The Honeybee Conservancy

Guest post by Michaela from The Gardener’s Eden (@MichaelainEden)

Holding Earth in Her Hands – Photo ⓒ Tim Geiss

As gardeners, most of us consider ourselves environmentally minded, and for us, every day is Earth Day. But, it’s important to remember that gardening —in and of itself—  is an unnatural act. When we work the soil and sow seed, fertilize and water, thin plants and harvest, we are manipulating the natural world. Agriculture is a human activity, and the end-results of irresponsible gardening and farming are as detrimental to earth as many other, more obviously harmful human activities.

Teaching future generations how to protect and preserve the environment by growing food organically and living sustainably, is one of the most important things we can do for our planet.

Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’ in my garden

Help the children in your life to become active and interested in learning how to grow their own food, organically. Even the simplest gardening projects —indoors and out— can help build positive experiences and teach skills to last a lifetime. Take the time to teach little green thumbs about the diversity of our ecosystem and how to identify and respect the plants, insects, spiders, birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and other creatures all around us. Need some new garden projects and ideas for children? Books like The Family Kitchen Garden, Roots, Shoots, Buckets & Boots and The Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Gardening with Children are a great place to start. More children’s gardening book recommendations can be found in the library page at left; where I’ve listed some of the best titles-in-print for teaching children about the joy of gardening organically. Although this blog is geared toward adults, throughout the growing season, you will find articles, projects and links on this blog worth sharing with children. In addition, you will always find online resources linked in the right hand column; including bird & insect identification sites, educational programs, non-profit environmental organizations, and more.  Have a look around, and feel free to recommend great resources for gardening with children, that you have found and would like to share!

Sowing the Seeds of Our Future – Photo ⓒ Tim Geiss

Happy Earth Day! Celebrate by helping the next generation learn to garden organically, responsibly and sustainably.

Special thanks to Tim Geiss for permission to use the beautiful photographs of his daughter Dharma, taken especially for The Gardener’s Eden.

© 2011 NYC Beekeeping

Since the beekeeping ban in NYC was lifted in March 2010, urban beekeeping has taken off in The Big Apple. NYC Beekeeping is offering their annual free in-depth course in beekeeping, “The Bee Course,” which resumes December 8th.  Here is the description on their site:

If you are curious about bees and beekeeping, now is a great time to start The Bee Course.  We will be offering this in depth program in cooperation with NYC Parks Dept for the 4th year in 2011-2012.

The first sessions give you foundations in bee biology and behavior and will help you determine whether you’ll be ready to keep bees on your own this Spring, would prefer to join a community team, or just want to learn and volunteer with us. In spring as weather permits, we progress to hands-on sessions in our urban apiaries, exposing students to dozens of hives at various stages of growth.

The Course is offered free of charge.

Registration is here.

Feel free to share this info on your blog or social media accounts (esp. Twitter)!

Source: NobelPrize.org

Today we remember Karl von Frisch (11/20/1886–6/12/1982), the Austrian zoologist who discovered that the bees use dance as a language to communicate the location of food.  This theory was greeted with skepticism when first introduced.  In addition to studying their dance, Mr. von Frisch also studied their usage of pheromones and their vision.  In 1973, Karl von Frisch was one of the winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

One of our favorite artists, John Stark, will have an upcoming exhibition, Apiculture, opening on the 6th of October at Charlie Smith Gallery in London.  We published a short blog post about his art back in August of 2010.

Copyright John Stark

An interview with John Stark in Spoonfed sheds some light on beekeeping imagery that is woven through a number of his paintings:

These beehives form the narrative crux of the exhibition, and lend a new “conceptual cohesion” to John’s work. Under the title of Apiculture, the works trace the ritual undertakings of a series of strange figures, like a cult of bee-keepers, anonymous under brightly coloured hoods and black face-masks. These bees, for John, are  “a really nice open metaphor, that can be read in so many different ways. All through the history of literature and art, the beehive has been cited as an example of utopian society, of a selfless existence. Do these hives represent the world? An idealised world? Art, even? Are the keepers the artists, producing the art, or the collectors harvesting the art?” Importantly, these possibilities are kept delicately open.

Copyright John Stark

John Stark – Apiculture can be seen at the Charlie Smith London gallery from October 6 to November 12,  2011.

Napoleon's bee

The 5th of May, 1821. On this day, Napoleon Bonaparte, the former French Emperor, died on St. Helena.

Although he was never a beekeeper, Napoleon used the honey bee as one of the most important symbols of the power and prestige of his empire.

There seems to be two schools of thought of why Napoleon’s government chose the honey bee as part of its iconography. Read the rest of this entry →

Have you ever noticed that some of the bees you see flying have these orange or yellow clumps on their hind legs?

If you haven’t, they look like this.

Read the rest of this entry →

NYC Beekeeping, which offers free beekeeping classes and takes part in extensive outreach, is hosting a talk on Saturday, February 19, 2011 at 2:00 pm with Professor Tom Seeley.  Dr. Seely, a Professor at Cornell, will speak on the topic of his new book “Honeybee Democracy: How Bees Choose a Home.”

Read the rest of this entry →

Thank you to our Donors! The Honeybee Conservancy is deeply grateful to the following individuals for their generous gift towards the “Sponsor A Hive” program:

• Sydney M.–in memory of Sara Stone-Willis, who had been so active in saving bees in the San Francisco Bay Area
• Stephanie C.
• Rebecca K.
• Michelle L.
• Woodenhive on Etsy
  
• James P.

Sweet! New videos to buzz about – and share!

Since 2006, more than three million honeybees in the U.S. and billions worldwide have mysteriously died, which affects one in three mouthfuls of food we eat. Get involved. Help us help us raise awareness by sharing our new public service announcement videos.

To share these videos, paste our video link below into an email or instant message, embed them into your web or blog page, or share them on Facebook/MySpace. Also send us your feedback – we especially welcome video responses on YouTube.

Bee Aware. Join the Honeybee movement.

Link to share:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtPGkGlLa6E