On the bee problem...
As it happens, have been spending a bit of time on that again, recently...
A lot has changed in the last couple of decades... since the problem of colony collapse first appeared.
It's much better understood, now...
And, there have been a lot of adjustments made in addressing it...
A big part of that is... urban dwellers who think living in the country means "clean air"... have no idea.
Agriculture has been increasingly made dependent on "big pharma for plants"... and, the number and quantity of things being applied to plants... and thus injected into our air... has continued to skyrocket over the years...
Most of farm country now resembles "living under constant chemical warfare attacks" more than it resembles "clean air and the great outdoors"... as I think most imagine it to be.
For the bees... that was (and remains) certainly the case. A couple of new products that were introduced, in particular, appear responsible...
So, bee keepers have become more aware... and adjusted management of the bees... They now are far more aggressive in moving hives from "working sites"... to R&R sites... where the bees get a respite from the chemical warfare... and a chance to recuperate... Bee's now take longer holidays than they used to... and do so in more deliberately selected sites... where the plants they're able to access are more carefully selected to help them recover... That also means that hiring bees as pollinators is now a lot more expensive... given their reduced work week...
I've had a couple of bee wranglers asking me to set up "bee resorts" for them...
More interesting, perhaps... is that the ongoing industrialization of agriculture... now means that urban areas, as bad as urban pollution is, and all... are far better locations for bees than ag lands are. Probably the key reason we didn't risk losing bees entirely when the problem was at its worst... was that there were reservoirs of wild populations living in the cities... where they weren't having the same difficulties as their country cousins.
Today, that remains true. Bees are better off in near urban areas where there are far more flowers, and a vastly larger diversity of them, than exist in the sterile landscape of the modern industrial ag monoculture.
So, with that awareness, there are now a lot more urban beekeepers, too...
Have been planning an urban installation this week...
It's made more complicated, because... in farm country, if you want bees... you figure out what you need to do, do it, and then you get bees. In the urban landscape, though, they assume you're an idiot... and they won't LICENSE you to keep bees... unless you attend their classes, pass their tests, to prove... worthy of earning the honor of being certificated as an apprentice beekeeper... rolls eyes...
So, am I attending apprentice beekeeping classes ? Hell no. My daughter is doing it...
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