Saving The Bees: Is Cow Urine The Key To Colony Collapse?
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Trying to imagine a world without bees is not an easy task. Sure you wouldn’t have them buzzing around every time you ate lunch outside and your kids would be safe from painful stings during summer adventures but would we really notice if they went missing?
Would it really affect your life if tomorrow you woke up, turned on the news and realized that all the bees had just disappeared?
The answer is yes. Your life would be drastically affected if they were to disappear.
Considering that bees are responsible for about 30% of the food supply in the U.S. alone, I’d say that we depend on them more than one might realize.
The honeybee population has dropped by half over the last 50 years. While many are baffled by the incredible decrease, others contribute it mainly to mites and pesticides.
Not only would we loose fruits and vegetables that the honeybee pollinates but the Leafcutter bee and Alkali bee, which pollinate alfalfa, are also in danger. This poses a major threat to the meat supply.
A New Hope For The Bee Population?
There have been recent reports out of India about the use of cow urine to control microbial diseases in bee larva. Yes, you read that correctly. Researchers have been spraying the eggs with cow urine, which not only controls microbial disease during the rearing processes but also makes the colony work more efficiently by removing the unhealthy larva. The cow urine seems to be an efficient, safe alternative to the medicines that are currently used to treat microbial disease.
While this sounds a little unconventional for many, it could be a major step in helping increase the honeybee population.
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Thats a great post!
A couple of weeks back, in Canada, a truck full of honey bees that was being transported to assist in the pollination of blueberry plants overturned on the highway, which turned into one huge mess!
The decline in honey bee population has created far less than ideal conditions in many provinces for pollination of food plants.
Not many people realize that a large majority of our food crops are pollinated by bees. I just did a post today on mason bees. They’re are being used for commercial pollination now as well. And since they live a solitary existence so are not susceptible to colony collapse! Great blog!
Eric
Hello, My name is John Harding from Stourbridge UK.
Honeybees have been dying for centuries being esculated to the media and mainstream public in the past 20 ish years due to the Varroa Mite.
Honeybees were taken from their natural habitat and put into logs, boxes, skeps and eventually beehives so mankind could harvest honey, however they were put where mankind wanted them.
I am a beekeeper of 30 years experience, who 18 years ago stopped all chemicals and sugar, the reason, legal chemicals, at that time, to treat Varroa were killing my Queens, as this was done out of season, the new queens were unable to mate or mated very poorly, inevitably perrishing.
I have found the answer and solution to stop Honeybees dying, its in my unpublished book “An HOLISTIC Way in Saving The Honeybee”.
I do not have Varroa or disease but get 2 or 3 times more crop.
The reason for the demise of Honeybees is NOT pesticides, mobile phones or masts, microwaves or any modern alleged answer.
The reason for the demise of Honeybees is Mankind (Beekeepers) now and in the past.
Strong words but unfortunately I am right.
John Harding,
hardinglavies.freeserve.co.uk or 07974121472 or 01384 423557
correction: “you wouldn’t have them buzzing around every time you ate lunch outside” – just to point out those are WASPS, not bees that bother us when we eat outside. Bees are pollinators, not omnivorous scavengers like the wasps are. Please keep these straight, they are not the same critters.
It’s only since I moved to the US that I’ve heard people call anything yellow and stingy a “bee”. It doesn’t help the bee to be lumped together with wasps and hornets. Please help people overcome this ignorance and get them straight.
This confusion leads to probably thousands of people exterminating bee hives on their property a year, thinking they are the same as wasps.