Saturday, March 22, 2008

Bee Boxes


Put together the boxes for the hive. Bees arrive 4/12.

Honeybees in America have always been assisted. They are not native. They are European or Asian or African. The bees that I am starting the hive with are coming from a colony split. Beekeeping is a lot like animal husbandry with insects instead of animals. Different kingdom. Farming on a small scale. I have 18 years experience in New Jersey horticulture - farming on a wholesale level. Many growers rent hives to pollinate their crops. Otherwise the smaller harvest makes growing unsustainable, farmers don't recoup their investment of labor and seed.
On another thread, there is no stopping evolution. Things are going to change no matter what. Entropy is part of the physical system we inhabit, we adapt to change. Here is the sailing analogy, seldom is the breeze constant, it comes in puffs and gusts. Sailors must shift to accomodate the changes because more or less pressure on the sail affects the stability of the boat. There are subtitle shifts happening all the time, you lean out a bit, put a little more or less pressure on the tiller, change course, head up, fall off, pull up the board. A rash or dramatic shift in mass or force will upset the system entirely and you'll be in the drink. Sailors try to predict what wind is coming by watching the sky & water. Cats paws will leave little ripple dimples while force five drives combers smothered in foam. I stay shoreside when the tops blow off the whitecaps.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

so, you are going to raise a bee colony...for what purpose? shouldn't we humans allow the bee population to die out as it sems to be doing...this may be the natural order of things - maybe if the bees die - a new species will emerge to fill the void....we humans want to preserve nature in a fixed moment of time in order to benefit ourselves..so are you helping the bees or the humans...is what you are doing assisting evolution or stopping it?

sorry its getting late, so i decided to throw you a curve ball...