This is one of two talks by Willie that I recorded at the 2018 BIBBA conference in Cirencester.

The Robson family run Chainbridge Honey Farm and you can see their web site at https://www.chainbridgehoney.com

The sound quality is not perfect: there was a fair bit of background noise from road drills and seagulls, and I had the gain turned up a little too high, but if you can overlook that, we had a good chat about bees and beekeeping.

Kate started beekeeping in London, later in Edinburgh and latterly on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, just north of Mull.

We had an interesting conversation about black bees (Apis mellifera mellifera) and other aspects of beekeeping in Scotland.

I should also mention that I have just published another book, called Balanced Beekeeping II: Managing the Top Bar Hive. It has taken me nearly two years to write and edit and it has 385 pages full of the most useful tips and techniques I know to help you set up, populate and manage a top bar hive. Take a look on my site at biobees.com under books and you will find both paperback and ebook versions.

Willie Robson has written a fascinating book, full of his accumulated wisdom, called, "Reflections on Beekeeping", published by Northern Bee Books. 

Thanks to Graham White for the use of his photo of Willie with an open hive.

http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms/10558-the-worlds-top-ten-seed-companies-who-owns-nature

http://bestmeal.info/monsanto/company-history.shtml#timeline

To find out more visit her blog - buzztour.org

Twitter - @buzztour

email - changepollination@gmail.com

divestment - http://gofossilfree.org/uk

I talk about the weekend course just completed at Brinscall Hall, Lancashire, and the other things happening there this year, including the Friends of the Bees Northern Gathering in August. See www.biobees.com/training.php for training and www.biobees.com/events.php for events.

Then follows a bit of a rant about AI queens; the evils of packages, and the inflated prices charged by bee breeders.

This is where to find out more about the book - http://unbound.co.uk/books/letters-to-a-beekeeper

You can find more of Lara's music here https://myspace.com/laraconleymusic 

This is a video I shot of her the first time I met her in Totnes - http://youtu.be/8AvA1k4obO0

We cover a lot of territory in this interview, including bees, permaculture, war and peace, life and death. And the 250-year flood that may wipe Findhorn off the map...

The first voice is that of 92-year-old Dorothy Maclean, the only survivor of the original group of three  - the other two being Eileen and Peter Caddy - who started what became the Findhorn community just over 50 years ago. You can find out more about Findhorn on their website - findhorn.org Today's podcast is an edited version of my conversation with Dorothy and two of her carers, Marilyn and Jo. I also recorded conversations with two other long-standing members of the community - Craig Gibsone and Kijedo - which will form either one or two future podcasts, depending on how the editing pans out.

'Inner Beekeeping' is about the way our interactions with bees affects us internally. Everyone's experience may be different, yet there is a lot of commonality.

A wide-ranging discussion, unfortunately with some intrusive background noise at times.

Kate gave a talk in May 2013 at Sharpham House, near Totnes in South Devon at an event organised by Friends of the Bees and PUPA and co-sponsored by the Royal Entomological Society.

This year, she is moving back to Cornwall, to the farm that was her family home and the hub of the TV series, with the aim of turning it into an educational centre, where people will be able to learn not only about bees, but also other country crafts and skills. 

I visited Brigit at her farm and she spoke to me about her plans.

Bumblebee Farm web site - http://bumblebeefarm.co.uk

Brigit's blog - http://beestrawbridge.blogspot.co.uk

Vandana talks about the meaning of 'development' and its effects on its recipients, who so often become its victims: the so-called 1960's 'Green Revolution' and its deleterious effects on soil quality; the 270,000 suicides of Indian farmers as a result of their exploitation by Monsanto; the excessive deaths from cancer in the Punjab; the true meaning of soil productivity; shrimp farming and how it was once a complementary crop of rice growing, but became another unsustainable monocrop though inappropriate aquaculture; the destruction of jobs and communities; the deception of genetic engineering and the resilience of local seed varieties; the gluten allergy problem; plant patenting; why 'golden rice' is a GM con trick based on illegal trials and ignores richer sources of vitamin A; how deficiencies are created deliberately to make markets; food as the currency of life; the vital importance of micro-organisms to soil health; GM cotton and how Indian farmers were deceived by Monsanto; the wasteful 'war economy' agricultural system and how it caused most of the destruction on the planet including greenhouse gases;  how wartime explosives and poison gases were re-purposed as fertilizers and pesticides; how they made it illegal to keep your own seed; how 'plant development' destroyed flavour; how 'freshness' ceased to be a virtue; how reclaiming seed from the corporates is vital to food security; how we would all be better off without GM; seed freedom and biodiversity; seed exchanges; more people on the land; and bees!

It's been an exciting couple of days, with two of the UK's biggest retailers - B&Q and Wickes - announcing that they would be removing garden products from their shelves that contain neonicotinoids - and then a third big company - Homebase - announced that they were following suit.

UK supermarkets are now under seige by campaigners eager to press home their advantage and persuade them to take more garden pesticides off their shelves, so I think we have more good news to look forward to.

There was a session yesterday of the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee on pesticides, in which Bayer's representatives gave a rather lame performance, I thought. They looked dazed and confused by questions they seemed ill-prepared for - and then Professor Vyvyan Howard of Ulster University followed up with a calm dismissal of most of their arguments, leaving MPs - at least it seemed to me - in a position of little doubt when it comes to deciding which way to go on the neonicotinoids issue.

So, today's podcast is an interview I recorded in Denver, Colorado, last November with Valerie Solheim, who has some very interesting experiments running with bees.

This interview will be of particular interest to people who have considered the possiblility that there is more to hive location than just choosing a level piece of ground. Valerie suggests that we may need to take account of 'geopathic stress', as her findings suggest that the health of bees may be influenced by forces of which we currently have little knowledge.

I think there is still a lot of work to be done in testing her theories, and I hope some of you will be inspired to carry this forward. Valerie has just published a book about her work called The Beehive Effect, and you can read part of the first chapter at her web site - healingbees.org 

Please bear in mind that when I made this recording, I had already been speaking for over 2 hours and the ultra-dry air had given me a sore throat and an attack of the sniffles, which I have tried to suppress in this recording - but not entirely successfully.

Right at the end is a little more all-female close-harmony singing, recorded immediately after the interview in the hotel bar. 

We focused on the current situation in the USA regarding agriculture in general and beekeeping in particular, looking at what we feel needs to be done to put right the damage caused by the use of toxic insecticides and herbicides.

Today's podcast is a conversation with Duncan Allen and Tarryn Castle of PUPA Education, a UK-based social enterprise dedicated to educating people about the natural world, especially the myriad tiny creatures that are collectively responsible for the quality of the soil, upon which all land-based life ultimately depends.

About Duncan and Tarryn

Duncan Allen (CRB certified): Has 5 year’s experience of working with the public at both the University of Plymouth and the Plymouth City Museum.  He has been, Science Week co-ordinator and involved with summer school activities, seaside safaris, school visits and bug hunts promoting insect awareness and education; and most recently with the BBC “Live ‘n’ Deadly” road show.  He is the Royal Entomological Societies student representative and is currently employed at Plymouth City Museum Natural History Department where he is the volunteer supervisor.

Tarryn Castle (CRB certified):  Has great passion and concern for the environment.  Growing up in New Zealand she assisted children’s after school art classes whilst attending Manukau Institute of Technology.  She has spent a number of years volunteering for the green party and WOOFING (Working On Organic Farms an international volunteer organization) in New Zealand and the Wilderness Society in Australia. Whilst attending University at Aberystwyth she was involved with setting up a local Beach Cleaning Group and helped to organise and co-ordinate student volunteers as well as work with the public and raise general awareness. She is currently working on a number of projects for Buglife: The Invertebrate Conservation Trust.

Both Duncan and Tarryn have completed an MSc in Entomology and have practical experience and knowledge of invertebrate conservation in the U.K.

Duncan Allen & Tarryn CastlePUPA educational Workshops3 Newnham RoadPlymouthDevonPL47ANPUPA.education@gmail.comwww.pupa-education.co.uk

PUPA Education web site - http://www.pupa-education.co.uk

A senior Dharma teacher in the West, he is the author of 14 books includingLight on Enlightenment, Transforming Our Terror and Mindfulness for Everyday Living. More than 2000 of his Dharma talks have been recorded. A campaigner for peace and other global issues, Christopher acts in an advisory capacity to various networks and organisations working to resolve suffering including Australia, Asia (Israel, Palestine, India) and Europe. Christopher has not spent more than two months in one place since 1975, when he resided for five months teaching in the foothills of the Himalayas.

Poet and writer, he lives in Totnes, Devon, England. His work takes him to three continents every year.

www.christophertitmuss.org

www.insightmeditation.org

www.dharmafacilitators.org

www.mindfulnesstrainingcourse.org

This recording suffers from some low-frequency vibration caused by placing the microphone on a tripod directly on top of the table the panel were using. I had to remove some voices from the back of the room that were not sufficiently clear to include.

This is the first podcast from the conference, featuring the opening keynote address by Phil Chandler. This blog http://beesontoast.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-importance-of-being-drone.html supports the content of the speech with a more detailed argument.

In this podcast you will hear Mike talking about his bees, along with others who attended the course giving their feedback on the weekend. Then you will hear from Sammy - one of the younger Cahns - and finally you will hve a tour of the farm by Susie, who teaches permaculture and forest gardening.

The teaching site is on what I can only describe as marginal land for farming, comprising at first glance a rocky slope covered with heather, bracken and gorse. However, when you look more closely you find a whole range of unexpected fruit and vegetables that you would never imagine would thrive in such a place as this. 

If you want to learn about permaculture and forest gardening in a beautiful setting, visit the Carraig Dúlra web site and book yourself in - http://www.dulra.org

I think you will enjoy this podcast and I look forward to your comments.

I had hoped to be able to produce a recording every month, but somehow life got in the way. 

Here's the first podcast for this year a talk recorded at Trill Farm, Dorset (south of England, a little left of centre, for those not familiar with our layout!) at the invitation of chef Daphne Lambert, whose restaurant at Penrhos on the Welsh border was the first in the UK to be awarded organic certification by the Soil Association.

More about Daphne here - http://mamaheaven.org/blog/2011/07/daphne-lambert-nutritionist-chef/#.T7T2b3iURpg

More about Trill Farm here - http://trillfarm.co.uk/

Unfortunately, this strategy can also take us down a path that leads not to greater understanding, but to the confusion of fact with conditioned thought and to a form of distorted vision.

This can readily be observed in the interpretation of animal behaviour by reference to human behaviour, which is one form of what we call anthropomorphism. Myths and fables and children's tales are so suffused with the granting of human values and character traits to animals that it is hard to think of a creature that has not, in our imaginations, been stereotyped and imprinted with characteristics ascribed to it by someone with a particular point to make, or axe to grind. Thus the fox is 'wily and cunning'; the dog is 'faithful and obedient'; the elephant is a 'gentle giant' and the snake is 'sneaky and deceitful'. Aesop probably started the trend, but I prefer to call it the 'Beatrix Potter Syndrome', in recognition of her influence on the developing minds of 20th-century children, of whom I was one.

Beatrix Potter was an accomplished illustrator and observer of nature, who, had she been born a century later, may well have had a distinguished career in science. Sadly, she is now only remembered for her children's books depicting animals in human clothing who walk on their hind legs. From her stories, a direct line can be drawn to the emotionally charged portrayals of animals in many Disney films, while the brutal reality of the lives of wild animals is hidden beneath a veil of sugary sentimentality.

Potter's assignation of human attributes and behaviour to animals is only one form of anthropomorphism. There are at least two other ways in which we routinely corrupt our understanding of the non-human world by our choice of language: the use of words to name or describe an animal and the description of animal behaviour in human terms.

We can draw examples from the world of bees to illustrate both of these phenomena.

When we label the egg-laying mother of the colony as 'queen' bee, we impose on her by implication all the meaning with which that English word is loaded. Thus we may expect to find her as a monarch in charge of the colony, issuing orders and, perhaps, punishments for infringements of 'colony law'. The term 'queen bee' has passed back into the English language as a description of a woman with a controlling and manipulate nature, who likes to have people around her to serve her needs and give her attention. This reinforces the popular but inappropriate picture of a real 'queen' bee, which should really be more accurately thought of as the egg-laying servant of the colony and certainly not its ruler. While the queen bee does indeed have a retinue of attendants to feed and groom her, it is they who lead her around and prepare places for her to lay. When she begins to show any signs of a decline in her ability to provide eggs, she will be superseded, ignored and left to starve.

Likewise the male bee, or drone, which has inherited the popular meaning of its name as a parasitic loafer, or one who lives off the labours of others. While the male bees do no obvious and visible work compared to their sometimes hyper-active sisters, we know remarkably little about their day-to-day activities due to the comparatively small amount of research that has been conducted on them. I suggest it is highly improbable that a colony would deliberately encumber itself with a 'useless' 10-15% of its population at a time when gathering food is its primary concern. Simply because we have so far failed to study them with due care does not entitle us to label them as 'surplus to requirements', which is how they are regarded by most conventional beekeepers. In fact, research by Juergen Tautz at Wurtzburg University has shown that drones may indeed have hitherto unsuspected duties within the hive and may well have functions in the outside world that have so far eluded detection. As long ago as 1852, Moses Quinby (Mysteries of Beekeeping Explained) suggested that drones would likely have functions beyond mating with a queen, perhaps including helping to keep the brood warm. R.O.B.Manley noted that his best honey-producing hives generally had "a large number of drones" (Honey Farming, 1947).

When we come to bee behaviour, so much of it is alien to us that we struggle to make sense of it, so it is not surprising that we resort to attempts to explain aspects of their world in human terms. We talk freely of bees foraging for food, scouting for a nest site, communicating by means of the 'waggle dance', defending their home, mating and carrying out their dead because these are all activities that we can easily relate to and make practical sense in terms of day-to-day survival in a colony.

What is perhaps more surprising - and infinitely less helpful - is when people concoct mystical 'explanations' derived entirely from their imaginations and pass them on as if they had some scientific validity or foundation in fact.

Myths and legends, populated by gods and heroes, are poetic allegories through which we have conveyed information - both oral and written - from generation to generation and thus gained some understanding of our cultural history. Many myths are anthropomorphic in their personification of natural phenomena, but as long as we understand their origins and true nature, we can learn from them without confusing their content with objective reality.

However, as our scientific understanding of the natural world grew rapidly throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there was a parallel growth of popular interest in such things as clairvoyance, telekinesis, telepathy, reincarnation, ghosts, out-of-body experiences and suchlike para-psychological phenomena that appear not to be subject to the known laws of physics, chemistry or biology. Despite the lack of verifiable evidence for such phenomena, they appear to occupy a nether region that stubbornly persists in popular culture.

In the context of this article, the consideration of whether or not such phenomena really exist is less relevant than the fact that they have, since Victorian times at least, been routinely presented as if they were genuine by people with a considerably greater talent for showmanship than for scientific rigour. Demonstrations of 'manifestations from the spirit world' were fashionable in late nineteenth century society, while Ouija boards and 'table-tipping' have floated in and out of fashion almost to the present day, despite the efforts of rationalists such as James Randi and Derren Brown to expose the trickery behind them. Variations on the 'clairvoyance' theme have been around at least since the days of the Delphic Oracle - probably the first example of a tourist industry built around a mystical cult - and show no signs of losing popularity, despite various myth-busting public exposures of fraud and trickery.

Rudolf Steiner, in his lectures on bees, delivered in November and December of 1923 at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, sought to interpret the world of bees by means of 'Anthroposophy', a Christianized, version of the mystical 19th century eastern-derived 'religious philosophy' of Theosophy, whose best-known proponent, Helena Blavatsky, was also a performing clairvoyant. Both Steiner and Blavatsky claimed to derive their occult knowledge from outside the material world, by a process that would nowadays be called 'channeling'.

Steiner believed that mankind had existed on Earth - although not necessarily in material form - since its creation, and that bees (as well as other animals) were created for our benefit. This chronological reversal of the truth as revealed by fossil evidence - bees having certainly been around for more than 100 million years before Homo sapiens - sets the scene for further dubious assertions, such as when he talks of embryonic queens "giving off light" that somehow causes a colony to swarm from "fear that 'it no longer possesses the bee poison".

Anyone unfamiliar with Steiner's idiosyncratic cosmology and his other writings about the supposed history of the Earth may be surprised by passages such as:

"Our earth was once in a condition of which one could say that it was surrounded by clouds that had plant-life within them; from the periphery, other clouds approached and fertilised them; these clouds had an animal nature. From cosmic spaces came the animal nature; from the earth the essence of plant-being rose upwards." (Lecture VIII)

Back in the world of bees, Steiner makes much of the 21-day gestation period of a worker bee as being equivalent to "a single rotation of the sun on its axis" (Lecture II), apparently unaware that the equatorial regions of the sun perform a single rotation in 25.6 days, while polar regions rotate once in about 36 days (NASA).

He goes on to say that 'the drone is thus an earthly being' (because its completion takes longer than the sun's rotation - which in fact, as we now know, it does not).

He further elaborates on this thesis:

"The drones are the males; they can fertilize; this power of fertilization comes from the earth; the drones acquire it in the few days during which they continue their growth within the earth-evolution and before they reach maturity. So we can now say: in the bees it is clearly to be seen that fertilization (male fecundation) comes from the earthly forces, and the female capacity to develop the egg comes from the forces of the Sun. So you see, you can easily imagine how significant is the length of time during which a creature develops. This is very important for, naturally, something happens within a definite time which could not occur in either a shorter or a longer time, for then quite other things would happen."

As happens numerous times in the Lectures, Steiner makes a statement that is demonstrably erroneous, and then goes on to elaborate a sequence of specious arguments from it, which, being derived from false premises, must inevitably lead to false conclusions.

It would be tedious to cite every instance where Steiner is obfuscatory, unnecessarily mystical or just plain wrong. Suffice to say that, while not being totally devoid of interest, his Lectures are about as useful a source of insights into bees as a medieval book of medicinal herbs would be for conducting modern surgery. Indeed, Steiner even betrays his lack of basic understanding of the functions of the human body (Lecture VII) in saying that:

"...it is represented as though the heart were a kind of pump, and that this pumping of the heart sends the blood all over the body. This is nonsense, because it is in reality the blood which is brought into motion by the ego-organization, and moves throughout the body."

However, Steiner does make some non-mystical statements that must be considered, as they at least fall into alignment with observable reality. He warns against pushing bees for over-production, drawing a parallel with the dairy industry (Lecture V); he emphasizes that "... the bee-colony is a totality. It must be seen as a totality." (Lecture V); The one much-vaunted but often mis-quoted, 'prediction' made by Steiner, usually misrepresented as a 'prophesy' of the general demise of bees, amounts to a rather mild criticism of the then relatively new practice of artificial insemination: "...we must see how things will be in fifty to eighty years time...".

Right at the end of the final Lecture, we find clear evidence that Steiner's view of nature is actually highly anthropocentric:

'Thus we can say: When we observe things in the right way, we see how the processes of Nature are actually images and symbols of what happens in human life. These men of olden times watched the birds on the juniper trees with the same love with which we look at the little cakes and gifts on the Christmas tree. "...I have therefore spoken of the juniper tree which can truly be regarded as a kind of Christmas tree, and which is the same for the birds as the blossoms for the bees, the wood for the ants, and for the wood-bees and insects in general."

And so Steiner's personal mysticism, as well as his sentimentality, turns out to have a large component of anthropomorphism lurking within it.

Having reached this point in our analysis, we have to consider what is left to us: what would be a legitimate methodology for the study of bees, that would be free from the elephant traps of anthropocentrism, anthropomorphism, sentimentality and mysticism, yet can encompass the sense experienced by many who come into contact with bees that there is 'something else' present, beyond the purely material?

A rationalist would say, 'observe without interpretation: see what is there and describe it as accurately as possible, but without overlaying it with meaning. Be true to observable reality'.

And yet, many people report some kind of transcendental experience in the presence of bees en masse, so are their reports to be written off as mere whimsy?

Speaking from my own experience, I can say that while working with bees and maintaining a calm, unhurried demeanour, I have had moments of inner peace akin to that I have also experienced while meditating or engaging in certain martial arts practices that aim to 'still the mind'. Having one's unprotected hands in a hive containing 50,000 fully-armed bees has a way of focusing the mind very much in the moment, while any deviation from the 'now' is likely to be punished more rapidly and more severely than by a Zen master's staff.

Being present 'in the moment' is a rarer - and thus more precious - experience for the 21st-century Twitter-dweller than for our ancestors. For the opportunity to experience that sense of timelessness in the company of a wild creature so many millennia our senior is a privilege that beekeepers should celebrate and cherish.

Mysticism has had its day. We are grown-ups now: we have seen the atom bomb and the double helix and we need to come to terms with objective reality in all its wonderful forms without ascribing all phenomena just beyond our understanding to the work of gods, aliens, faeries or gnomes. We can appreciate nature without projecting our aspirations or values onto it. We can observe without always needing to know the 'hidden meaning' of what we see hear, smell and taste. We can be elevated by what is around us and enjoy all the sensations available in this remarkable, natural world. We can even compose poems and songs, myths and fables to entertain us and our children, but we no longer need to sit at the feet of all-too-mortal men who exert power over the ignorant by interposing themselves between us and authentic experience of the mysteries of life.

Philip Chandler

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6814638

Bayer sells a pestide called Premise that kills termites, which they market on the strength of its ability to interfere with the termites' grooming process. The active ingredient is Imidacloprid, and yet they claim never to have tested it on bees to see if it has a similar effect. Some would say that this a a significant oversight, while others might suggest that it is evidence of Bayer's usual habit of being 'economical with the truth'. 

Whatever we think about this, there is no statutory requirement for Bayer to conduct such research.

You can read Bayer's Premise leaflet here http://www.elitepest.com.sg/brochure/Premise_200SC.pdf

See http://tinyurl.com/6a7wa9z for an article about this issue in the Independent newspaper.

Amanda Williams worked in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of years, and now campaigns on behalf of bees, giving talks in schools and running an informative web site www.buzzaboutbees.net

Also in this edition, we launch Bee-Friendly Zones - see www.beefriendlyzone.com

Some of the background music was provided by Homebrewed - http://www.myspace.com/homebrood_the_band/music - with Dan on the fiddle. There are also excerpts from Lara Conley's Bee Song - hear more of her music at http://www.myspace.com/laraconleymusic - with the full version to conclude the recording.

David's new book, 'The Bee-Friendly Beekeeper' is available form Amazon and other outlets.

The music on this podcast is 'The Bee Song' by Lara Conley.

I spoke to Renato, whose English is a lot better than my Italian, and you can hear the result in today's podcast.

PLEASE SUPPORT Renato and Marisa by going to their web site and signing their petition - http://www.rfb.it/bastaveleni/adesioni.htm

The front page of their site is here - http://www.rfb.it/bastaveleni  If you do not speak Italian, I suggest using Google Chrome to view it and click the 'translate' button at the top.

Lara has a web site on MySpace - - see www.myspace.com/laraconleymusic - and I hope you will listen to and buy some of her music. I think you will agree that with a song-writing talent and a voice like hers, she deserves a wider audience.

You can also see Lara on YouTube here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AvA1k4obO0