Let’s say you’re a bee. You notice that the local City seems to take very good care of their flower beds. In fact, people seem to be planting beautiful flowers year-round, including removing other annuals, and re-planting new ones in their place just to keep the bed looking full of flowers. Home gardeners seem to be using fewer chemicals than before – because people are trying to grow “better quality” food at home than they find in their markets. Whole areas are void of the usual predatory yellowjackets and wasps because they happen to be areas where people don’t like such annoying insects and they’ve put out thousands of traps. Where would you go?
Bee Colony Collapse Disorder (and why it probably isn’t a disorder) (Thoughts from James H. Lui)
3/24/12
Empty hives on the farm, full ones in the city
LA Backwards Beekeeper James Lui has this blog post on the interesting disparity between collapsing bee populations in chemically-treated rural agricultural areas and thriving wild bees in urban environments:
