The weather’s been absolutely beautiful for bees around here since that pathetic excuse for a Spring gave up and left: nice and hot, enough rain (well, more than enough rain) to keep everything growing and blooming. It’s been glorious. We’ve been planning to get working on our breeding program this year and had set tomorrow for the first step: setting …
Australian wholesaler stung with $30,000 fine for fake honey
An Australian supplier of Mediterranean and Turkish food products has been stung with a $30,600 fine for misrepresenting its “Victoria Honey” product, which is neither derived from bees nor made in Victoria. The ACCC found Melbourne-based distributor Basfoods to have made misrepresentations on its product labelling and its website that suggested its “Victoria Honey” was produced by honey bees, when …
June 21/2014 Sustainable Beekeeping Course CANCELLED
Due to apparent low interest, tomorrow’s workshop/course has been cancelled. We’ll be contacting registrants in the next day or say to refund their payments. We’re working on some new material and hope to have something new going in the Fall. Thank you for your support.
This just in: pesticides are good for honeybees!
I’ll just let that sink in for a moment. That’s right: everything that we think we know about honeybees and pesticides are wrong. Believe it. No, I haven’t lost my mind. A journalist tried to feed me that line this morning. Bear with me, it will take a minute to explain. I was perusing the Beekeepers of Eastern Ontario and Western …
Bee Heroic, Canada!
I just came across this illustration on Twitter. It’s time for everyone to stand up and let your voices be heard. Much to the obvious chagrin of the pesticide companies, not only are neonicotinoid pesticides killing bees by the millions, a new study from the Harvard School of Public Health has strengthened the link between exposure to two widely used neonicotinoids …
Cub Scouts and Beekeeping
Cub Scouts have two “Specialty” badges: Individual and Pack. What that means is the requirements aren’t set out by Scouts Canada. The individual specialty is a badge designed by the Cub. They figure out a topic, set some requirements, have the leaders approve it then go to work. Pack specialty is designed by the leaders for the whole Pack. Greg …
Next workshop/course date has been set
Mark your calendar! If you’ve been dying to hear Greg’s words of wisdom first-hand and learn everything that we can cram into 4 hours or so, pencil us in for Saturday, June 21. Kind of fitting to be talking about bees and sustainability on the solstice, don’t you think? 😎 Details will be posted here as they’re nailed down, but …
One-time compensation for hive losses coming to Ontario
There’s word from the Ontario Beekeeper’s Association this morning that the next Ontario budget will include provisions for a one-time compensation payment to beekeepers suffering large losses in 2014. It’s $105 per hive and available to beekeepers with 10 or more hives who have lost more than 40% of their hives between January 1 and October 31, 2014. It won’t …
Follow the Honey: 7 ways pesticide companies are spinning the bee crisis to protect profits
Depending on how you view things, the pesticide giants are either straight from the 7th circle of hell or they’re simply poor multinational corporations trying to do a vital job who caught by the law of unintended consequences. I tend to view things in more shades of grey. I think that their behaviour around the revelations of problems with their products …
Announcing the Canadian Sustainable Beekeeping Network
Learning about bees and beekeeping is a daunting task. Let’s be honest: you’ve taken an interest in working with an insect that you’ve tried to avoid angering for your entire life. Bees are dangerous, aren’t they? The first time that I investigated this was in the early 90’s. There was next no information about how to get started available online …