Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

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Sunday, May 29. 2016

Bees in North America

People worry about honeybee populations, but for no good reason.


Honeybees (Apis mellifera) were imported to North America for agriculture: for honey and to help pollinate the European imported crops (eg apples, pears).  Honeybees are superior to native bees for human purposes because their tribes are larger and tend to stay put longer. Occasionally, a honeybee group will try to go wild but they are usually tracked and caught by beekeepers. They are easy to track down and catch.


There are 4000 species of bees native to North America, and they are all doing just fine. They would do better without vast monoculture farms and with more wild spaces.


(I have spent three weeks hunting and killing - with Raid -the Carpenter bees which want to destroy my house. Big, wonderful bees and excellent pollinators but they eat your house.)


Pic is Hesperapis regularis, a native bee.

Posted by Bird Dog in Natural History and Conservation at 13:59 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

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Hush now. The haters have to hate. If it the European honey bee were thriving, they would complain that horrible, capitalist humans had introduced a destructive, invasive species.

If would just let our superiors handle the levers of power and decide when it is OK to destroy the environment, a la the USSR or China, then they would be happier. (It really doesn't matter if you are better off; the boot stamping on your face is what is best for everyone, or so they have determined.)
#1 Ken in NH on 2016-05-29 14:21 (Reply)
It's about subsidies and grants to explore a problem. One of the questions on agriculture production forms :Are you a bee keeper.
Sort of like Salmon as an endangered species, but you can buy it at the grocery store.
Bees are in such short supply, there is 23 pallets of 4 hives each on one 30 acre berry field next door. Now multiply that by about 5 to 10,000 acres in the county.
If they were that threatened, you'd think they'd have armed guards watching them.
I'd guess there would be less loss over winter if they just left a few more frames for the bees to feed on.
#2 Jerry on 2016-05-29 15:09 (Reply)
Carpenter bees are really neat to watch. As they chew a perfectly round hole in your porch post. And dig a tunnel into it.

We had a carpenter bee problem here at our house, then on a trip my wife saw and purchased a carpenter bee trap. It's just a small birdhouse-looking thing with a jar on the bottom. The sides have a hole drilled that's just ducky for the carpenter bees to enter. They get confused in the box, go for the light and wind up in the jar. And bye-bye Mr bee. We have several traps hanging around the outside of the house.

A quickie internet search for carpenter bee trap should bring up some examples.
#3 OldFert on 2016-05-30 00:19 (Reply)
I'm in a log house and was originally fascinated by carpenter bees and their neat holes.

Then I learned that woodpeckers love to eat carpenter bee larvae. They somehow know where the larvae are present and proceed to wood-peck their way into the logs.

I now feed the smaller woodpeckers by hanging seed blocks. Apparently they find the seed blocks easier than banging away at a log.

But recently those Godzillas of woodpeckers the Pileated have arrived. They're too big to perch on the seed block feeders so go for the larvae in the logs. With their bigger beaks and greater power they inflict greater damage in shorter time.

(And yes bee traps are worthwhile.)
#4 James Graham on 2016-05-30 07:05 (Reply)

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