great pics john i really enjoyed themOriginally Posted by john gault
I was growing some vegetables on my screened porch. Some folks told me that because it was indoors, I would have to pollinate them by taking a que tip and gently putting it inside each flowering bud, wiggle it around, then go to the next one till they were all pollinated. I did this. It felt well, a little nasty, dirty maybe. I found that I liked it. Folks around here call me "The Pollinator" now and won't let their children near me...
Checking around the yard today:
gulf croped.jpg
Very young (1/4 inch) larvae of Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) chomping on leaves of non-native invasive Fetid Passion flower (Passiflora foetida)
Two buterfly.jpg
Two Zebra Longwing ( (Heliconius charithonia) floating over flowers of native Firebush (Hamelia patens).
cropped zebra.jpg
Zebra Longwing feeding.
The trouble I have with campfires are the folks that carry a bottle in one hand and a Bible in the other.
You never know which one is talking.
Pollinators still at work
+ 1>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This guy needs to be put on a hit list. Why kill 9,000 butterflies; it's why I have issues with "artists" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/c...Tate-show.html
Great pictures!
http://www.panna.org/press-release/b...xic-pesticides
Beekeepers and Public Interest Groups Sue EPA Over Bee-Toxic Pesticides
Pesticide Action Network: Paul Towers 916-216-1082
Center for Food Safety: Peter Jenkins or Larissa Walker 202-547-9359
Beyond Pesticides: Jay Feldman or Nichelle Harriott 202-543-5450
March 21, 2013
Beekeepers and Public Interest Groups Sue EPA Over Bee-Toxic Pesticides
Lawsuit seeks to address bee Colony Collapse Disorder and demands EPA protect livelihoods, rural economies and environmentToday, a year after groups formally petitioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), four beekeepers and five environmental and consumer groups filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against the agency for its failure to protect pollinators from dangerous pesticides. The coalition, represented by attorneys for the Center for Food Safety (CFS), seeks suspension of the registrations of insecticides that have repeatedly been identified as highly toxic to honey bees, clear causes of major bee kills and significant contributors to the devastating ongoing mortality of bees known as colony collapse disorder (CCD). The suit challenges EPA’s ongoing handling of the pesticides as well as the agency’s practice of “conditional registration” and labeling deficiencies.
“America’s beekeepers cannot survive for long with the toxic environment EPA has supported. Bee-toxic pesticides in dozens of widely used products, on top of many other stresses our industry faces, are killing our bees and threatening our livelihoods,” said plaintiff Steve Ellis, a Minnesota and California beekeeper. “Our country depends on bees for crop pollination and honey production. It’s time for EPA to recognize the value of bees to our food system and agricultural economy.”
The suit comes on the heels of a challenging season for California’s almond farmers, who produce 80% of the world’s almonds. Almond growers rely on beekeepers to bring literally billions of bees from across the country to pollinate their orchards. However, many beekeepers are reporting losses of over 50% this year and the shortages have left many California almond growers without enough bees to effectively pollinate their trees. This is a vivid demonstration of why the Plaintiffs are demanding EPA to classify these bee-toxic pesticides as an “imminent hazard” and move swiftly to restrict their use.
The pesticides involved — clothianidin and thiamethoxam — are “neonicotinoids,” a newer class of systemic insecticides that are absorbed by plants and transported throughout the plant’s vascular tissue, making the plant potentially toxic to insects. Clothianidin and thiamethoxam first came into heavy use in the mid-2000s, at the same time beekeepers started observing widespread cases of colony loses, leaving beekeepers unable to recoup their losses.
“Beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups have demonstrated time and time again over the last several years that EPA needs to protect bees. The agency has refused, so we’ve been compelled to sue,” said Center for Food Safety attorney, Peter T. Jenkins. “EPA’s unlawful actions should convince the Court to suspend the approvals for clothianidin and thiamethoxam products until those violations are resolved.”
The case also challenges the use of so-called “conditional registrations” for these pesticides, which expedites commercialization by bypassing meaningful premarket review. Since 2000, over two-thirds of pesticide products, including clothianidin and thiamethoxam, have been brought to market as conditional registrations.
“Pesticide manufacturers use conditional registrations to rush bee-toxic products to market, with little public oversight,” said Paul Towers, a spokesperson for Pesticide Action Network. “As new independent research comes to light, the agency has been slow to re-evaluate pesticide products and its process, leaving bees exposed to an ever-growing load of hazardous pesticides.”
In addition, the plaintiffs challenge the inadequacies of existing pesticide labels meant to ensure environmental and health protections. “EPA has ignored its responsibility to protect bees by allowing impractical labels and lax enforcement,” said Jay Feldman, Executive Director of Beyond Pesticides. “Despite clear evidence and on-the-ground feedback to the contrary, EPA has failed to ensure that bees, birds and ecosystems are protected.”
Independent scientists have assessed the effects of clothianidin and thiamethoxam on honey bee colony health and development, examining both sub-lethal exposure effects and acute risks. Scientists have also identified massive data gaps that prevent accurate assessments as to their continued safety, not just for honey bees but for ecosystem integrity on the whole. A major new report issued this week by the American Bird Conservancy, The Impact of the Nation’s Most Widely Used Insecticides on Birds, sounds dire warnings about EPA’s failures to assess threats to birds and to the aquatic ecosystems many species depend upon.
In March 2012, CFS and a coalition of prominent beekeepers, along with Pesticide Action Network and Beyond Pesticides filed an Emergency Petition with the EPA asking the agency to suspend the use of clothianidin. Yet, a year later, the agency has refused and indicated it will not finish its Registration Review for clothianidin and thiamethoxam, as well as other neonicotinoids, until 2018.
Plaintiffs include four beekeepers, Steve Ellis of Old Mill Honey Co. (MN, CA), Jim Doan of Doan Family Farms (NY), Tom Theobald of Niwot Honey Farm (CO) and Bill Rhodes of Bill Rhodes Honey (FL) as well as Beyond Pesticides, Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network North America, Sierra Club, and the Center for Environmental Health.
An easy way to get pollinators all around your yard.
I've found that the spiderwort does very well in dappled sunlight, i.e. sun that is filtered by heavy tree cover, which I have on the west side of my yard. Most people will tell you that they need full sun to partial shade. That's where I planted my first plant, in the sun. However, I noticed that they were growing well in my lawn in the backyard, but since I mow them down they never attain much growth. So I started digging them up and planting them in my mulched areas in the shade and I noticed that they thrive in these conditions.
Unlike what this link says, http://www.ehow.com/how_8279647_grow-spiderwort.html
Excerpt: "They bloom only in the morning..."
That's only the case with the ones I plant in the sun, they only bloom in the morning, then the flowers close up.
However, when you plant them in dappled sun areas they bloom all day long and sure enough I now have pollinators all over my yard, not just in the sunny areas.
Another good thing about this plant is that it's considered a weed and it does look somewhat weed-like when they first sprout. However, once they grow they become very thick and very, very flowery and the flowers are very colorful. I've never bought one, I just take them from my yard, where they get mowed over and plant them in my mulched area.
Also there are some great "weeds", which are in the mint family that do very well in dappled sun and attract many pollinators, but my fingers are getting tired...
We are beekeepers (and section hikers), and my husband's trail name is "The Pollinator". This spring a local apple orchard called him to say that their trees were in blossom, but there was nothing pollinating them except for a few bumble bees. He brought 4 hives out, and their trees are now full. Another cause of bee demise is that many have just one kind of food, being placed in a big field of a certain crop, for instance. Not enough variety. Varoa mites, which live on the bees as a parasite, also weaken them. We have a hive near our back door which we watch out the kitchen window. A few days ago we noticed many dead bees on the ground nearby, most likely due to a neighbor using pesticides. It was a rough winter for our hives. We lost 75% of them, and are now rebuilding.
Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
1004775_614693661887690_770642054_n.jpg This is one of our bees working the catnip.
Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Intereting article, at least they're not blaming everything on neonicotinoids, which seems to be the current crusade. If it were only that simple
There are some states that has banned/suspended neonicotinoids, including much of he EU. However, I wonder what the farmers will use in place of it?
So I was moving my birdfeeders, which I do every so often; they are both tied to a metal pole that I thrust into the ground, very easy to move around.
As I lifted the pole out of the ground I looked around to see where I wanted to move it when I noticed I had about 10 wasps buzzing around me; I immediately thought I was near a nest in a low-hanging branch on my Live Oak tree, so I moved away, but I noticed the wasp were following me, so I got further and further away from the tree, but still these wasps were following me. This was strange, because I know (from experience) that wasps (Paper Wasps) are protective of their nest, but they don't chase you, like yellowjackets.
Then I realized I still was carry around these birdfeeders, so I started looking for a nest, but didn't see any, so I checked inside the feeders, still no nest
However, I noticed one feeder had a column in the center of it, so that means it must be hollow, so I rechecked under that feeder and sure enough it had a hole in the bottom of the feeder, so I looked up that hole, but I had to get the light (from the sun) just right to see up that hole and then I see this wasp looking directly at me
So I planted the pole there and got away, went and got my camera and here's the nest
And here's the guard
As a Landscape Architect and Horticulturalist, I've long recognized this idiotic fascination, by a good number of my designing peers and the public ideal, with large areas of highly maintained/controlled and chemically dependent turf. RIDICULOUS, unless you own a gold course.
Pretty interesting audio link of monarch butterfly migrations. They say only about 1-2% of laid eggs make it to adulthood, i.e. become a Monarch Butterfly, which I believe because I've seen tons of caterpillars on my milkweeds, but I've only seen one become a butterfly. Appearently ants, wasps and other insects love the eggs and even can eat the caterpillar, which is poisonous to other animals.
Parts of my yard is like a jungle, so maybe I missed a few making it, but I do have tons of wasps, ants, spiders and other insects so I'm sure many, many of the layed eggs are gobbled up real quick. I'm thinking if I up the number of milkweed plants, both the number of plants, but also a greater variety of milkweed species, then maybe they will have more success.
I also learned that Diane Rehm didn't know butterflies are Animals, i.e. they fall under the Animalia Kingdom of life.
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/20...m+WAMU+and+NPR)
I was attracted to this article because of the title which is about a flower that produces fake pollen to attract pollinators; curious of what effect it had on the pollinators, unfortunately that answer will have to wait
However, if you look at the video on the link http://inkfish.fieldofscience.com/20...akes-fake.html
Much of it is about the Hawk Moth, very interesting
It pleased emerald to read this thread today.
So besides bees and butterflies who else pollinates ?
birds(hummingbirds are of of note), wasps, flies,spiders, moths, ants, beetles, other insects, bats
In S America bats and insects are important pollinators and some scientists say those two together account for as much as 60-70% of the pollination that occurs there. Some plant species are almost entirely pollinated by bats. Wind and water(rain) although not "pollinators" in the sense of a creature account for some 20-30 % of pollination in some areas.
Those in agriculture/horticulture and other scientists are very concerned about the loss cummulatively of bats and honey bees.
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