Muuntumia-Vicissitudes

The opening and reception will take place tomorrow evening, Thursday, June 16, 2011 at 17:00 at Nelimarkka Museum, Alajärvi, Finland.
Cheese, homemade rye bread and beer, and other refreshments will be served.

Muuntumia-Vicissitudes

See subpages under Travel_Europe 2011 for installments of photographs from the trip.

I decided to go to a brewers association meeting. I always love learning new things and this was no exception.  I got to taste some home brewed mead and beers, so that was good.  There was one really good mead with heather.  A rather hoppy beer took my interest too.  The tartness of the hops was backed up well with strong barley component, so it melded together well.  I met a few interesting people.  Quite a few of the brewers were engineers or chemists.

On the drive back to the house, Bill talked about the orange grove, a huge topic.  Bill mentioned the other day how he had not recently taken his bees to orange groves because the farmers had been spraying pesticides that grow into and remain within the trees.  Today he clarified that the young reset trees that bloom first and get sprayed or treated and the poisons stay within the trees (because younger and more rings to grow?)  If the bees get pollen and nectar from these young reset trees, they bring the poisoned pollen and nectar back to the hive.  High level pesticides (pyrethrins, etc.).  If they have other sources of food (like pollen patties, etc.), they will stay away from the poisoned pollen because they know something is wrong with it.  As mentioned earlier, at some point, though, the bees with have a dearth of pollen/food and have to pick from their worst “groceries,” the poisoned pollen. And then they crash.  It is like a time bomb waiting to happen.

If, however, the bees are released among the blooms of older orange trees they are less likely to get as much poisoned pollen and nectar.  Though the older orange trees are most likely treated with pyrethrin pesticides, the pesticide tends not to stay on the older trees after three days of spraying.  A completely different story if the bees are present during spraying.  It is technically illegal to spray while bees are on site but it does happen(who is going to enforce it?)  If bees gather nectar and pollen from the older orange trees, there is less poison in the pollen, so they do not crash as fast or as intensely.  It builds up.

Bill said he is on the fence about sending his bees to the orange farms.  I said if there is an inevitable crash awaiting (time bomb), then why send them over?  He replied that beekeepers could send the bees to, say, squash instead of orange trees, but who is to say that farmers do not also spray the squash?  I asked if there was not a way to find out.  Bill said it was important to keep up good relationships with the growers.  I said, well, is there a way to know which growers refrain from using pesticides?  Bill said, you do not want to rock the boat.  If you say you will not be sending your bees to the orange groves, farmers will be upset.

Bill said a couple years ago, he tried to pass into law mandatory testing of what pesticides did to bee larvae.  He knew it would not pass but he wanted to stir the “pot of crap.”  It got the attention of IFIS (International Food Information Service), etc.  Farmers were approaching Bill in the halls, saying, we can’t have this – we have to use pesticides.  Bill said, well, then vote it down.

The Florida Farm Bureau has a huge impact on voting people into office.  Bill likes and dislikes it, as with anything else.  He likes that it is a bottom-up organization.  Issues get pushed from farmers to the top, to government agencies and not vice versa.  It is grassroots in that sense.

The way I see it is – bottom line is that everyone is out for survival.  The farmers are using pesticides to save their crops.  The beekeepers are sending their bees to certain death in pesticide sprayed crops (time bomb) because they need to foster relations with farmers, who will give them jobs to pollinate their crops.  Bill said it is important to keep good relations with the ranches because so many of his hive are on ranch land.  He does not own any of the land his bees are on.  He leases the honey house land and some land for the bee hives.  A good deal of his hives are housed on ranch or farm land and it is by favor of the ranchmen or farmers that he can put his hives on their land.

It is these relationships that Bill cultivates with the ranchers and farmers that got him the contract with GS Honey in California.  He has the job of building the GS hives in addition to maintaining his own hives (back from California in twenty days, mid March).

At the systemic level, the mono crops screw up any sort of immunity from parasites, etc.   With smaller, multiple crops, you have, say, bugs on the oaks who are natural predators of parasites on orange trees.  If you only have orange groves, then there is no natural predators or parasites around and all the groves will be gone unless you use pesticides.

In my humble opinion, there is something awfully wrong when we, as consumers, are demanding oranges even if they contain a good dose of pesticides** (to the core, not just skin deep).  The consumer has the right to demand pesticide free food, smaller rotated crops, grow plants and support lands that are strong habitats for bees and other insects and animals, etc.  In regard to food, demand creates results in our economy.  Are we going to wait and let our bodies be time bombs as we absorb and process more pesticides?

In the very beginning of my research on honeybees, I was focused on how our survival, as humans, depends on their well being.  Their well being boosts our well being.  Their decline preindicates our decline.  As I start to observe and read more about the honeybee, I am increasingly impressed at the fascinating creature it is.

*Names in this account changed to protect participants from being drawn into the political battles revolving around agriculture in the U.S.

** For information on the dirty dozen and clean 15 (list below):
http://www.foodnews.org/methodology.php
dirty dozen (most residue to least)

peaches, apples, bell peppers, celery, nectarines
strawberries, cherries, kale, lettuce, imported grapes
carrots, and pears

clean 15 (in order of least residue to most)
onions, avocados, sweet corn, pineapples, mangoes
asparagus, sweet peas, kiwifruits, cabbages, eggplants
papayas, watermelons, broccoli, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes
Grapefruit is number 16.
Oranges and tangerines, staples of midwinter
fall midway on the list of the 47 fruits and vegetables tested.

It is so quiet out here.  I thought about how if I lived down here, I would go to all the lakes, parks, reserves.  So much flora and fauna.  It is odd to see palms next to deciduous trees.  All different animals.  Saw the cows and bees yesterday.  Turkey vultures, small birds, blue herons.  The city side of me would be fighting the nature side of me.  The city side in me would get really bored.  L’ennui – hits anywhere.

7pm
Got back from Bill’s Honey house around 4:30pm today.  Morning started at about 7:20am.  Got up and took a shower.  Breakfast of cereal, bread with homemade jams and creamed honey, and coffee on the go style.  Meals are impromptu and self serve.  Continued to get ready, prep cameras and lenses.  Bill drove Jen and me over to the honey house for the Beekeepers Association hive splitting workshop.

We got to the honey house early, before everyone else had arrived.  I checked out the observation hive and the association beehives by the highway.  Seemed to be some action in a couple of hives.

People started to stream in towards 10am and trickle in later as well.  There may have been twenty  or so people.  Everyone gathered in the honey store and started to ask Bill questions, like how to keep fire ants out of the hives.  Bill was saying to use oil on the pallet on the ground, outside of the hive.  Ants hate oil and will not go onto it.  Bill mentioned how copper glutimate has been stopping reproduction of the Varroa mites, but not knowing the full effects of the solution, he does not advocate using it.  He is testing the solution on his bees.

Went to the tool shop and everyone started to assemble frames and hive boxes.  Power stapling frames, nailing boxes and painting the exterior of the hive boxes.  Quite invigorating to see a big group of people working diligently like the bees in the hive.  A few lazing about like drones.

When a set of hive boxes had been produced, we went out to the association hives.  Bill started to open up the hives.  Finding a healthy one, he took out some frames.  Bill took a frame with a queen on it and put it in a nuc to split the hive and create a new one.  The workshop started with rapt attention on Bill and his progress with the bees.  Then people started to break off and chat in small groups.

While Bill was near the end of the hive splitting process, we went back to the tool workshop to finish up frames, etc.  Some people had brought their own lunch.  Bill ordered a pizza for the rest of us.  Then I talked to Mrs. Brown about her hive.  She told us of an NPR Here and Now segment on an incredible Appalachian beekeeper, Tammy Horn, in Eastern Kentucky and West Virginia.  Mrs. Brown recounted how Tammy got coal miners (coal mining was once a mainstay of the area) to agree on helping to reforest the old coal mine sites by bringing beekeeping into the area to create a beekeeping corridor in Appalachia, to offer jobs to ex-coal miners.  She was also able to strike deals to provide beeswax to cosmetic companies.  What a holistic vision.  How amazing!

listen:
http://www.hereandnow.org/media-player/?url=http://www.hereandnow.org/2010/01/rundown-115-2/&title=Bees%20in%20Appalachia&segment=4&pubdate=2010-01-15
read:
http://chronicle.com/article/In-Appalachia-a-Researcher/49141/

Bill talked about how he does not send his bees to orange farms as of late because of all the pesticides that they use.  I asked if the orange growers would stop if beekeepers raised the issue and stopped sending bees to the groves.  Apparently bees can temporarily survive the pesticides in this way – they collect the poisoned pollen and pack it into the frame cells.  They will not eat the poisoned pollen if there are other sources of food like pollen patties (winter feed).  The bees will only eat the poisoned pollen out of necessity.  There will be a dearth of food and that is when the bees eat the poisoned pollen and die.  The poisoned pollen acts like a time bomb.  One eats from the bad bag of groceries when there is nothing else to eat.

I asked Bill about trucking bees, if that was not a huge stress on the bees.  He said it was somewhat of a stress.  Getting the bees cross country (say, Florida to California) takes three days with continuous trucking (tag team of drivers).  Bill said it used to be worse when there were no air streams and huge potholes in the road.  I am still thinking about the stress of the extreme draft on the bees, especially when they need to maintain a hive temperature close to 94 degrees and the exhaustion that must ensue from having to maintain that temperature over a span of three days on a speeding truck.  Even if they are balling or huddling in the middle of the hive, they must experience intense draft.  Bill said that the round trip toll is ten percent, which used to seem huge but now bees staying in the same spot have ten percent or greater loss.

We got onto the subject of raw milk, etc.   Mrs. Brown said that thirty states allow sale of raw milk to end users.  Buyer beware.  In Florida it is illegal to sell raw milk to the consumer.  Bill said a Florida senator is trying to pass a bill for one hundred percent freedom to small growers to sell as desired.  He said there are issues of standards of identity.  I need to look into this.

A simple definition of “standards of identity”:
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/usgovernment/a/fda_identity.htm

Jen drove us back to the house around 4:30pm.  Bill showed us the DVD showing short documentary work of film students who focused on Bill’s Honey and the Beekeepers Association.  It made me think that it would be cool to make a documentary on beekeepers, bees, CCD, and things the average person could do to help the bees – creating habitats and gardens suitable to bees, raising hives, demanding foods not treated by pesticides, etc.  We need to back away from the hi-tech and get back to the land, start farming again.

Bill said all we need to do as consumers is to support beekeepers and let them figure out how to save the bees.  Support them by not allowing cheap and imitation honey imports flood the U.S. market (from Argentina, China, etc.).  I think we have to approach it both at the grassroots level as well as from the commercial side.  Get rid of the pristine lawn idea, plant good plants and trees for bees to prosper.

Janice, the past Beekeepers Association president, mentioned how Bill uses fairly organic methods as a commercial beekeeper.  I think it is a mix.  Earlier in the workshop, Bill mentioned a pesticide to use for mites that does not affect the bees.  He said that there may be a long term effect.  I think, then would not an alternative be better?  But we have developed into a culture and economy that needs everything to be fast and instant.

Mrs. Brown mentioned how honey was good for allergies – she thought it built up tolerance.  Bill said that honey contains allergens of the previous season’s plants (makes sense, since the honey making process takes time, the bees process the nectar into honey and then the honey is harvested).  Bill thinks it is more that the honey boosts the immune system.  Propolis is like super honey.  Chew some every day to keep healthy.  (Hmm…propolis honey chews!)  Bill said the brood caps are a mix of propolis and honey and one of the best parts of the hive to eat/chew.

I did not end up going to talk to Kate today.  Felt like I got enough shots of honeybees at the Beekeeper Association workshop and felt a bit tired (sun exposure?)  Bill had mentioned how Kate had got someone good and stung since she does not use smoke to calm the bees.  I should have thought it through, perhaps planned to have gone to see Kate on Monday?  I will cal Kate on Monday morning, see if she is around.  I called to cancel with another beekeeper who had cautioned me – he really did not have much for me to see since he was focusing on his honey store.

*Names in this account changed to protect participants from being drawn into the political battles revolving around agriculture in the U.S.

Called Kate,* a small-scale organic beekeeper, at Kate’s Honey and after numerous emails on the subject, she still did not understand what I was doing in Florida.  I explained to her that essentially I was approaching honeybees (further noted as “bees”) from an artistic viewpoint to focus attention on them and their plight (possible extinction).  She said I could come by today around 3pm.  Her husband, who has a mechanical engineering background, was going to help her open the hives so they could shoot video for their website.  I said great, I would be there.  She said another possibility was Saturday afternoon (tomorrow).  Then I called Bill, a commercial beekeeper, and turns out he would be going to his hives today at the same time that I would meet with Jean.  I decided to go with Bill today and see Kate on Saturday. Bill said he would tag along with me to go to see Kate’s hives on Saturday afternoon.  I called Kate back and asked if I could still meet with her on Saturday instead.  She agreed that I should go with Bill’s today, since he had more beehives.  For whatever reason, Kate sounded surprised about Bill wanting to see her hives.

Used the gps (must thank my brother) and got to Bill’s Honey in about 40 minutes.  Really good to meet Bill.  He introduced me to his shop, production area (with centrifuge), loading/packaging area (large barrels), tool area, and his “home” brewery of meads.  All very exciting to see.  He also had an observation hive by the window, with pvc piping acting as access for the bees in and out of the hive.  Definitely made me want to create one (except, do the bees like the transparent plexiglass or do they like darkness better?).

Then we headed to Bill’s 40-50 hives on B Ranch.  Passed a lot of cattle and calves of all ages.  And big (Angus?) bulls.  Amazing heifers mooing plaintively to their babes when we got close, as if saying, watch out for the humans, we do not know what they are up to.

Got to the hives.  Two long rows.  Only 40-50 hives.  The rest of his hives, about 500 more, had been trucked to California to pollinate almond trees.  Bill would check over almost every hive, take off each cover, apply smoke with the [bellows], take out a few frames – one at a time,  observe, prop each frame against the hive boxes, repeat with next set of hives boxes.  Really good to see the worker bees, queens (typically one per hive), and drones in person rather than in a book.  Quite a few bees flying about – Bill said it was nothing compared to the regular numbers flying about.  I did not get stung.  That was my biggest worry.  I had a chance to fill a prescription for an epipen (not sure if I am allergic to bees or not) but I had to forego the option since it would have cost $65.

Back at the honey house (Webbs Honey), Bill showed me the sucrose water he mixed with copper glutimate and Bee Healthy mix to fortify the bees.  He typically feeds the bees sugar water in the winter, the off months.  This time around, Bill was going to be feeding his bees high fructose corn syrup (55 grade?  the thinner one for commercial use) since he was getting a free tank full.  Some production facility needed to get rid of it (post date and no longer legal for human consumption).  I just wonder the effects of feeding corn syrup to the bees since they naturally collect nectar, not processed sugars.  White sugar is at .22/lb, post human consumption.  Do they process sugar from beets now, rather than sugar cane?  It all confuses me.   I can understand the need to build up the bees in the off months, but, in the long run, are there any negative effects from feeding sugar water to the bees?

Bill said it has been tough to raise bees in the last 20 years, even harder as each year passes.  The biggest problem seems to be pesticides and fungicides.  Bill pointed out the problem lies not just at the commercial level since homeowner grades contain concentrated huge doses of poison that saturate the soil and stay there (and think of how many homeowners there are with lawns to maintain – what is really the advantage of having pristine lawns?  A carryover from the influence of the French garden?  Perhaps it is time for the English garden to have a comeback).  According to Bill, when bees get pollen that have been sprayed with fungicides, the pollen holds the toxins and doesn’t develop as it should to fortify the bees and the bee’s immune system is then compromised.  On the plus side, the treatment for Varroa mites knocked out tracheal mites as well.  However, all the other toxins in the compound are most likely hazardous to the bees and wreaking havoc on their immune systems.  To compound the problem, we are raising single crops like almonds. Bees need a diversity of foods rather than just one type, just like humans do.  Imagine eating just one food for several weeks or months.

On the road, Bill would point out the plants that the bees would forage – mustard greens, willows, saw palmettos, and Brazilian peppers (with red berries, supposedly the beeswax produced after foraging the peppers is a deep yellow).

Bill also talked about breeding his own queens soon.  Queens he bought have not been strong.  The queens are lucky if they make it to a year.  They used to be able to last two years. No longer.  Bill would graft cones onto a stick and attach it to an empty frame.  Then he inserts the queen larvae.  He would then place that frame into a nuc(lear) hive.  This would allow for the worker bees in the nuc to feed and care for the queens.  Once the queen was mated, Bill would either put the the queen with a colony where she would start laying eggs or ship her and attendant bees to whomever needs her.

Since he has been losing so many bees and, therefore, so much profit, Bill started to have them trucked to pollinate almonds, etc. Bee pollination has become fifty percent of his profit.  The other years there was nothing.  Selling honey was finally paying off, whereas it was not paying off before.

Bill seemed to have hit upon a golden opportunity when a couple from GS Honey in California hired him to tend to and winter their bees.  It worked out so that Bill would get a salary of about $80,000 a year.  A healthy salary, but for the amount of relationship building (with ranchers, farmer, etc.) and running around that he would be doing, it would not seem like much.

Bill seemed most excited about his room of honey meads in the honey house.  Different color liquids fermenting in huge glass containers.  He explained each flavor, some with chocolate, coconut, sassafras, blueberry, sunflower, orange, lemon, lemon rind.  I got to taste a few and they were definitely light and refreshing.  Tasted a sparkling mead.  Quite good, sweet but not cloyingly so.  Bill had used sassafras and hibiscus in this one.  I tasted the sassafras but not much of the hibiscus (though recognition may be tough since I have only tasted hibiscus in tea).  He was experimenting with chocolate, cocoa and cocoa nibs.  I suggested Varlhona chocolate instead of the Baker’s chocolate he was using.  I also suggested that a higher percentage bittersweet may yield more chocolate flavor and essence, and one could control the sweetness in other ways.  Bill said he had been using a semi sweet chocolate because it balanced out the bitter hops.  Makes sense, but I still think one would get more chocolate flavor by using bittersweet or dark chocolate.  I liked how some of the meads had qualities of champagne rather than beer.  I did not get any of the sharp hop taste you find in many beers.  [blueberry - need higher pH, less acid] [less acid in beginning with baking soda, but affect flavor?]

Bill had won numerous prizes for his meads in competitions.  He had a stack of medals, quite a few silvers and golds.  I said that he needed to keep a recipe and process log.  I would.  Seeing his brews in progress made me want to start brewing at home.  I had thought about it in 2001 but had no idea where to start (other than the brew kits they sell).  I need space – need to find land to tend bees too.  Bill was saying how he actually did not own or lease any of the land on which he had his beehives, other than leasing the land for the honey house.  Thanks to his great relationships with the farmers and ranchers in the area, they just let him keep his hives on their land.  They must also realize that the bees help fertilize the plants on their land.

Tomorrow, Saturday, the hive splitting workshop will be taking place.  I hope to go with Bill to his Home Brewers Association meeting on Sunday.

*Names in this account changed to protect participants from being drawn into the political battles revolving around agriculture in the U.S.

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