Identifying and Treating Varroa

1. Varroa mites are the biggest parasites in the world, relative to their host. The size ratio of honey bee to varroa mite is equivalent to that of a human to a basketball.


2. Varroa mites are the number one killer of honey bees globally.

3. A simple, effective and accurate method for treating varroa is the alcohol wash method.
   "The test is carried out as follows:

• Use a wide-mouth glass jar and scoop about 300 bees (~1 cup) from the brood area. Make sure that the queen is NOT included!
• Add 50 ml (~ 2 oz) of windshield wiper fluid (or diluted methyl hydrate, or rubbing alcohol) to the jar and shake for several minutes.
• Remove lid and pour contents into a container covered with light metal wire-mesh screen (8 mesh/in) or a coarse sieve. Repeat.
• Pour alcohol solution into a second container covered with cheesecloth or fine sieve. Count number of mites." - Agricultural Factsheet #222

Do varroa mites only prey on bees? Or do they also go for other insects? Possibly ants?

Identifying Nosema

1. Nosema belongs to a group of highly specialized fungi. It only effects adult bees, the most susceptible being the worker bees. The infection begins when bees ingest Nosema spores. Once ingested the spores uncurl  a long straw-like polar filament which penetrates and infects outer gut cells

2. To diagnose Noseama, collect 10-25 bees, that are older than 8 days old, from the hive entrance of a number of colonies. Total sample size should be about 100 bees. You can then either send them away to be examined or examine them yourself through a microscope.

3. Once Nosema has been diagnosed, you can treat it by disinfecting the comb, or through the use of medication. Comb can be disinfected by electron-beam irradiation. The only medication registered for the control of Nosema is Fumagillin.

Fumagillin is the only registered medication to treat Nosema. Are there any other unregistered home remedies that people claim to help Nosema?

Common Bee Diseases

1. Not only do diseases and viruses harm bees, but also pesticides, insecticides, and various animals including bears, cattle, birds, ants, frogs, toads, and many more.

2. Bee's can be effected by many different viruses and diseases. Reading about these, the one that interested me the most was bee paralysis. This virus only affects adult bees. A bee keeper will notice hairless glossy bees, bees crawling on the ground around the hive, or bees trembling on the landing board unable to fly.

3. The most serious disease a hive can get is American foulbrood. This disease is caused by Bacillus larvae and can be identified from a shot gun appearance of the capped broad. The capping will also be sunken and have some holes in it. If you open the cells they will contain a gooey tobacco spit coulered substance.

Have the bees at the school ever had a disease/virus or been attacked by pests?

A Compost Success Story

1. I found it really cool that Windermere Secondary School's program provides food and herbs to the school cafeteria. I would way rather eat food fresh from the garden than the burgers and pizza they have at West Van.

2. Kids in Windermere's agriculture program bike around to the high school's different feeder schools and load up bike trailers, donated to them by Cargo Bike Co-op, and PEDAL, with materials to use in there compost. Not only does this benefit the agriculture program but it also is incorporated in to the kids P.E. classes.

3. Earth Tubs are industrial sized composters that are ideal for restaurants, schools, supermarkets etc. Reading about Earth Tubs, along with all the other Urban Agriculture readings, has got me thinking about how cool it would be to have a completely self sufficient restaurant/garden/farm. The crops from the garden would supply the restaurant with food, the restaurant's scraps could be put into an Earth Cup, making nutrient-rich soil for the plants. Animals, such as chickens and cows, could also be kept and fed vegetables/grain from the garden. Although the restaurant might not have a huge selection of dishes and wouldn't have a consistent menu, the novelty of the restaurant might attract enough customers if it was located in a tourist hot spot.

Windermere just planted a mini orchard with 3 fruit trees. Is there much maintenance involved with having fruit trees?

Worm Composting

1. I had no idea worms would turn kitchen scraps into "a rich, dark, earth-smelling soil conditioner". That's so cool.

2. You can compost with worms indoors. This is a huge advantage for people living in climates unsuitable for regular outdoor composting, and for people who live in an apartment, or just don't have a yard.

3. All you need to compost with worms is a container, bedding (shredded newspaper, shredded leaves, chopped up straw etc.), and of course worms.


It says you should only use the red worms: Eisenia foetida, and Lumbricus rubellus, and not dew worms because dew worms are not likely to survive. Why is it that red worms can survive, but not dew worms.

Leaf Mould

1. Deciduous leaves are recommended for making leaf mould. Sycamore, plane, evergreen and gums are not recommended for leaf mould because they break down so slowly.

2. Making leaf mould takes almost no maintenance. Once you have put the leaves into the wire cage to decay, pretty much all you have left to do is wait. However if you want the decaying process to go faster you have the option of adding water and/or aerating the leaves every little while.

3. All you really need to make leaf mould is leaves and a garbage bag, or wire cage. Although I'm sure it would make your life a lot easier to have the tools suggested (a rake, wheelbarrow, and pitchfork). Bone meal is also optional to speed up the decaying process

 Why is it that the leaves listed in point 1 break down slower than deciduous leaves?

Bokashi Fermentation

1. All you need for bokashi fermentation is waste materials, a bokashi bucket, and bokashi mix.You can either purchase the mix at the store, or you can make it yourself using wheat bran, molasses, and liquid microbial inoculum.

2. During fermentation the bokashi bucket will gather liquid at the bottom. You can gather this liquid and use to clear drains in your house.

3. Its crazy bokashi fermentation doesn't give off an odour. You would think that a bucket full of fermenting meat, fish, dairy products, and vegetable scraps would smell terrible.

Alcoholic drinks are made from fermented fruits/vegetables. Is the the liquid that gathers at the bottom of the bucket alcoholic? Also, what is microbial inoculum?

General Composting Tricks for the North Shore

1. Bacteria need three things to effectively compost waste:

a. An equal amount of brown (carbon rich) and green (nitrogen rich) material. The bacteria use the brown       material as an energy source, and the green material to grow.

b. Oxygen. Adding oxygen to a compost is called aerating. The more you aerate, the faster your waste will be broken down, and less foul odour will be given off

c. Moisture. Bacteria, like all living things, need water to survive. Your compost bin should always have the moisture level of a damp sponge. Usually the green material in your bin will be a sufficient source of water, however during hot, dry periods, you may need to add a little bit to keep the moisture level up.

2. Composting creates a win-win situation for you and the environment. People who compost get free fertilizer for there garden, and don't have to store there garbage indoors until the pick up date. Composting also reduces your carbon footprint, pollution, and garbage disposal costs.

3. 24000 tonnes of garbage is picked up from north shore homes. Its crazy how much garbage people produce.

It says you can use low quality papers as a source of carbon for your compost bin. Is it more environmentally friendly to compost paper, or recycle it? 

Canadian Wheat Board

1. Jack Wilkinson, an agriculture advocate, says the world should be reacting to drought and famine, not with food aid, but by giving locals the means to farm better and more efficiently. This is a classic example of the saying "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."

2. I never realized that western farmers did not have a choice of who to sell there crops to.

3. Why is it that farmers don't want the wheat board to be dismantled? Why do they not want more freedom to sell to who they want to? Is having the wheat board just more convenient for them?

Has there ever been any problems between the farmers and the wheat board having to do with price of crops? When the farmers have to sell to the wheat board, what stops the wheat board from just saying they'll only buy crops for a really low price?

Dirt

1. -One tablespoon of healthy dirt can contain up to 9 billion microorganisms.
    -One acre of healthy topsoil can contain 900 pounds of earth worms, 2400 pounds of fungi, 1500 pounds of bacteria, 133 pounds of protozoa, 890 pounds of anthropods and algae, and even small mammals.

2. Carbon is the "glue" that holds everything in healthy soil together. If you take away the carbon everything falls apart, and unfortunately in many parts of the world the carbon, or "glue", in soil is deteriorating rapidly due to soil erosion, compaction, salinity, and loss of fertility.

3. Throughout history, mankind's greatest civilizations have grown where soil is fertile enough to support high density populations of humans, and have fallen due to land degradation. Examples of these civilizations are the ancient: Greeks, Mesopotamian's, and Mayans

I recently watched a video on TED.com about "window farming" where plants are suspended in clay pellets and hung in windows while pumps circulate a nutrient rich solution through each one. In this method of growing no soil is used at all, and the farmers managed to grow a wide variety of crops such as cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and more. I wonder how many types of crops could actually successfully be grown in this kind of system on a regular basis, and what the limitations, if any, there are in window farming.

link to the video:
http://www.ted.com/talks/britta_riley_a_garden_in_my_apartment.html

Top Bar Hive

1. Top bar hives are very useful to farmers in developing countries because they are much easier to manage than a Langstroth hive, they are easier to build, and they are much cheaper.

2. It says that top bar hives were around for over 200 years before the Langstroth hive was invented. Were top bar hives the first man made bee hive? Or are there other designs people used before the top bar was invented?

3. I thought the design of the portable Greek top bar hive was really cool. I'd like to build one like that just for fun

Reading about top bar hives being invented in the 1600's, I started thinking about Friar Tuck from "Robin Hood", which was written, and set long before the 1600's, and how he keeps bee's. Were people actually keeping bee's that long ago? Or is that just a detail added to more modern versions of the story? If they were keeping bee's, what hive design would they have used?

Langstroth Bee Hives

1. The bottom boards of more recently made langstroth hives are made of a rectangular wood frame with mesh stretched between the four sides. This allows mites to fall through the bottom of the hive but not dead bees, which will be pushed out the side. Also, unlike the older solid wood bottom boards, the mesh ones do not rot.

2. Langstroth hives are made up of a solid wood or mesh bottom board, 2 or 3 boxes called deeps, comb foundations which hang on the inside of the deeps, an inner cover which sits on top of the deeps, and an outer cover which protects the hive from the elements.

3. I would really like to take another look at the hives at the school. If i remember correctly they have 2 deeps, not 3? Do the school hives have a mesh or solid wood bottom board?

Are Langstroth hives the most common type? Or is there another hive design that is more popular?

The Life Cycle of a Bee

1. From the time the queen bee lays an egg to when that egg has fully matured into an adult bee is only 21 days.

2. 13 days after the queen bee has lay an egg, that egg begins pupation. During pupation the bee does not eat at all, and develops from a larva into an adult bee.

3. All bee larva are fed royal jelly. If the larva is fed extra jelly, it will have enough nutrients to develop ovaries. That larva will eventually develop into a queen bee.

Are all larvae, excluding the ones who will become queen bees, fed the same amount of royal jelly?

Bee Yard Safety

1. Its really cool how good the bees sense of smell is. I noticed that other than bananas, none of the scents that irritate bees are ones you would find in nature. Do bees that are living in there natural habitat tend to get irritated less often than ones living in a man made hive?

2. Some people think that the reason smoke calms down the bees is because it kicks in an instinct for the bees that a fire is coming and that they need to evacuate. It seems to me that a if the bees thought a fire was about to kill them all they would become much more irritated

3. Wearing white clothing will keep the bees calm, and wearing black clothing will have the opposite effect.

I wonder what is in bananas that has a similar scent to that of the bee's sting pheromone?

Garlic

1. I had no idea there are so many types of garlic. It had never even occurred to me that the garlic I'm eating is of a specific variety.

2. It seems very weird that only once most or all of the foliage has died off, it is time to harvest the garlic. I would have thought that it would be time to harvest it when the leaves were green and bushy.

3. Garlic can be planted in Autumn through to early Winter. I'm interested in planting garlic now, so the fact i can do it right away is exciting.

What is the best type of garlic to plant in our area?

Winter Crops

1. Some plants such as Clover Crimson can be planted to act as overwintering cover crops.These plants can benefit your crops in many ways such as fixing nitrogen, attracting beneficial insects, controlling erosion, acting as a mulch etc.

2. So many easy and simple things can be done to protect crops in the winter such as planting them against a south-facing wall, putting them in raised beds, or surrounding them with straw.

3. Although Vancouver has quite a mild climate, I'm very surprised at how many plants are capable of growing through winter here

Alot of the plants that were talked about in the article are meant to be planted in in late August. It seems like everything to do with the weather and seasons is about a month late this year. Based on that fact, I'm wondering if you could plant some of those crops now and grow them successfully?

Bees

I found the bee's system of foraging and collecting pollen very interesting. The bees send out a forager to locate and collect a sample of pollen to bring back to the hive. Once the forager has returned it begins a dance which will show the other bees how far away the flowers are, and the direction the flower is in relative to the sun. However, as the sun is constantly moving, the direction will not stay accurate for very long. To compensate for this the bee uses an internal clock which it will use to re-calibrate its heading when appropriate. During it's flight, the bee also gauges how much honey it has consumed on its journey. Based on how much honey has been used the bee will know how far it has flown and also how far it has left to fly.

Is the bee's system of foraging and collecting pollen a result of evolution? If so how did they collect pollen before there current method was developed?