Wake up North America!.............

The poison from the poison stream caught up to you ELEVEN years ago and you floated out of here. Sept. 14, 08

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  • josevolutionjosevolution Posts: 29,948
    Too bad this country will probably add pesticides instead of decreasing! 
    jesus greets me looks just like me ....
  • lastexitlondonlastexitlondon Posts: 14,140
    Without bees we all die
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    this song is meant to be called i got shit,itshould be called i got shit tickets-hartford 06 -
  • Spiritual_ChaosSpiritual_Chaos Posts: 30,573
    Wouldn't there be an idea to have schools have bee hives and let kids care for them? Instead of having a class pet or an aquarium. 
    "Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
  • josevolutionjosevolution Posts: 29,948
    https://youtu.be/4IbMiqIdeME
    Man I miss this musician the most ...
    jesus greets me looks just like me ....
  • Meltdown99Meltdown99 None Of Your Business... Posts: 10,739
    Wouldn't there be an idea to have schools have bee hives and let kids care for them? Instead of having a class pet or an aquarium. 
    Gee, I wonder what could go wrong with project...
    Give Peas A Chance…
  • Spiritual_ChaosSpiritual_Chaos Posts: 30,573
    Wouldn't there be an idea to have schools have bee hives and let kids care for them? Instead of having a class pet or an aquarium. 
    Gee, I wonder what could go wrong with project...

    "Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,310
    One of the coolest classes I've ever taken was at California State Univ., Chico.  The class was General Biology and the prof (wish I could remember his name) was very cool.  He was well regarded at both the University and in the field of biology.  The man kept his office window open so that bees could come in to the building to visit him.  He told us he was able to communicate with the bees.  The man was rational and quite intelligent so I had no reason to doubt him.  Bees are the bees knees!
    "Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!"
    -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"

    "Try to not spook the horse."
    -Neil Young













  • lastexitlondonlastexitlondon Posts: 14,140
    I love bees. Not harmful unless you break the rules. They are welcome here in my flat. Infact they amaze me
    brixton 93
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    this song is meant to be called i got shit,itshould be called i got shit tickets-hartford 06 -
  • Spiritual_ChaosSpiritual_Chaos Posts: 30,573
    Saw some bees yesterday when i was walking through a forest. Was genuinely happy. Don't remember seeing any last summer.
    "Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
  • tempo_n_groovetempo_n_groove Posts: 40,491
    10 years ago I had heard a gal speaking about the Bee population and it's declining numbers.  She had traced it back to the GMO vegetables that were being planted.  The plants somehow had lack of nutrients in the pollen and was starving out the hives.

    Thanks for posting.

    Maybe change the title though?
  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    edited April 2018
    Without bees we all die
    Not really.
    I hear this a bunch and it sticks in my craw.  It's the sort of well-meaning pseudo-pop science that western culture lives on.
    It's a damaging perspective in my opinion, because it focuses on the problems created that effect our current way of life rather than focusing on the problems our current way of life creates.  It's exactly the same as pointing the finger at chemical fertilizer, herbicide, and pesticide use, when the finger should be pointed at the industrial monocropping system that requires those inputs.  It's that system of agriculture that also requires large colonies of non-native honeybees to be trucked and shipped back and forth around the world (spreading pathogens) to pollinate fruiting crops in humongous fields of pathological uniformity.
    Small scale farming systems almost always incorporate tactics like companion planting, crop diversity, crop rotation, composting, incorporation of native pollinator attractors, and manual inputs (hand weeding, composting) which attract native pollinators (most of which aren't bees at all) and eliminate the need for fert, herb, and pest inputs.
      If the honeybee population of the entire world collapses, humanity will go on for several reasons, the primary reason being that staple crops like corn, wheat, soy and rice are self-pollinating anyways!  The secondary reason we won't all die is because there are still people like me who farm in the old ways, which don't require honeybee colonies at all.

    All that being said, neonicitinoid pesticides need to go, and North America certainly needs to wake up on the issue.
    Post edited by rgambs on
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    My talk of surviving a beepocalyspe was referring to the short term, not the long term survivability of humanity on this planet.
    The point I'm trying to make is that if we actually want to save our future on this planet we have to change in much more fundamental ways than which pesticides we ban or allow.
    We have to so fundamentally change the way we approach food that I have no hope of it ever happening at all.
    For example, an average person in Chicago in the winter shouldn't have access to probably 90% of their diet.  Fresh produce, seafood, and at least half the meat eaten should be unavailable to any but the wealthiest.  People who live in cities should either be wealthy enough to trade manufactured goods for unpreserved foods, or they should live on dried and canned staple diets that are unacceptable to our spoiled selves.  That's the way humanity survived for all but the last 50-60 years and it's our only hope for surviving the next thousand.  
    These are inconvenient truths, but they are truth.  Fresh food should be extremely expensive out of season, the cost should be paid by the consumer and not the planet.  Meat should be a luxury.  Seafood should be for the coast only, and people in large cities that don't produce food should pay more for it with their increased capabilities in manufacturing and tech sectors.
    Food should just generally be more expensive.  I know that's hard to hear, but if you start a garden or raise livestock you will understand how ludicrous it is to buy a dozen eggs for 0.89$ or boneless, skinless chicken breasts for 3$ a pound. I'm in a grocery store in Ohio right now looking at out of season Mexican cantaloupe for $2.50 each and navel oranges grown in the tropics for 0.30$ each, bagged apples that have been stored at 1 degree above zero for 9 months at 3 dollars!!!  Salmon from the Pacific ocean for $12.00/lb!!! That's all absolutely ludicrous.  The true cost is at least triple for each of those "deals", but that true cost is pushed onto the environment and the devastatingly poor citizens of the "third world"

    Gardening on whatever scale possible should be mandatory, not by law, but by common sense.
    Everything has to change, and it won't because we won't make the sacrifices necessary.  The genie is out of the bottle and it's not going back in.
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • lastexitlondonlastexitlondon Posts: 14,140
    What about wasps .  Bastards
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    this song is meant to be called i got shit,itshould be called i got shit tickets-hartford 06 -
  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    There are some unsung hero wasps out there that prey on flies and other nuisance bugs, and many do pollinate, though inefficiently...but yeah, in general, fuck wasps!
    I do battle with a new large colony of yellow jackets every summer. 
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • mace1229mace1229 Posts: 9,486
    Last summer we had a bad wasp problem in our neighborhood. Found about 3 or 4 nets in my backyard alone, and each neighbor had problems too. Got stung a bunch.
    Whats the difference between wasp, hornet, yellow jacket anyway? could have been any of those. 
  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    Hornets and Yellow Jackets are both species of Wasps.   The Hymenoptera family, Vespulas and Vespas mostly, if I remember correctly.
    I'm pretty sure we only have European Hornets in America.  Most "hornets" in America are German Yellow Jackets or brown Paper Wasps that are behaving aggressively, which is a hallmark of the Hornet.
    Yellow Jackets form large colonies and most of our other wasps are solitary and parasitic.
    The key to distinguishing a wasp from a bee is the elongated body and lack of hair.  Paper wasps are social like yellow jackets but they always build above ground, while yellow jackets are often underground.  Yellow Jackets are more yellow than black and paper wasps are the opposite and thinner.  Yellow jackets use a side to side hovering motion to enter the nest and wasps will go straight to it.  Wasps keep to themselves much more, yellow jackets forage actively and attack aggressively.

    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    Oh, and we have bald faced hornets which are white and black, less aggressive than many hornets, but still with that wicked painful acetylcholine heavy sting.
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,310
    ^^^ "acetylcholine"  I love that word- good one!

    I read that before white settlers came to America there were no honey bees- those were introduced.  But there were other pollinators.  In any case, we keep disrupting natures cycles and that in of itself is going to screw things up.

    As for wasps and hornets- some I like, some not.  I got nailed on the top of the head by a swarm of paper wasps one time.  That was HUGELY painful.  But that all critters and plants have a roll in natures cycle and all organisms- even us-  are occasionally victims.  It's a bummer when we are a victim, but that's life- and death-  as nature means it to be.

    "Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!"
    -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"

    "Try to not spook the horse."
    -Neil Young













  • Spiritual_ChaosSpiritual_Chaos Posts: 30,573
    I don't think we, as far as we've come as a species, have the right to kill any species and should do everything we can to protect the ones we have left. 
    "Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
  • elvistheking44elvistheking44 Posts: 4,436
    Wouldn't there be an idea to have schools have bee hives and let kids care for them? Instead of having a class pet or an aquarium. 
    Gee, I wonder what could go wrong with project...
    My kids school has a bee hive. They sell the honey at fundraisers and such. It’s actually pretty cool and educational.
  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,310
    I don't think we, as far as we've come as a species, have the right to kill any species and should do everything we can to protect the ones we have left. 
    Totally agree! :plus_one:
    "Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!"
    -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"

    "Try to not spook the horse."
    -Neil Young













  • Spiritual_ChaosSpiritual_Chaos Posts: 30,573
    Wouldn't there be an idea to have schools have bee hives and let kids care for them? Instead of having a class pet or an aquarium. 
    Gee, I wonder what could go wrong with project...
    My kids school has a bee hive. They sell the honey at fundraisers and such. It’s actually pretty cool and educational.
    Seems I'm redeemed. 
    "Mostly I think that people react sensitively because they know you’ve got a point"
  • lastexitlondonlastexitlondon Posts: 14,140
    Hornets here are really reddish  or a dark orange colour and huge . You can tell straight away because of size and colour. I have never been stung by one but i understand  they have a larger sting. I've grown to look at all these creatures  with a love and understanding that I try and pass on to the younger members  of my family  because  there is an hysteria around all flying stinging creatures . When really when left alone they are all just living their life in peace.
    brixton 93
    astoria 06
    albany 06
    hartford 06
    reading 06
    barcelona 06
    paris 06
    wembley 07
    dusseldorf 07
    nijmegen 07

    this song is meant to be called i got shit,itshould be called i got shit tickets-hartford 06 -
  • tempo_n_groovetempo_n_groove Posts: 40,491
    Hornets here are really reddish  or a dark orange colour and huge . You can tell straight away because of size and colour. I have never been stung by one but i understand  they have a larger sting. I've grown to look at all these creatures  with a love and understanding that I try and pass on to the younger members  of my family  because  there is an hysteria around all flying stinging creatures . When really when left alone they are all just living their life in peace.
    I have a big garden and the bees come around and pollinate and do what they do.  

    There are family members that I scold and to stop "shooing" the bees.  They will go to the flowers just be patient.  Then they always do with nary a sting.
  • PJPOWERPJPOWER Posts: 6,499
    Hornets here are really reddish  or a dark orange colour and huge . You can tell straight away because of size and colour. I have never been stung by one but i understand  they have a larger sting. I've grown to look at all these creatures  with a love and understanding that I try and pass on to the younger members  of my family  because  there is an hysteria around all flying stinging creatures . When really when left alone they are all just living their life in peace.
    I have a big garden and the bees come around and pollinate and do what they do.  

    There are family members that I scold and to stop "shooing" the bees.  They will go to the flowers just be patient.  Then they always do with nary a sting.
    Yeah, I’m around bees all the time in my garden and have never been stung.  I always try and plant several bee attracting plants around the perimeter to coax them in :)
  • rgambsrgambs Posts: 13,576
    Yeah bees are friends, yellow jackets are devil's.
    I've only ever been stung by a bee when I step on one barefoot.
    Monkey Driven, Call this Living?
  • mace1229mace1229 Posts: 9,486
    Hornets here are really reddish  or a dark orange colour and huge . You can tell straight away because of size and colour. I have never been stung by one but i understand  they have a larger sting. I've grown to look at all these creatures  with a love and understanding that I try and pass on to the younger members  of my family  because  there is an hysteria around all flying stinging creatures . When really when left alone they are all just living their life in peace.
    Yeah, I never bother them either. I’m a firm believer in they leave you alone if you leave them alone.
    only becomes a problem when they build their nest under my patio table. Or in my wood pile, or under where I kept my spare trash can. In all of those cases I got stung 5 or 6 times when I accidentally discovered it. Can’t really have a wasp nest under my patio table. 
  • cp3iversoncp3iverson Posts: 8,702
    I do my part to destroy the wasp population everytime i see one.   Bees i leave alone.  We have a carpenter bee in the backyard who likes to F with the wasps.  Im good with that guy.  
  • brianluxbrianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 42,310
    I always think of Jim Morrison when I read this thread title,

    "Is everybody in?  WAKE UP!!!"
    "Pretty cookies, heart squares all around, yeah!"
    -Eddie Vedder, "Smile"

    "Try to not spook the horse."
    -Neil Young













  • PJ_SoulPJ_Soul Vancouver, BC Posts: 49,989
    edited May 2018
    France is always ahead of the pack when it comes to stuff like this. It's very admirable, and I wish North America was more open to appreciating that and taking a lot more lessons from them and several other western European countries when it comes to enlightened views re the environment and various other things as well.

    I know there are some outfits that are promoting home beekeeping. Apparently you can get trained and supplied with everything you need, including the bees, pretty easily and cost effectively, and set up a hive in your backyard in no time... There should be a lot more marketing of this though, and that marketing should be taken on by the provincial government IMO. I would love to see this whole concept really take off, and for the government to subsidize such programs. The only problem, though, is that some amateur beekeepers are accidentally letting their bees escape, and there are swarms of them harassing citizens. That said, there are now also companies that specialize in bee collection. So those being terrorized by the escaped swarms can call these collectors, and they'll come and take the bees away, and get them back into hives.
    I recently learned that the Vancouver Police Department keeps bee hives on the roof of their HQ. They even had the bees blessed, lol. That's kinda cool.
    Post edited by PJ_Soul on
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
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