Friday, May 22, 2015

Pollinator Health Strategy will Sentence Honey Bees to Death?





I just finished up browsing through the latest preliminary honey bee/colony loss report for this last year 2014 - 2015 (it ends on April 1st) and I was surprised to see such losses in the states surrounding Missouri.

Colony Loss 2014 - 2015 Preliminary Report

About two-thirds of the respondents (67.2%) experienced winter colony loss rates greater than the average self-reported acceptable winter mortality rate of 18.7%. Preliminary results estimate that a total of 23.1% of the colonies managed in the Unites States were lost over the 2014/2015 winter.

My losses for the year were right at 20% so I came in under the state and national average and slightly above the acceptable loss percentage.

Then of course I had to read the new Pollinator health strategy recently released by the Obummer administration.


You can usually tell when reading something as horrific as this so called strategy who is a banner waver and direct recipient of some type of funds for something like this. They are usually the ones being sent on trips with lengthy names like "promoting healthy honey bee cooperation" to South Africa or some place like that were they stay for two weeks and visit 20 some odd locations in 14 days.

Ya I bet there were a lot of working lunches on that tax payer dime wasn't there?

So if you see someone like that promoting something like this "strategy"  take it with a grain of salt AND some crystallized honey.

Pollinator Health Strategy 2015 (in PDF format)

All I can say from reading this thing is if you are truly concerned about Honey Bees you better hope this is just another Femocrat scheme to pocket our tax dollars. As usual with their strategies nothing much will come from it I hope but I am beginning to suspect the racist hatred of any thing European is actually having an effect on Honey Bee losses across the country.

Aside from 90% of the thing simply being departments collecting data and, oh ya, more research (remember 20 sites in 14 days on the tax payer dime) the number one word I saw coming up over and over again was........

Wait for it......


Can you guess?

NATIVE.

Let me tell you MY theory on overall Honey Bee colony losses, not simply CCD or the neo-whatever pesticide thing which I am sure does do some serious damage. Honey Bees are losing prime forage and it's directly because of the so called "Native" movement.

Now I admit I am not a highly trained, government employed Botanist but I am armed with the entire internet at my disposal and I cannot find any plant the eco-freaks and their Femocrat allies would call "Native" that even remotely fits the bill as a long term all season Honey Bee forage crop.

In fact my research showed me that the two plants that literally saved a few of my colonies during the drought of 2012 are now listed as an invasive specie and the State of Missouri has made a law that planting or allowing such to live can result in a daily fine to the land owner. I am speaking of White and Yellow Sweet clover. This drought resistant God-Send of a plant (that makes pretty good hay too) was about the only thing blooming around here during 2012 and the bees were all over it.




If it hadn't been for the White and Yellow Sweet Clover that year I believe my losses would have been 100%.

Now I know there are plenty of farms around me that have fields full of this stuff and I have yet to hear of a land owner being ordered to remove it so perhaps it isn't being enforced. Maybe like many silly government rules though they are just waiting.

The list of plants that are beneficial to Honey Bees and bloom almost all Summer long is not really that large to begin with. Locally besides Dandelions only the various clovers and a few Legumes seem to fit those criteria and they are all introduced species. What scares me is if White and Yellow Sweet Clover can be classified as an invasive plant then so can Alfalfa and other hay crop Legumes.

Crown Vetch is another plant that Honey Bees dearly love and the various transportation departments used to plant as ground cover. Again it is now listed as an invasive specie under the same rules. So has Black and Honey Locust trees (I always thought Honey Locust was native to this area). Well the list goes on and on with more beneficial introduced plants than I can name.

My theory, which I cannot really ever prove, is that the various state and federal departments are actually destroying Honey Bee habitat and replacing it with so called native plants that although Honey bees may work during the bloom period they in no way replace the plants that were destroyed.

I would also go one step further and say after reading the so called strategy that there is absolutely no way a type of plant can be found that will benefit both Honey Bees and the various wild so called native bees without severely reducing current Honey Bee habitat.

No matter how much the government blows the Native horn none of their so called alternative plants ever attain even close to the same forage value as our introduced species. Believe me I spend more time mowing that damned Big Blue Stem the road crews planted on the right away out of my hay field I know. Supposedly it was such great forage the Buffalo loved it. Well let me tell you the Horses and Sheep sure as hell don't.

A little tidbit from Captain Obvious here that I know all my readers are aware of but just in case some racist, European hating, Eco-Freak is reading....... Honey Bees are not Native by your standards either Dumb-Ass.

Want to save Honey Bees? Then get the government off this Eco-Freak Native kick and put it back to where it was. The Bumble Bees around here all seem to like the same stuff my Honey Bees like anyway.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!!!






 

12 comments:

  1. I have black and honey locust trees.....not giving them up. A few years ago they were always buzzing with bees. Now there are no bees here. Not even bumble bees or Mason bees. Scary!

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    1. Tewshooz - I am still baffled by the Honey Locust tree being on Missouri's invasive specie list. I mean sure it has become a weed tree in many ways but it is a native tree even by their standards.

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  2. All this is to do with the theory of rewilding by the Agenda 21 bunch. What they utterly fail to realise is the extent to which the ecosystems of Europe and North America depend on human action and how easy it is to cause huge damage to the food chain.
    Don't get me wrong we've been organic farmers since the year dot and really loath the use of pesticides and herbicides. But these loony progressive types have zero conceept of the managed environment their food is dependent on.
    Regards
    Ro

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    1. anonymous,
      what makes you think they don't realize what they are doing?
      with the devil it is all about manipulation and control.
      control the food - or lack of it- and the population is under the thumb [and under the gun!].
      these effers know exactly what they are doing.
      look at the 'laws' against catching your God-given rain water.
      look at washington where i hear you cannot build on your own land, and plans are underway to build those pigeonhole apartments and force people to live in them.
      you'll notice that the effers will not be among those stuffed into claustrophobia causing boxes.

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    2. Absolutely Correct!

      Carl in the UP

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    3. I think there are two types of these eco-freaks. The ones who do know what is happening and why they are doing it either for hate, control or money and then the lower level ones that really are stupid enough to not understand how it all comes together.

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  3. I almost did a post on this.I'll take your word for it.

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    Replies
    1. Bubba - At first glance it seems they are doing some good until you really read it and then understand how this current administration thinks.

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  4. I understand that records kept from the turn of the century report about the same amount of yearly hive loss as we currently have.
    The midwest could use something other than one crop per thousand acres, to keep bees there you'd need to keep them on a flatbed truck. And corn isn't much good for any species at all. Turning it into government mandated methanol sure isn't helping us either.

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    Replies
    1. MV - Well that is actually part of my theory. Corn is of no value to pollinators and judging by how many of my bees I see on the GMO soybeans I don't think the beans are that good or tempting to them either. What makes the bees survive is forage being available for the entire season and having a lot of wild border areas where stuff like clover grows. Missouri has about the largest amount of border/waste area per acre of crop land of all the Midwest states and has the lowest loss percentage.

      Maybe more there than a coincidence. However transportation departments and the like getting rid of clovers and other plants because they are not native? Disaster on the way I think.

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  5. hi, pioneer,
    thanks for the food storage page.
    i have looked at charts elsewhere and your page is the clearest. thanks.

    ReplyDelete

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