Bees: The Easy Off-Grid Money Maker

The subject of homesteading often focuses on various methods of gardening, different types of livestock, or even the multiple ways to generate electricity. But one area that is often overlooked is bees. As a growing number of homesteaders and off-gridders are discovering, honeybees are a great way not only to grow your own all-natural sweetener, but also to deliver another …

Todd Woody – Scientists discover what’s killing the bees and it’s worse than you thought

As we’ve written before, the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more …

Wendee Nicole – Pollinator Power: Nutrition Security Benefits of an Ecosystem Service

The world has been abuzz with the dramatic losses of cultivated honey bees due to colony collapse disorder1 as well as declines of native pollinator species across the globe.2,3,4 Scientists have recently begun calculating the extent to which food crops depend on animal pollinators including bees, butterflies, and bats,5 with one study assigning an economic value to the “ecosystem service” …

Tiny Parasite May Contribute to Declines in Honey Bee Colonies by Infecting Larvae

Biologists at UC San Diego have discovered that a tiny single-celled parasite may have a greater-than expected impact on honey bee colonies, which have been undergoing mysterious declines worldwide for the past decade. In this week’s issue of the journal PLOS ONE, the scientists report that a microsporidian calledNosema ceranae, which has been known to infect adult Asiatic and European honey bees, …