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No Organic Bee Losses

Yet another idea on Colony Collapse Disorder in this article. An email list of 1000 organic bee growers have not reported any CCD related problems with their colonies. Also mentioned is:

“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.”

This article also goes on to explain that commercial bees are encouraged to grow large by providing them with oversized foundation cells, the cells bee keepers provide their bees when starting their colonies. This results in bees that are more susceptible to the varroa mites as well as possibly other problems.

It seems to me this might be a somewhat simplistic assement of CCD, but it may explain an important part of the problem.

The Bush Bees site has a lot of general information about bee keeping.

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Link Between Disappearing Bees and Biodiversity?

In the post I made yesterday about Bees and GM, Dr. John Blatchford left a comment with a link to some of the articles he’s published on the subject. These are not the typical sort of scientific articles you normally see, these are short, to the point and very easy for anyone to understand.

He makes a good argument for the problem of Colony Collapse Disorder being a general biodiversity issue, rather than directly related to GM crops. He also suggests the answer to the problem may not lie with scientists, but rather with the bee keepers themselves, who are the ones more likely to be able to observe changes in their hives over time.

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More on Bees and GM

I came across this article (via the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog) comparing rates of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) of bees raised organically with conventionally raised bees.

While it remains a complex issue, with little hard evidence, there continues to be a lot of reasons why we should suspect GM crops are playing a major role in CCD.

I think it’s a little interesting too that studies that might show CCD is caused by GM crops don’t seem to be getting any funding, and at the same time there are people saying we shouldn’t be so quick to blame GM crops because there’s no proof! It’s almost like someone or something out there is trying to keep us from finding out the truth…

Personally, I’m still waiting for someone to prove GM crops could not play a role in CCD.

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Favorite Environmental Blogs

There are probably hundreds or thousands of blogs out there that in some way address environmental issues, but most have not made it a central part of their theme. Here are some of the blogs I read that do make it a central theme. Many of the people behind these blogs even go so far as to make environmental issues a central part of their lives. I’m sure there are many others, these are just a few of my favorites.

If you know of others, please leave a comment!

Environmental means different things to different people. Most of the blogs below were chosen not only because they make me think, they discuss things like organic gardening, environmental political commentary, biodiversity issues, agricultural reform, local food production, recycling and reusing, energy and water conservation and so on.

While there are many fine organizations that promote good environmental causes out there, they are not included, this is just a list of personal or group blogs or websites. They are not listed in any particular order.

Daughter of the Soil: Biodiversity and amateur plant breeding.

Horticultural: Organic gardening, biodiversity, recycling and reusing.

Veggie Gardening Tips: Organic gardening, biodiversity. Lots of interesting and environmentally friendly gardening advice.

Tiny Farm Blog: Local food production, biodiversity. Community Supported Agriculture. Watch a real small farm in action!

Ottawa Hortiphilia: Biodiversity, organic gardening, recycling and reusing, energy and water conservation.

Vancouveriste: Political commentary.

Heavy Petal: Political commentary, reusing and recycling, and guerrilla gardening…

Riverrim: Biodiversity. Handmade things.

Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog: Biodiversity, agricultural reform

Plan be: Biodiversity, reusing and recycling, local food production, energy and water conservation, organic gardening. A working farm in Africa, largely self-sufficient, in a very interesting ecosystem.

The Ethicurean: Biodiversity, political commentary, local food production and agricultural reform. One of the nicest things about this blog are the digests, where they scour news outlets for interesting articles and provide links. The Ethicurean has been the motivation for several posts here.

Garden of Eden: Biodiversity and agricultural reform. Plant breeder and expert.

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Gardener’s Guide to Global Warming

If you grew up in the US, did you ever read Ranger Rick magazine as a kid? I think when I was 8 or 10 years old I had a subscription and loved it. I was always very excited when the next issue arrived. I think this might have been my first ever subscription to any magazine, and I had it for several years.

Anyway, the people who publish Ranger Rick magazine (still!) sent me an email telling me about this new guide available for download on their website.

This guide is primarily targeted towards people living in the US, but the same basic principles apply anywhere. It’s well written and spot on. Many of us already know a lot of what’s in this guide, and have already made posts along these lines. In any event this subject deserves a lot more of our attention.