. The “everything else” barrel is by far the least used at our house. The organic waste barrels are delivered to a community composting project, which is linked to local farms for their fertilizer needs.

Over Christmas, we went back to the Midwest to see family. At Grandma’s house, The Kid was helping in the kitchen. At one point, he was walking around with a platter of potato peels for several minutes. Finally, Grandma noticed and asked what he was doing. “Where’s your green bucket, Grandma?” Alas, no community recycling like that yet in her community.

I just spotted a honeybee hovering over a shrub on my walk this morning.

New thread from Phoenix Woman:

Justice Is Served

A coupla years ago Ireland put a €0.15 tax on plastic bags, cut the use of bags from 1.3 billion to a few 10’s million, stocked up the treasury, and there were very few bags seen along the roadways. All for a cost of 20 cents a bag. Now shoppers bring their “permanent plastic” bags with them to shop and the country is better for it. Just sayin, All the best…..

Shucks, EPU’d again

It is only 55 this morning and it rained pretty heavily so when I peaked out to see if there were any bees on the star jasmine and citrus trees, I am sure it is too cold for them to be out.

Another little tidbit on that Renzi article:

The case could add fuel to the firestorm over the Bush administration’s firing of federal prosecutors late last year. Paul Charlton, the U.S. Attorney who had been overseeing the case, was among those dismissed at the behest of the White House. A spokesman for Mr. Renzi dismissed as “a political hatchet job” the suggestion that Mr. Charlton’s firing was connected to the probe of Mr. Renzi. On Thursday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told Congress that none of the dismissals were politically motivated, and said the Justice Department is committed to battling corruption.

Paul Charlton was rated #1 of all 93 of the USA’s in performance reviews, had a 91% increase in 2005 in immigration prosecutions BUT they dogged him for not seeking the death penalty for a murder case where there was No body and No murder weapon. Only evidence was witnesses who were gang members & drugers.

ccmask @
33

Wow! I’ve been offline for the weekend staying on the beach in Naples Florida and imagine my surprise when I saw this here computer in the hotel lobby……anything new since Friday?

There’s a time limit so please be short…Is Bush still pResident??

sadly, yes.

I have just written a brief article about ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ which you might find of interest http://fishinsects.suite101.co…..e_disorder

Good stuff in John Batchford’s comment in case anyone is still reading. My north wall is a huge bee hive. It seems healthy on the surface but it’s not. No swarms at all in the past few years and way too many strays that can’t seem to find their way home.

I live in a deadzone. Hard to even get radio reception and cell phones don’t work at all.

Poison may be the contributing factor as this is cotton country and there was heavy spraying with malathion in their “boll weevil eradication program” as well as spraying with herbicide every season as a part of the harvesting process. BTW: Next up: The tree eradication program.

Good morning all,

I rarely post here, but the bee thing is a big topic for me, so I’ll un-lurk temporarily.

Living in Austin, I’ve noticed a massive drop off in the bee population. My family has focused on growing as much of our own food as possible over the past couple of years, so bees have become an important part of our family, as well. With tomato and jalapeno and tomatillo blooms all over my yard, I’ve literally seen less than 10 bees over the past month, and it’s been about two weeks since I’ve seen one in the yard at all.

Coming from an agrarian family, this scares me. I know that bees aren’t at the top of our priority list these days, and that’s fine. My point is that I want to add another voice to the choir that something is indeed happening with our bee population.

And back behind the weeds I go…

bfd

good morning everyone, hope you all have a great weekend with your loved ones.

With this weekend being filled with Earth Day activities, I hope everyone learns something new and recycles something old.

Finished up clearing the garage of old paints and other toxic stuff last night. Waiting for my handyman to arrive so we can load it all in his truck, add my neighbor’s waste and then go up to the dump to hand off paints, batteries, old florescent/halogen bulbs and several small ‘dead’ electronic items. (I’m hard on keyboards. I learned to type on a circa 1925 Royal typewriter and still pound the keys as if I’m doing the re-write on a front-page story for the Daily Bugle). When we moved back into the house after the rebuild, I found space in the new pantry to keep a couple of small tubs that I can toss toxic items into easily all year long and then sort when the annual collection day occurs. We can only recycle cans, some glass, paper/cardboard and #1 & #2 plastics twice a month here. Many cities in New Mexico have NO recycling of toxic waste like computers and electronics, not even on Earth Day.

I have many fond memories of going to West Virginia in the fall with my Dad and indulging in apple cider, apple butter and just plain apples with so much simple joy. I hope that the reasons for this disorder are discovered and fixable. If cell phones are involved, I don’t know if it can be fixable, so many millions of people would be unwilling to reduce or eliminate their use.

The solar add-on to the new HVAC system is not operating as well as would like, and the installers are still tinkering with it. But the solar water heating system rocks! During a sunny day I’m getting almost limitless hot water, very quickly.

Blessings to you all! Praise and thanks to our Mother, Gaia, and all the beings who dwell upon Her!

I live in PA. About 5-10 years ago we lost almost all our wild honeybees. The problem was a pair of parasites (one introduced into the US by accident) that shortened the bees’ lives to a matter of weeks. The colony would seem to be OK during the summer, because the queen would pick up the slack and produce more eggs. But over the winter, the entire colony would die. I returned to PA in 2001 after living on the west coast for a couple years, and went 3 or 4 years after I came back before I saw a honeybee. There are still some domestic hives, since the bees could be treated for parasites.

What happened here is that, at least to some extent, bumblebees filled in the ecological niche. I see many more bumblebees than I used to see. There are also butterflies and humming birds that do some pollination as well.

I don’t know with CCD whether bumblebees are affected or not. I presume butterflies & humming birds aren’t.

That’s not to say CCD isn’t going to be a global disaster if it keeps spreading. Commercial apple growers in PA had a very hard time without wild honeybees. Domestic bees (sometimes trucked in from other states) were used instead. But with CCD that likely won’t be possible.

I think CCD could turn out to be really bad, but I don’t see it being the end of the human race (as Einstein hinted).

One final thought: I’m sure, even know, the cell phone companies are ramping up their “anti-junk science” campaigns.

Morning gang! Bless the earth!

(Gaiaa stopped by this morning and left a kiss for all of us!)

just had my Mason Orchard Bee’s hatch here in the Fraser River Valley in British Columbia.

last two years the honey bees disappeared, very little fruit in a neighborhood that is a botanical delight.

this year we get our first hatch from our own generation of bees! cute litle black bees as busy as can be!

heres last years Bee house!

http://www3.telus.net/Art-Adve…..se0014.jpg

the expanded metal guard keeps the woodpeckers from eating the bees!

this years beehouse is a condo now, and this year i actually saw them up close for the first time while looking thru the window.

a good article on bee mortality on slashdot last week, and a much better one here:

http://www.newmediaexplorer.or….._blame.htm

Mentioned this last week: saw the film Everything’s Cool. http://www.everythingscool.org/

Great companion documentary with An Inconvenient Truth. Deals with the politics of Global Warming. Check it out.

Happy Earth Day!

Honeybee? What’s that?

shargash @
200

I live in PA. About 5-10 years ago we lost almost all our wild honeybees. The problem was a pair of parasites (one introduced into the US by accident) that shortened the bees’ lives to a matter of weeks. The colony would seem to be OK during the summer, because the queen would pick up the slack and produce more eggs. But over the winter, the entire colony would die. I returned to PA in 2001 after living on the west coast for a couple years, and went 3 or 4 years after I came back before I saw a honeybee. There are still some domestic hives, since the bees could be treated for parasites.

What happened here is that, at least to some extent, bumblebees filled in the ecological niche. I see many more bumblebees than I used to see. There are also butterflies and humming birds that do some pollination as well.

I don’t know with CCD whether bumblebees are affected or not. I presume butterflies & humming birds aren’t.

That’s not to say CCD isn’t going to be a global disaster if it keeps spreading. Commercial apple growers in PA had a very hard time without wild honeybees. Domestic bees (sometimes trucked in from other states) were used instead. But with CCD that likely won’t be possible.

I think CCD could turn out to be really bad, but I don’t see it being the end of the human race (as Einstein hinted).

One final thought: I’m sure, even know, the cell phone companies are ramping up their “anti-junk science” campaigns.

From what I have read and heard, it only affects honeybees. Unfortunately they perform the vast bulk of agricultural pollination, even if they are imports.

A_weevil @
159

The genetically modified crops with insecticidal activity that currently are in production in the US derive their anti-insect properties from insertion of genes from a naturally occurring bacteria that produce protein toxins selective against larvae of a small group of caterpillars. Sprayable formulations of this same toxin (called Bt) are commonly used in organic production. Bt derived toxins are selective materials and have no effect on bees. This is one of the practical advantages of GM insecticidal crops like Bt cotton. Non-selective insecticides are a significant threat to bees. Use of GM crops reduce the amounts of non-selective insecticides use in agriculture because sprays formerlly needed for the caterpillar pests are eliminated or significantly reduced.

[snip]

Two points:

(1) GM crops and BT crops are not the same thing.

BT crops are a subset of the Frankenfoods (genetically modified or “GM” crops).

Frankenfoods include a whole range genetically engineered changes.

BigAgChem – especially Monsanto – bet the corporate farm on GM crops, and the first approvals for GM in the US were from Monsanto corporate types “rotating” through USDA/FDA under Clinton, who totally rolled for BigAgChem on GM crops.

BigAgChem’s senior officials in the US Govt pushed through initial approvals of GM grops – and later food products – with laughably little data about the long-term toxicity of Frankenplants and Frankenfoods.

Given these facts, assurances that the Frankenplants are “safe” are risible – where is the data demonstratiing benign effects of whole ecosystmes when the stuff is used for twenty years?

We’re the data – our families, our farms, our childre, our bees.

We’re the Tuskeegee experiment for the benefit of BigAgChem.

The data comes from our death certificates and the cancer registries.

One such change is the incorporation of the BT toxin.

Another common change is to make the plant resistant to Monsanto’s herbicide RoundUp (glyphosate). Plants with the RoundUp resistant gene can survive dousings with RoundUp.

Monsanto’s “Round-Up Ready” GM crops are DESIGNED TO USE MUCH MORE HERBICIDE – the same herbicide (RoundUp) Monsanto just happens to have bet their future on.

Herbicides are generally toxic to some animals.

And all animals (and insects) have been doused with a lot more RoundUp over the last several years.

No big surprise here – the basic aspects of animal biochemistry overlap with plant biochemistry.

Which animals does RoundUp hurt? Humans? Bees?

Roundup, for instance, raises lymphoma risks in humans.

And BT – outside the lab – raises death rates in bees.

BigAgChem’s limited studies “missed” both these deadly outcomes.

(2) BT – in the presence of parasitic mites – is shown to significantly increase death rates in honeybees.

Walter Haefeker, the German beekeeping official, speculates that “besides a number of other factors,” the fact that genetically modified, insect-resistant plants are now used in 40 percent of cornfields in the United States could be playing a role. The figure is much lower in Germany — only 0.06 percent — and most of that occurs in the eastern states of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg. Haefeker recently sent a researcher at the CCD Working Group some data from a bee study that he has long felt shows a possible connection between genetic engineering and diseases in bees.

The study in question is a small research project conducted at the University of Jena from 2001 to 2004. The researchers examined the effects of pollen from a genetically modified maize variant called “Bt corn” on bees. A gene from a soil bacterium had been inserted into the corn that enabled the plant to produce an agent that is toxic to insect pests. The study concluded that there was no evidence of a “toxic effect of Bt corn on healthy honeybee populations.” But when, by sheer chance, the bees used in the experiments were infested with a parasite, something eerie happened. According to the Jena study, a “significantly stronger decline in the number of bees” occurred among the insects that had been fed a highly concentrated Bt poison feed.

According to Hans-Hinrich Kaatz, a professor at the University of Halle in eastern Germany and the director of the study, the bacterial toxin in the genetically modified corn may have “altered the surface of the bee’s intestines, sufficiently weakening the bees to allow the parasites to gain entry — or perhaps it was the other way around. We don’t know.”

The fancy name for this is a synergistic effect – a synergistic result is a whole greater than sum of the parts.

Syngergy is multiple variables (as in the living world).

Reproducible science tries to have only one variable in any given experiment.

That’s the difference between lab results and practical experience.

None of the “safety” experiements BigAgChem used to get Frankenfoods on the fields and our tables look at the toxicity of GM plants and foods when combined with all the other toxins (RoundUp, radiation, parasites, etc) we and the bees endure.

None of the Frankenfood “safety” studies hauled out by industry (and their wholly-owned political appointees at FDA/USDA/Dept Ag) have bothered to measure what happens if we eat one Frankenfood for a year, much less a whole basket of ‘em for several years.

We’re the guinea pigs – along with the bees.

Bon appetit.

While we still can.

welcome bigfatdrunk!

I missed this thread and will have to go back and work my way through the comments – but it’s very timely, for me personally and for all of us.

Like many, I’ve tried to be green, recycle, reuse, etc.; but I realized recently that it’s true that if you are not part of the solution you’re part of the problem.

That makes me part of the problem. It was this same saying that got me off the sidelines and back into political activity a couple years ago.

It’s time to really make changes. Drastic ones.

We have this beautiful beautiful planet that we are part of. It is both tough and resilient, and quite delicate. And we are utterly trashing it. Our culture of high consumerism and waste is rapidly making this marvelous planet unliveable for all.

For me, besides rethinking everything I do; I’m also looking for a career change. I’m at the age (late 40’s) at which putting food on the table is not enough. I want to work to protect this planet and try to help undo the damage we have done. I don’t know how I can look my son in the eye otherwise.

I emailed with a beekeeper in Ohio. His take on this is:

late onset of winter around here, which led to the bees flying later into the season, finding nothing and wearing themselves out looking.

As the queen typically stops laying eggs in late August and early Sept, there were no replacements coming for those bees worn out in flight later in the year and therefore they just simply died in the hive

i saw some of oprah’s program on the recycling/organic cleaning stuff. her guest at one point showing yogurt containers and saying that the better thing to do is buy a larger tub. i think she missed the boat big time on that. just buy the brands that use plastic lids and not aluminum foil. the cups are dishwasher safe and exceedingly useful. i saved them up for years, particularly to use to freeze homemade chicken stock in. the resulting stock is in very useful portions and the containers practically endlessly recyclable.

i missed most all the cleaning product part of the show, but most things can be adequately cleaned with vinegar, or baking soda, or a little bleach water. very diluted hippie soap–y’all remember doctor bonner’s one is one or whatever it was called, works fine for dishwashing. no real need to by excess product at all.

ding7777 @ 208

I emailed with a beekeeper in Ohio. His take on this is:

late onset of winter around here, which led to the bees flying later into the season, finding nothing and wearing themselves out looking.

As the queen typically stops laying eggs in late August and early Sept, there were no replacements coming for those bees worn out in flight later in the year and therefore they just simply died in the hive

With BCC, however, there are no dead bees in or around the hive. That is part of the mystery, they simply disappear.

MillinaryMom above plugs Seventh Generation products. I’d second that – not only their recycled paper products but their cleaning products as well.

None of us should be using any toxins in our home. Bleach, detergents, pesticides, don’t buy them. Find alternative green products.

Also, completely boycott Kleenex, and its parent company Kimberly Clark. Find recycled paper products. Kimberly Clark uses virgin Canadian boreal forests for their products – no recycled paper. This is unacceptable, and there are many other companies who offer alternatives. This is one simple thing we can all do.

be no accumulated junk and I have not polluted the planet with children…

Defjef, I find this offensive. Humans are not inherently bad. Children are not pollution. Like any other living creature we are part of life, and in my book, good.

It is our culture that stinks. Humans lived on this planet for a couple million years without harming it. It has only been our great turning to agriculture and civilization that has sent us down the path we are on. It has led us to industrialization and this culture of consumption we now have.

But this culture does not define all of human experience.

Nor does it lay claim to the inherent goodness that all children are born with. It takes some living to learn to be mean, selfish and greedy.

NZ Expat, now in KS @ 52

Hey egregious! I thought I had waited long enough to avoid the cold weather (unseasonably warm March here), but there was a real cold snap and snow in mid-April. But it is warming up here now.

It may be life with kids again, but I have been in a car more and in stores more in two weeks here than in two months. I’m trying to cling to my more peaceful Kiwi ways, but there is pressure to hurry up and do more. And the amount of choices in the stores is overwhelming and unnecessary.

It is glorious, though, to be with my daughter after a year and a quarter of not seeing her. And reunited with the sweet galumph of a son, age 16, whom I hadn’t seen for three months. He has been particularly kind and affectionate, even as he seems so mature.

Love that “sweet galumph” – I gather he’s not reading over your shoulder. Enjoy.

The short circuit on the whole “bee radar” thing in the cell phone umm, I won’t even go so far as to call it a theory, is that bees don’t have anything remotely resembling radar, they are 100% visual orientation and damned good at it.

They do however use polarized light so they tend to return to the hive before the sun gets too low on the horizon. Show me a way that something can interfer with that and we’re getting somewhere (building height code variances anyone?).

That was off the top of my head but the reason I mention it is that commercial beekeepers have huge flatbeds they move thousands of hives around the country on, going from grove to grove down here in FLA. You tell me what they are exposed to, on top of what is in those orange groves.

PeteCO @
120

Evil corporation does the right thing;

http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWE…..-0,00.html

The wind farms are impressive to see. If anyone has visited northern CO or Wyoming, they will know that the wind energy potential is virtually limitless-it blows ALL the time.

See the link above to Emma on aerotechture.

ding7777 @ 208

I emailed with a beekeeper in Ohio. His take on this is:

late onset of winter around here, which led to the bees flying later into the season, finding nothing and wearing themselves out looking.

As the queen typically stops laying eggs in late August and early Sept, there were no replacements coming for those bees worn out in flight later in the year and therefore they just simply died in the hive

Was this a pro or private beekeeper? I’ve heard this type of scenario explaining a lot of crop failures. The plants are genetically programmed to expect certain weather changes, and when that doesn’t happen you have crop failures. There’s no reason to expect this to be isolated to plants.

cruising many bee sites today, superb thinking and research.

ya the commercial folks seem to be the ones having the most probs.

have read many theories lately, best ones come from the folks who raise bees, and the gardeners.

think this is definitely complex with many causes, we tend to simplify when the entire range of causes needs to be considered.

a lot of this may be the large long toungue bee’s that were commercially bred. cell size apparently makes a major difference. extensive records and notetaking on poisons at these sites too.

i’m getting an understanding of them i always wanted to expand on.

incredible creatures eh?

Well here’s another possibility: The fact that cannot be disputed is that the bee industry is claiming losses. In honey sales and loss revenue from pollination services, and by extension, impact to flowering crops.

Whether from a freak season that has caused crop failures this past growing season or something more sinister, they are losses still the same.

What would be the logical end game? For whatever the cause may be, I think we can expect a bail out to be called for. They ARE a business, after all.

I’m just saying.

It will be interesting to see if the citrus industry climbs on the band wagon, since they are largely dependent on beekeepers for pollination services.

bigfatdrunk @
198

Good morning all,

I rarely post here, but the bee thing is a big topic for me, so I’ll un-lurk temporarily.

Living in Austin, I’ve noticed a massive drop off in the bee population. My family has focused on growing as much of our own food as possible over the past couple of years, so bees have become an important part of our family, as well. With tomato and jalapeno and tomatillo blooms all over my yard, I’ve literally seen less than 10 bees over the past month, and it’s been about two weeks since I’ve seen one in the yard at all.

Coming from an agrarian family, this scares me. I know that bees aren’t at the top of our priority list these days, and that’s fine. My point is that I want to add another voice to the choir that something is indeed happening with our bee population.

And back behind the weeds I go…

bfd

Interesting. I live 30 miles SW of Austin, and as I posted way up above, I have millions of them here. They are going after the wild flowering trees and flowers. It is very rural here, so maybe they don’t like the City.

Tip: If you want to attract honey bees to your garden, put out small dishes with a little honey on them. A scout will find it and the rest will follow. That has been my experience. If they are finding lots of good wild flowers, they will focus on those.

Those in the Texas area please be cautious around ANY honey bees, killer bees are just about indistinquishable from normal, Europeanised bees.

Last reports I’ve seen has the northernmost range at about the states along the Mexico border, with CA having most in the south, of course Nothing is concrete since it’s hard to pinpoint exactly where the killer bees are.

Wiki, ain’t it great: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africanized_bee

Swarms should be ok if you do not disturb them, but let the professionals handle them.

From Wiki:

“Is more likely to “abscond” – the entire colony leaves the hive and relocates – in response to repeated intrusions by the beekeeper.”

I’m not sure I’m following the entire description of what beekeepers are describing CCD, but this doesn’t sound like what’s happening. What is interesting is this tidbit:

“Lives more often in ground cavities than the European types.”

EVERY feral bee hive I’ve ever seen, and I’ve lost count how many I’ve seen in FL, MD PA and NY, that I remember, has been in a tree. Mostly Oak trees, old ones that have lost a branch. Saw a hummingbird checking one out when I was about 12, an image that will be forever burned into my mind’s eye.

Anyway, the only underground hives I’ve ever seen or heard reports of are yellowjackets. They always pop up at constructions sites.

The MINUTE we see reports of construction crews getting whacked by honeybees, that will be a pretty good indication of killer bees.

I have one hive of bees. They’re fine so far.

At one time I had four hives. There’s something special about opening a hive and watching workers (females) dance, basically telling their sisters where to find nectar rich flowers. Or watching the workers throw the drones (males) out of the hive at the end of summer, when they are no longer needed.

For those who don’t have bees, it’s becoming more difficult to to keep hives healthy and alive as the years go by.

Bees are great. I encourage those who have the time and space to try it. My colony produces at least 6 gallons of honey a year, and that’s in a bad year. I originally got them because I was afraid of bees. I’m not anymore!

Blue Orchard Mason bees!

http://www.masonbeehomes.com/t…..t_bees.php

great lil pollinators, work on the cool days, don’t bite, beautiful too!

PeteCO @
158

sofistic @ 142

There seems to be a movement afoot for tiny houses. here is a link to The Small House Society

It doesn’t have to be tiny (sub-600 sq’), it just doesn’t need to be 4000 sq’of mostly empty space (great-room-cathedral-ceiling nonsense) like you see in the sprawlburbs that spoil the view hereabouts. One of the biggest impediments to curbing US dependence on foreign oil is the growth of auto-dependent exurbs. I would welcome $5 or $6 gas- it might stop this stupidity.

McMansions are not going away so long as people simply think being more square feet at a lower cost per square foot is better than having fewer quality square feet and a higher cost per square foot. By quality, I include all sorts of things which run counter to market thinking: greener, more traditional materials; spaces which are suited to the occupant who lives there, not to some generic “buyer” who a demographic, not a person; energy efficient in its entire integrated make-up; and not a slave to McMansion style-books.

PeteCO @
158

sofistic @ 142

There seems to be a movement afoot for tiny houses. here is a link to The Small House Society

It doesn’t have to be tiny (sub-600 sq’), it just doesn’t need to be 4000 sq’of mostly empty space (great-room-cathedral-ceiling nonsense) like you see in the sprawlburbs that spoil the view hereabouts. One of the biggest impediments to curbing US dependence on foreign oil is the growth of auto-dependent exurbs. I would welcome $5 or $6 gas- it might stop this stupidity.

McMansions are not going away so long as people simply think having more square feet at a lower cost per square foot is better than having fewer quality square feet and a higher cost per square foot. By quality, I include all sorts of things which run counter to market thinking: greener, more traditional materials; spaces which are suited to the occupant who lives there, not to some generic “buyer” who a demographic, not a person; energy efficient in its entire integrated make-up; and not a slave to McMansion style-books.

Sorry for the double post. Case of wild fingers.

One of the biggest spec-builder offenders in my view is Centex homes. I think they are from (where else?) Texas. They make stick-built balloons for the masses. Not a tree on their lots. True builders in the tradition of ticky-tacky.

Sorry for the double post. My browser is being eccentric today.

I too am more than a little concerned about CCD, but a little research on academic and beekeeper web sites show the power line, genetic engineering, cell phone tower and russian mind control device theories unconvincing. Such causes would be easy to isolate to specific locations. No such correlation exists.

This has not been the first bee disease to show this sort of symptom. Others have come, run their course, and faded. There is reason for concern, but not for panic.

I live in glendale, az and have citrus tress and flowers and for the last two years have had very few bees, thus my fruit crops have been almost none in the past three years. Past years the trees were loaded with bees. There is a problem!!!!

bilbo in az @ 230

I live in glendale, az and have citrus tress and flowers and for the last two years have had very few bees, thus my fruit crops have been almost none in the past three years. Past years the trees were loaded with bees. There is a problem!!!!