Only bumblebees. I haven’t noted seeing a honeybee all year. What do bumblebees do with nectar?

We have some honeybees, but mostly bumblebees. And we keep bees … most of ours, though, work elsewhere, probably up the parkway. The fact that we have so few in our garden is Not A Good Thing At All—apparently there aren’t many around here.

No good news. The honeybees are dying off.

See: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com:80/node/10…

The recent decline in honeybee population, termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) because it has no identified cause, has been widely discussed and lamented. (Perhaps someone more facile and godlike than I - Lambert – would be so kind as to provide some Corrente links.)

It may be, however, that seeing CCD as a negative event is merely a result of the human propensity to view what is familiar as being “good” and change as “bad”, even when that change is actually a correction towards a more long-established normalcy. Our perception of honeybees as “good” largely stems from authoritarian propagandizing of the desirability of managed collective industriousness, the glory of Capitalism wherein neutered worker bees (you and me) labor tirelessly for the benefit of the Owner of the Hive (rich people, not you and me) in return for the safety and security of being “kept” in our assigned boxes. In the larger scheme of things, both ecologically and socioeconomically, a wiping out in North America of the European honeybee may be a very good thing indeed.

The European honeybee is exactly that, an import by European settlers in the 1600’s, not for crop pollination (a mechanism of plant reproductive physiology not scientifically recognized until the late 1700’s) but rather to support western European cultural preferences; wax for candles and honey for use both as a sweetener and more importantly as a basis for mead – Puritans enjoyed a little hooch with their candle-lit desserts. The honeybee, regardless of all the romanticizing it receives, is factually an invasive species.

Already present in North America were at least 3,500 species of native bees, all of which are active pollinators but none that make honey. Most of them are highly specialized, with lifecycles that revolve around one or two preferred native flowering plant species. These native bees continued to thrive after the honeybees arrived because they generally do not compete for the same food sources and where they do the natives are better adapted, and also because they are not susceptible to disease in the same way as are honeybees since for the most part they are solitary nesters and so less likely to transmit or harbor infections.

While honeybees spread easily throughout North America as feral creatures, they did not reach modern total populations until the advent of large scale monoculture farming in the early 20th Century. From citrus groves to alfalfa, Big Agra was founded and became dominant on four things: machine horticulture, pesticides, imported crop species and honeybees. Together they drove consolidation of farms into larger and larger holdings and towards monoculture. In consequence, small farmers and agricultural variety were marginalized and suppressed.

Honeybees are the ideal Big Agra pollinator species because they are already adapted to imported European crops, they fly long distances for food (more than a mile versus 100-200 yards for natives), they live in hives that can easily be transported from field to orchard on demand and once they are finished pollinating they are removed from the scene thus allowing heavy use of chemical pesticides. Honeybees combine with another managed imported species, the Asian alfalfa leaf-cutter bee, to provide more than 90% of the crop pollination for Big Agra. Without them, big commercial monoculture farming will be severely crippled.

On the contrary, small farms that can rely on native pollinators are much more sustainable without honeybees, as are crops that are native to North America. As Lambert has noted in his own ecosystem, native bumblebees will readily fill the niche formerly occupied by honeybees, especially where native species such as squash are concerned. Other native species, many of which are small, undistinguished and easily mistaken for some sort of flies, go about their business largely unobserved.

An absence of honeybees, should it actually persist, would seriously hurt Big Agra by eliminating the dominant means of non-native monoculture pollination. Simultaneously, the sustainability of small farms growing more diverse and native crops that can thrive with native pollinator species would be greatly improved. Additionally, reliance on resident populations of native bees would preclude the use of growing season pesticides, again favoring small farmers and especially those using “organic” pesticide-free agricultural practices.

Contrary to fear-driven, alarmist, main stream media reports, the loss of the honeybee in North America is not a bad thing, but actually to the good. Smaller farms, reduced pesticide use, greater crop diversity, more consumer food choices, increased availability of local produce; are all desirable outcomes, not bad ones. What we may be seeing here with the demise of honeybees is not a harbinger of ecosystem collapse but rather early signs of a resilient ecosystem cleansing itself of invaders and moving towards re-establishment of the natural order of things.

Pray that same resiliency of Nature does not extend so far as to removal of the most pestilential of all species, Homo destructus (you and me and rich people too).

More than you could ever want to know about all that is unknown about CCD at: http://www.beeculture.com/content/Colony… and a lovely general overview of honeybees at: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1…

Fuck that’s good.

UPDATE Excellent!

(yuk yuk yuk…yeah just gotta sneak that Civil War humor in no matter what)

Ahem, where was I? Bringiton, not to address you overall point but on the very small matter of motivation for the import of, and intended uses of, European honey bees, I beg to suggest that mead-making was probably pretty low on the priority list. My sources are by and large from later periods than the earliest Colonial period but the oldest one I have, “Mrs. [Hannah] Glasse”s Art of Cookery (first published in London in 1747 and popular on both sides of the Atlantic for the next half century or more) gives only two recipes for mead and makes no especial fuss over either. “To Make Mead” is on p. 256 in between one for “How to make Uxbridge-Cakes” and “Marmalade of Cherries.” The other, for “White Mead”, is p. 283 and precedes a recipe “To make a Scotch Haggass.” Ew.

At any rate the quantity of honey required was not terribly large, about 1 gallon to 5 gallons of water. Well hell, why not just give the recipes Xan and let people judge for themselves…

How To Make Mead

Take ten gallons of water, and two gallons of honey, a handful of raced ginger; then take two lemons, cut them in pieces, and put them into it, boil it very well, keep it skimming; let it stand all night in the same vessel you boil it in, the next morning barrel it up, with two or three spoonfuls of good yeast. About three weeks or a month after, you may bottle it.

Don’t ask me about the name on this one; what makes this in any way “whiter” than the previous I am at a loss to explain. But anyway…

To make White Mead

Take five gallons of water, add to that one gallon of the best honey; then set it on the fire, boil it together well, and skim it very clean, then take it off the fire, and set it by; then take two or three races of ginger, the like quantity of cinnamon and nutmegs, bruise all these grossly, and put them in a little Holland bag in the hot liquor, and so let it stand close covered till it be cole; then put as much ale-yeast to it as will make it work. Keep it in a warm place, as they do ale; and when it has wrought well, tun it up; at two months you may drink it, having been bottles a month. If your keep it four months, it will be the better.

Now to me the key ingredient between these two, as far as giving us a lesson in non-local eating, is the lemon. (okay, cinnamon too.) T’aint none of those grow in England, nor the northeast US neither. Trade in fancy/luxury foodstuffs is the earliest (beyond pure exploration) and most reliably profitable reason for shipping either by land or sea. Spices, tea, coffee, citrus fruits, coconuts—these caught on a hell of a lot faster in Europe than potatoes, tomatoes and squash.

You know Jared Diamond’s next to last book, Guns, Germs & Steel? He makes a very persuasive, imho, case that it was virtually inevitable that the peoples of Eurasia would conquer and colonize those of the Americas rather than the other way around, in large part because of geography (major land form runs east and west vs. north and south in the Americas) and biology—a plant can be moved as far as you want to east or west and still find growing conditions it can cope with, whereas moving things north and south quickly gets them out of conditions they can survive.

For further unfair advantage the domesticated grains of Middle Eastern origin are way higher in protein than corn is, and apparently much easier to rapidly modify into strains with larger kernels, higher yields etc. So Eurasians had greater quantities of better, higher-protein food, facilitating the growth of larger communities, more innovative technology and shit. Oh and also draft animals, but that’s not quite on point and I’m not sure I understand his reasoning there anyway.

I need to reread it but the library doesn’t have it and I left my copy with my history prof for him to read over the summer intending to pick it up in the fall. Then wound up running short of money and didn’t go back in the fall, and the silly bastard went and died on me anyway so I guess his successor has it.

Having wandered all over hell and gone I return to the original question posed, to report that I have buzzers of all sorts here:

—wasps of profuse varieties, bees some of which I’m sure are Euro and others of similar size but different enough shape or markings that I’m not certain, bumble and carpenter.

Then there’s a really tiny thing that’s size-wise to a bee like a hummingbird is to a robin, so I”m not sure what it is at all. They’re annoying but don’t seem to sting so I try to avoid waving them away unless they’re right in eyes or ears.

including, especially, pigs.

Diamond (I believe, but maybe it was 1492?) also argues that this led Europeans to have very strong immune systems, and when they brought their domestic animals to America, the inhabitants were literally decimated.

I understand that bees are part of factory farming. But it’s a shame that the ordinary beekeeper has to pay. Seems like bees are a case of co-evolution with us, like cats, and I don’t think if all the cats (and, OK, dogs) in the world died of a sudden plague we’d be very philosophical about it…

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Despite reading the immortal CoEvolution Quarterly from nearly the beginning, I had always associated the term with plants. Never occurred to me that it is virtually impossible to “domesticate” an animal unless it sees an advantage to associating with humans. And even then (viz, rattus norviticus, the body louse, etc) they may be dependent on us but not exactly of a friendly nature.

Discover magazine had an article awhile back (last year probably as it’s still in my bathroom reading stack) on a guy in Russia who set out to produce a domesticated fox. Spent decades and many fox generations on the project, which indeed may still be going on. They still have to be kept confined as they will light out for the horizon at any opportunity to escape—but they now look bizarrely like dogs, short-legged Scottish sheepdogs to be precise.

I’m not sure I’d even call bees domesticated, to get back to garden-related topic. All beekeepers do is provide a shelter which substitutes for the hollow tree they would otherwise live in. It’s protected, it’s convenient, it’s easy to build wax frames on…no real penalty except losing one’s honey periodically, which they also do in the wild every time a bear gets desperate. If the weather is such that they wind up needing what was taken away, the beekeeper provides a substitute to carry them over until more can be made.

And I keep going back to those stories we had when this was briefly on the radar in Major Media. The CCD cases were all occurring in very big commercial producers, particularly ones who transported hives hither, thither and yon. Small-timers, backyard beekeepers and the like said, yeah, we’ve had the occasional problem with mites, once in awhile weather related problems, but no big deal.

Why the fuck don’t the almond growers, who seem to be the ones always cited as the recipients of bee transports, just get their own fucking hives and keep them there year round? It’s to pollinate trees for fuck’s sake, it’s not like the boxes would get in the way of tractors coming through to plow everything under once a year.

(Shakes head in puzzlement.)

Ah, Xan, I pour my heart into an elegant philosophical argument and like an arrow you strike at the weakest part of the whole construct, a handful of words mostly intended to allow introduction of a small joke at the expense of Puritanical hypocrisy. Sigh.

But, I am up to the challenge. My assertion is based in part on experiential-based logic and in part on printed reports from the period. Allow me to convince you…….

First, the logic. Every culture, everywhere, has used alcohol. The earliest forms were beer, wine and mead. The first thing that Noah did when he got off the ark was to plant a vineyard, Genesis 9:20, and as soon as he made wine he got drunk, Genesis 9:21.

The earliest English settlers were supplied with only enough beer and wine to last for the voyage over, and were put ashore to forage as best they could. Under Puritanical theology, alcohol was a gift of God but drunkenness was Satan’s work; strong drink (whiskey, rum, gin) was forbidden, primae facia evidence of the owner being a drunkard. Beer, wine and mead, on the other hand, required a lot more consumption to reach drunkenness and were accepted forms of purifying water which was otherwise justifiably suspected of causing disease. So, good Puritans and other respectable people could make and consume beer, wine and mead to their heart’s content.

When they first arrived the English tried making beer from corn, drinkable but not everyone cared for the taste. The local grapes yielded a musky flavored, weak wine that also wasn’t initially popular. But with the arrival of honeybees, perhaps as early as 1621 to Virginia and by the 1630’s to New England, they had honey; a consistent raw material that they certainly knew how to ferment into a familiar and palatable drink. Based on everything known about every people everywhere, including Noah, I’m concluding that they started making mead as soon as they had a usable harvest.

For written support, I cite “Stage and Tavern Days” available at http://www.quinnipiac.edu/other/ABL/etex… where the early popularity of fermented honey is discussed. The term used, metheglin (or matheglin, both derived from the Welsh myddyglyn, meaning curative or healant, itself likely derived from the Latin medica and the source for our English word medicine) refers to the fermented product of diluted honey mixed with herbs and spices:

“Metheglin was one of the drinks of the American colonists. It was a favorite drink in Kentucky till well into this century. As early as 1633, the Piscataqua planters of New Hampshire, in their list of values which they set in furs, - the currency of the colony, - made ‘6 Gallon Mathaglin equal 2 Lb Beaver.’ In Virginia, whole plantations of honey locust were set out to supply metheglin. The long beans of the locust were ground and mixed with honey herbs and water, and fermented.

“In a letter written from Virginia in 1649, it is told of ‘an ancient planter of twenty-five years standing,’ that he had good store of bees and ‘made excellent good Matheglin, a pleasant and strong drink.’

“Oldmixon, in History of Carolina (1708), says, ‘the bees swarm there six or seven times a year, and the metheglin made there is as good as Malaga sack,’ which may be taken cum grano sails.”

That honeybees did not arrive in New England until at least 1630 and that by 1633 there was enough fermented honey for it to be a staple of barter argues that mead was produced early and in great quantity.

Upon these twin pillars I rest my case.

(For the uninitiated, mead is a lovely thing and there are many makers now in the US, including Cumberland Brews of Louisville KY and Bargetto Winery in Soquel CA; a malt-hops-honey beer called braggot is made by Magic Hat Brewing Company of South Burlington VT, Atlantic Brewing Company of Bar Harbor ME and Kuhnhenn Brewing Company of Warren MI. The question of how much mead is currently required to obtain how much beaver is one I will allow to pass by without further remark.)

And lastly, dear Xan, I can easily accept your questioning a Viking descendent about mead, a brew that is ours by divine right and one which my Nordic forbearers are this very moment drinking with horn cups from the Mead Rivers of Valhalla. However…..I simply cannot allow your “Ew” regarding the haggis from my Scottish side to go unchallenged. If you’ve never had a proper haggis, fresh from the oven and served in front of a roaring fire on a cold winter’s night, you just haven’t fully lived. With a few draughts of single malt under your belt and the words of Bobby Burns ringing in your ears, the first whiff of ambrosial scent escaping from the sword-pierced sack is enough to wring a tear from the most hard-hearted Scot:

“O what a glorious sight, Warm-reekin’, rich!”

This whole haggis thing is giving me… bad pictures.

I think, BTW, that bees are domesticated in the sense that we have bred and propagated varieties that are more amenable to beekeeping. (And the mites and pests have evolved to keep pace.) Not the same thing as domesticating a dog or a cat, true.

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

of the mead and the haggis recipes (not to mention the typically hey-whatever-floats-yer-boat spelling of pre-standardization days) that struck me as funny and thus worthy of an “ew.” And may I point out with all due respect that after

“a few draughts of single malt under your belt and the words of Bobby Burns ringing in your ears”

is hardly a fair standard for delectability as semi-sauteed nightcrawler hemipenes in chilled snot sauce would taste just fine with preliminaries like that. :)

See, once again you write a long and thoughtful post of serious historical significance which no doubt required some time of research and on top of it all you provided links. While i come back with a trivial bit of snark whose primary purpose was to allow me to use “incongruity” and “juxtaposition” in the same sentence, a circumstance I feel certain you would agree comes but few times in ones life.

Bitch, ain’t I?

You ever get a chance you should pick up the inestimable (hey, there’s another one!) A Sip Through Time, self-published 1994 by Cindy Renfrow. She sent it to us cold when we were first starting out about a year later and all I could give her in return was a review and some swipes of booze recipes from the mid 1860s, so I plug it every chance I get.

This seems to circulate mostly among Society for Creative Anachronism types (dunno if she is one such herself or not) but it really ought to get a wider audience. It’s practically a handbook of herbalism along with the hooch.

Never had an audience big enough to bake a full-sized haggis, all I’ve eaten have been at Highlands gatherings here and abroad. Some things are best left to professionals. If haggis gives you difficulty, stay away from lutefisk and seriously beware of sursild.

The term “domesticated” is open to interpretation. Feral cats and dogs will, within a generation, become fully wild and unmanageable. Animal emotional dependence conditioning may not be all that we humans think it is.

Thanks for the literary tip, Xan, I’ll check it out. Writing is fun. Being able to support assertions tossed off earlier with barely a nod to fallible memory is a huge thrill. Yes, I am easily entertained.

Juxtaposition of Incongruity is the essence of Dada. I envision you through the eyes of Marcel Duchamp.

No props for the obscure yet punnishly contextual Civil War reference? I was so proud…….

I’m totally gonna make some sursild.

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

I’ll eat anything and I have to seriously suck it up for sursild. The trick for me is to not breath in before swallowing. But the aftertaste, ah, exquisite!

1 sheep (dead)
depending on size of sheep:
2-6 onions
2-6 cups rendered suet (with oats)
salt
refined ergot alkaloid derivatives
spice to taste
enough water to boil one sheep
1 chainsaw
sursild (pickled herring)

Bring water to boil. Reach down sheeps throat and remove lungs, liver and heart. Chop and add minced onions, salt, spices, birdfood, refined ergot. Combine together. Shove entire mixture up sheeps ass until ingedients are packed tightly in stomach. Drop sheep into boiling water for one hour. After one hour remove sheep. With chainsaw running, remove, in whole, haggis stuffed stomach from boiled sheep. Serve with pickled herring and white heather mead.

*

Starting with a dead sheep.

Where’s the sport in that?