76: Honeybees, Bee Rescue and Bee Education | NJ Bees.com | Daniel Sentor

I saw Daniel on Meet the Farmer last week on TV and I got his website up and contacted Dan and here he is already! I learned so much just in the first two minutes of watching the show and I know a lot of you are going to be excited to learn today too! Daniel is one of the first people called when a swarm needs removed. Daniel runs the NJBees.com website full of information about bees and you can also find out how to become trained as a beekeeper yourself.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I began beekeeping about 5 years ago. I was visiting a friend of mine’s farm, I was giving him some help with his mobile chickens. I looked across the field and there’s this chain link fence with a bunch of boxes in it and  I asked him, “what’s that?”

And he said, “those are my bees.”

“Oh wow, cool, you have bees? What’s the chain link fence for it’s not gonna keep the bees in or out?”

“It’s to keep the bears out!”

“I’m like Bears … bees …. I’m sold!”

I started reading up on things, about 6 months later I purchased my first pack of bees. I do a whole bunch of bee rescue, I sell a whole bunch of honey. I average about 20 hives that I manage right now, it’s a hobby sort of gone wild.

Tell me about your first gardening experience?

I can’t claim to be an expert gardener, when I was a very young child, my grandparents lived next door to a guy who tilled his backyard and made it into a wonderful garden. I was probably maybe 3-4 years, and I wander into his backyard, and he’d show me the carrots, tomatoes and various other things he grew.

I’m very into the outdoors, I’ve been around gardeners, and gardening, I’ve done a lot of work, tangentially related to, but I’d say my earliest experiences were with Mr. Ribner in North Bergen NJ.

You’re in NY, but isn’t your thing called NJBee?

I’m born and bread in NJ, my primary home is in Teaneck, NJ

I have bees in my backyard.

Depending on the time of year, between 4 and 6 hives in my backyard

I have a number

I have a summer home in Woodridge, NY. That’s where my garden is, that’s where my big apiary is. When I started I was reluctant to keep bees in my backyard.

Teaneck is Urban, so I was nervous, I have neighbors etc. So when I first started keeping bees I kept them in Woodridge which is much more rural. I’ve got about 10 hives there, I also keep them in Eldred NY, also have bees in Manhattan right over Central Park. I keep bees on a roof in Teaneck

I’ve got bees in a number of locations. I travel back and forth, it takes about an hour and 20 min, about 80 miles. The bees make the trip. They’re limited to a 3 mile radius outside the hive.

I often move hives from one location

It’s better to start with them in Teaneck, we have an earlier spring

We have a summer dearth in NJ, and there’s still a whole bunch of flora upstate so I transition bees. Later summer into fall, I move a lot of my hives upstate because they’re still productive.

What you take the hives at night?

We wait till evenings, when I first started moving hives, I actually sealed them up, I was worried about losing a bee or two. I position the entrance so the wind won’t blow in it, I reduce the entrance, I don’t want to lock the entrance so I don’t have to worry about temperature. I move under the cover of darkness

sometimes they’ll hang out on the front porch of the pickup, once you start moving the van they go inside the hive. As long they are 3 miles away they’re not gonna return to the original location.

Then do they stay in Woodridge thru the winter?

We always try to stay, a responsible bee keeper always respects what they call bee law. I try to stay within bee law, in NJ they don’t have bee law, but they have recommended practices. In Teaneck, I’m only on a 200×200 property. I want to stay within the number of 6-7 hives. I always make sure that I’m at that number because bees will overwinter a little better in Teaneck.

The remainder of my bees

In my area, to make it through the winter, they need 80lbs of honey

I make sure they are chock full of honey going into winter, I feed them fondant as well. The upstate hives I insulate so they have some help with the weather, I make sure I have a lot of windbreak, so the wind isn’t too challenging for them. The national average is a survival of 60-70% I generally run 80-90%. If I enter winter with 10 hives, I’ve been exiting with at least 8. So that’s a great percentage.

80lbs of honey per hive?

Per hive. Right now, the bees are at their highest numbers. The queen is starting to slow down. So my hives, have about 60-80k bees per hive, depending on the species, that number will drop. I have feral bees, I rescued the bees from the wild, or they’re children of bees I rescued from the wild.

Italian bees go through their winter clusters

They’re a little larger then some other varieties of honey bees.

They’re numbers will drop to about 20k. Now they need those 20,000 bees to care for and insulate and warm the queens. Those 20k bees will need food and their food source is the honey they collect. The average 20k bees in my area with the length of my winter, will need about 80lbs of honey.

I don’t sit there

average Langstrom hives, 2 deeps if they’re heavy, if your bees collect enough honey will be about 80 lbs. So if they fill more boxes, we can take those. We always leave those first two boxes to fill up with honey.

How do you know when the hive is full of honey?

When you start, generally, 90% of people out there are using Langstrom hives.

Langstrom was a beekeeper who discovered bee space, which leaves an 1/8 inch and that separation, the bees won’t builds birkhome. By building modular hives.

So you can build so you can manipulate the frames. You start with one box, 8 to 10 frames, once they start to fill those their developing babies and pollen. then you add a second box.

Once that second box is full, then you start adding the honey supers, because those 2 boxes are what they need to get through the winter. The honey supers is what you can harvest. So it’s easy for me to figure out if I can harvest honey. I go pop open the hive. If they only have 2 boxes, there’s nothing for me to harvest. If they have 3, I check the condition of box #1 & #2. If it doesn’t look good.

I have a way to encourage the bees to move the honey

in between box #1 and box#3 and bring it down

How often do you check the hives?

Most people are very passionate, about the way they do beekeeping. If you ask a beekeeper they are ver insistent: This is the only way you can do it!

And the bee keeper will tell you, I

one of the major different approach is do you want a very hands on approach or the other hand is a hand’s off approach.,

some would say you check the bees once a week.

The only way, hands off, leave the bees alone, don’t bother them.

Each school of thought will t

At the Hive Entrance

if your not constantly monitoring, you have a very good chance of disease and also

failing queens, you’ll end up losing the whole hive. I take an approach that is a balance between the 2.

when you first start. I recommend starting with 2 hives, if you start with 2 hives, you should figure spring into a summer an hour a week, maybe a little more. Once summer gets going you can cut that to an hour every two weeks, you’re gonna visit them more then you have to.

It’s the type of thing if you take to bee keeping, it becomes a passion and you end up visiting more then you need to.

that I’m usually getting a quick look once a week.

What are you looking for when you go in there

Looking for pests, there a couple of pests that affect the hives. One is a a small hive beetle and a moth, verroa mites, a huge problem and probably contributing to colony collapse disorder

A good pattern of brood

see that she’s laying well, there’s enough brood there. Want to make sure they have enough room, if they need more space, they’re gonna swarm.

once they swarm and then

I think he usually goes kinda towards dark? Is that right around sunset? (Mike said he checks his bees between 10am-6pm on a sunny day with no wind)

You’re bees are returning

Don’t want to disturb them at night

so they sort of get frazzled if you bother them

I like to check early afternoon

so I avoid the foraging bees so your population is lower and your disturbing fewer bees.

I try to get there in the afternoon

I had somebody wanted to visit my hives so this morning at 9 o’clock we were cracking open hives.

convenience as long as it’s light out.

Colony Collapse

Let’s talk about Colony collapse and difference of honey bees

loss of feral and managed hives

Feral hives are

there are no indigenous

brought here to use for pollinating crops, or collecting honey. But many escaped into the wild and established themselves.

Feral colonies are very important, especially when there were

They do

Pollination

Why are bees so important

it’s a numbers game

there are other flying insects that pollinate, and there are other bees that pollinate, but the shear numbers make them excellent pollinators.

50k bees in a hive

many thousands of bees, 10-15-20k bees are out there pollinating, so their numbers make them super pollinators.

these pollinators have been disappearing

managed bees difficult

people went into winter with 20-30 hives, and after winter only left with 5-6

your set back all that time, and all that work to get them ready. Most bees don’t make honey in year one, spending that first year making that 80lbs and growing out the combs. So Colony Collapse Disorder and General loss of bees

huge huge concern

I don’t care for honey

it’s far greater then honey

almond, apples, peaches, pears

Almonds are 100%

we’d have far less fruits and vegetables, had we not had our pollinators. They’re disappearing at alarming numbers. And the big questions is

WHY?

hyperfocus

neonicatoid insecticide

sprayed onto plants, generally on plants that don’t pollinate

sprayed on as a powder, and the bees pick it up thinking it polling, and they bring it back to the hive, and

feed insecticides to developing

Neonicatoids pesticides is only one of the problems

NeonicatoidsAnother problem is Loss of habitat

Bees used to have this wonderful forage

today our parks, half are astroturf, where they used to be open field with clover and

we’ve sterilized our landscape

we’ve gone to farming on such a large scale, where I gave you the example of the almond crop. they import 10s of thousands of beehives

transported to California, in early spring to pollinate our Almonds

movement of our bees, also means movement of pests

we have a proliferation of pests that have been moved by migratory bee keepers. Also when you put bees in a single flora source

what happens after the bloom you have basically a desert. basically like starving them

mono cultures often encourage that

feast or famine

not necessarily a great source of nutrition for our bees. So all of these things together, it’s not a single thing, its a combination

we have to look very aggressively what are we gonna do to stem the tide? One of the things we need to do is be planning things that are bee friendly

flora multiple flora

use of pesticides

alternative use of pesticides

if a beekeeper can be notified I can lock down my bees.

I can basically blanket my beehives so my bees can’t fly. I can give them 24 hours where they’re not gonna be leaving.

Fortunately NJ just passed a law

drafting a law to protect. But certainly private individuals have to do their part.

My husband wants to ask the neighbors to notify us if they’re gonna spray.

You can put a wet blanket over your hives

You can close you entrances

Bees have a hard time finding their way back.

if you blanket your bees and they will land on the blanket, and they won’t leave, generally they’ll just hang out there. They can still scent the pheromone, some might make their way to the bottom

Do you want a blanket that goes all the way to the ground and will a sheet work?

A sheet works great, just make sure you keep it wet!

Flora

Tomatoes are not particularly good for honeybees, they’re great for bumble bees, but honeybees don’t really don’t benefit from that.

I have a whole section for bee forage that I paint. I have bees visiting my bean plants regularly.

Squash is visited more by bumble bees, more then honey bees.

I was just asking my husband that, because my goal was to plant an enormous amount of sunflowers and it seems like the bumble bees like them more, I don’t know where they are coming from.

You can buy bumble bee hives,

they’re numbers are not conducive for harvesting honey.

they are indigenous to the us You can buy bumble bees. They’re generally used by tomato gardeners

who

bumblebees vibrate at the perfect tone to release the pollen inside the tomato plant

The bumble vibrates at just the right frequency, pollen jumps off the tomato and when she flies over to the next tomato plant she pollinates one tomato plant to the other. I’m not sure but sunflowers might be one of those.

some plants based on the

Sage is a great herb, mint is a fantastic a lot of what we

goldenrod is in bloom. a whole bunch of fields that are not being used, that are loaded with goldenrod.

blueberries is a great crop, I get a whole bunch of blueberry honey.

some trees,

some vegetables,

most of the honey we call wildflower honey

I’m not specific, I’m not careful, when I put and take off my boxes.

I get a nice mixture of both vegetable blossom as well as tree blossom.

When I found this bee keeper years ago, he wouldn’t give us bees because he said we weren’t close enough to water.

Water sources

if you’re in a desert you certainly would want to consider providing water close to your bees.

the most important reason to

bees are going to look for the closest water source, if your closest water source is your neighbors pool, you’re not gonna make a good neighbor.

I mentioned about good bee-keeping practices of NJ.

One of the things that they require is that you keep a close water source. The reason is you don’t want your bees foraging, that ‘s on your neighbor’s property.

they’re gonna look for the closest source of water. They orient themselves above the tree-line. They spread out in a 3 mile radius

Don’t have to worry about your neighbors flowers are going to be visited

If you are in an area where you don’t have a lot of neighbors. In upstate NY I have a lake near my property, so I just let my bees go there by themselves, the lake is closer then any of my neighbors.

you need a local water source.

if you’re in a desert your bees are going to need water, and you better provide it for them. As long as it’s a short flight

What’s a short flight? 100 yards, 1000 yards?

The closer the better. Probably within an 1/8 mile.

Our neighbors had a creek.

I have a friend who had property, there’s a creek along the side of the road

You don’t want a water source where they’re gonna drown. If you put out a bucket of water, the bees are gonna drown, unless it’s filled with rocks.

A pond or a creek

A bird feeder works really good. A bird feeder with rocks.

You can use a regular feeder, and use it just as a water feeder. You can fill a frame feeder and put it in the hive once

Swarming

queen, worker, drone, life cycle how long do bees live,

How long do bees live?

Worker bees live 6 weeks

queen up to 6 years,

drones live 6 weeks, the interesting things about bees, winter bees live considerably longer, they live 6 months. Basically genetically

bees born now, will live 6 months, bees born in the summer will live 6 weeks. The other thing I talk about is bees regulation of temperature in the hive.

keep it at 90

bee communication

waggle dance and how they communicate

pollen analogies

bee swarms the way the mega organism reproduces and the bees leave as a unit.

I talk about rescue, how bees end up in people’s homes.

Casts of bees

Drones, that the men don’t sting.

Everybody in the hive, are really females, people sort of get a kick out of that.

Waggle Dance

Tell me about the waggle dance? What’s the waggle dance?

Well the waggle dance is one of the ways bees communicate, a big majority of the way bees communicate is through pheromones. Bees have many different jobs in the hive, and they will release a unique smell based on the job they do.

Queen will have their own smell,

as long as the

present

guard bees have their own pheromone,

foraging bees are generally older bees

started life inside the hive then they go out and collect nectar.

Let’s say one of the bees returns from her trip

travels from her patch,

found a wonderful patch of clover sector and wants to tell the other bees. She’ll release that pheromone and they will collect around her

she will position herself based on the position of the sun. She’ll do a dance in figure 8s

she sort of waggles on how she moves, based on her movement, just her movement, she doesn’t have to go back and show them, they can based just on her dance find the exact location.

How does she do that? It’s like they’re talking she’s saying

When I go to a school, I tell the kid, stand up here, mime without talking, tell us how to get to your house, It’s amazing without speaking they can tell each other

That’s a great visual. How fun! How amazing they can do that! Do other insects do that like ants?

Many communal insects

ants live in a community

They have to do the same thing.

definitely communicate with pheromones

do the same thing? I’d be surprised

moths and butterflies – not communal. Not all bees are communal, it means that they live within a community not just mothers and children

she’ll lay her eggs

communal bees there;s one queen, she does all the egg laying. All the other bees in the hive, serve the mega organism, not serving her, but serving the mega-organism. She’s the only one who lays eggs

every

Casts of bees

So there are 3 different casts of bees.

Queen,

generally one queen in a hive,

swarming is when the bees are splitting and creating a second hive.

supers

gonna replace her

generally only one queen per hive

Then here are the worker bees

10 of thousands inside the hive. They’re all her children

even if she was replaced within 6 weeks, they’re all gonna be her offspring. She lays up to 1000+ eggs a day. From early spring/late winter until late fall.

lays eggs with drones

happened

left the hive as a virgin, if this happened in nature, she left the hive as a virgin, flew above the tree-line, mated with a bunch of drones, and when she comes back, some of the

will carry the genetics

some will be better at housekeeping, guarding,

by having multiple genetics within the hive is better for hive

Last category are the drones are the males,

other then the male occasion that he impregnates the hive, they really serve no purpose.

Not great to be a drone either because when the weather gets colder and there’s no purpose, life inside the hive although fascinating can be harsh

all of a sudden see a drop in drone and you can see worker bees preventing from entering their hive

drones actually die during the winter

there’s no more mating to be done.

The Queen decides

pops her head into the cell

if the cell is formed perfectly, and just the right size, she lays a fertile egg

sperm from one of the drones she mated with the beginning of her life. So when its a drone it’s actually a sterile egg. The drones have 1/2 the chromosomes of their sisters. They actually have no father. It’s unique to the insect world.

mother father

regular mating of male and female. It’s a fascinating process.

How does she decide? 

the sperm is stored inside her,

decide

drones

She lays an egg from the bottom of her abdomen

she’ll lay a single egg, it will either be a sterile egg and that will develop into a drone, or more likely a fertile egg and that will develop into a worker.

in the presence of the queen

prevents their ovaries from developing. If they develop they will never become a queen.

egg-laying worker, only happens when a hive is failing

Sometimes the bees decide its time to make a new queen. They’ll find numerous eggs, that were recently laid, they’ll feed them extra royal jelly, and build out that cell, and that egg will develop into a queen, queen does not decide, the community decides

swarming to make another group, half the population will leave with the new queen.

the queen will take over

if she’s not laying enough the

pheromone will drop into the hive

make a supersedure queen sell

make it all the way in the bottom of the frame,

swarm once they get that idea they’re really no way of stopping them.

But if it’s in the middle of the frame, that’s a supersedure, they don’t feel the queen is performing.

Why?

It could be age, sometimes it’s like anything else,

genetics not be up to what

It could be poor health or nutrition, very often it’s an age thing, could be her genetics

survival of the fittest. IF they feel she’s not doing the job she should be.

Could be she’s failing, very often beekeepers will replace a queen after a year or two. I don’t if I see a good laying pattern, as long as I see she’s doing a good job. But if she starts a year or 2 she stars lagging, I will replace her.

Life Cycle of Honey Bees

Honeybees generally live for 6 weeks. That’s during the summer season. Drones can live a little bit longer. Queens can live a couple of years.

The problem is if bees only live 6 weeks, and the queen if she

is way beyond 6 weeks.

Preparing for winter.

Scientists don’t actually don’t understand why, they had a theory that they just work themselves to death, but that didn’t prove to be true they fed them and still didn’t live that six months.

design of the bee

winter bees live 6 months

the other amazing thing is

in a bees lifetime

will visit millions of flowers and produce less then a tablespoon of honey in her life

works 23 out of 24

What about collecting the honey?

Different bee keepers have a different

a little late

harvested a little earlier

basically what we do, remove all those supers, we remove all of the extra beyond the 80lbs

take it into our honey house, basically a clean room which has a honey spinner

remove the capping, wax capping. put it into our honey spinner and out comes beautiful honey

basically filtered and sold, I don’t do any processing, it’s raw honey

has a lot of benefits

wonderful enzymes and good microbes in there. Your not gonna get from store bought honey which is micro-filtered as well as pasteurized. You also get the presence of pollen, so your body actually builds up a natural resistance to local pollen and thereby helping with allergies.

It’s important to know if you’re going to use it, logically it would take a couple of months. If you’re gonna consume a tsp-TBS of honey for a couple of months

exposure of the allergen, so consuming a small amount of allergen every day, your body’s going to build up a

not a resistance

allergy it s a reaction, so exposure over time you will build up a tolerance to the pollen.

I learned about spider bites, cause my husband gets bitten and swells up all the time.

Here’s the Interesting thing, I rarely get stung, but I do a lot of rescue and I’m taking bees out of their environment

I do occasionally get stung, my kids would refer to me as the Michelin man, I would blow up, i didn’t have the anaphalapytic my throat didn’t blow up

but it wasn’t great for lecturing, encouraging people to take up beekeeping.

wasn’t a great way to pick up the craft

I was allergic to bees

I got a whole battery of tests

not allergic to any of the wasps etc

I’m actually highly allergic to honey bees

had to start getting stung once a week, really getting exposure to bee venom shots

now down to once a month. Basically when I get stung now, I have a reaction even less then the

There are plenty of people who get allergy shots just for exposure to dust! For me it wasn’t really an option I was so in love with the craft.

In hindsight it wasn’t that big of a deal!

Great to know there’s so many solutions.

Another thing I want to mentions, especially if anyone who’s gonna consider taking up beekeeping. I mentioned there’s different attitudes

the only and right way to do things

pretty much proven without any question there’s a pest called the  Verroa mite, very tiny mite, that attaches itself to the honey bee, it’s called Verroa destructor! Because left unchecked it will wreak havoc on your hive. Many beekeepers are reluctant to treat at all.

some of

very safe,

if you don’t treat bees, you’re bees will die.

If you don’t treat your bees, your encouraging proliferation of verroa mites

many organic, bee calmer which is basically a whole bunch of herbs

many options one can go about using for treatment of verroa mites, but they have to be treated and you are contributing to a problem that is significantly impacting general bee health.

We just got an email to check for mites.

It’s not

Alcohol roll. Don’t have to check, you have to treat!

I don’t feel comfortable. You have to kill a couple of bees. That’s why bees sting. It’s for the better good of the hive,

If you’re not comfortable. Treat it’s not going to hurt. No such thing without the presence of any verona mite. So if you’re treating you have a far better chance. Do a mite count regular.

Do you want to tell us about the alcohol roll?

Alcohol roll or a sugar roll but it’s not as effective.

basically taking approximately 200 bees, fill with alcohol,

What kind of alcohol? Rubbing alcohol? Vodka? 

Anything that will kill the bees,

and detaching the mite, basically blood suckers, vector for all types

When the adult mite enters the site of the brood,

once it’s capped, hides in there beneath the pool of food, once it’s capped, now the adult bees can’t go after

Verroa Bee mite lays a whole bunch of eggs feed off of the larva

developing larvae will very much develop, will be somewhat deformed and won’t have ability to fly

adult mites attach to adult bees, and they’re a vector for all kinds of disease.

that combination reeks havoc on

they multiply by alarming rates.

just behold the threshold, TREAT!

Powder sugar where they naturally groom. There are certain bees, the Russian Hybrid, the Russian honey bee is more resistant but neither.

I missed something?

No I got distracted…

Basically the jar has a lid on it that has holes, small enough the mites can get though, Put the 200 bees in the jar. close the jar, with the cover, screen,

pour the alcohol in, it will kill all the bees, let it sit for a minute, shake it up, dislodges the verroa mites. Then you shake the alcohol and mites, out of the jar and turn it upside down and shake it into a clear white bowl. Then you count the mites, if you have more then 6 mites, you’re above the treatment level

based on the mites if you have more then 6 mites

30-40 mites catastrophically

same process with sugar, it doesn’t kill your bees. Disadvantage, it doesn’t dislodge

If you’re reluctant to lose 200 bees, go ahead and do the powder sugar roll.

if your numbers increase

count 4 you probably had 6

I still don’t understand how this treats the hive?

This is checking not treating.

Want to know how many mites you have per 200 bees

Way I treat

mite away strips formic acid, naturally in honey

switch off every year, so my bees don’t build up resistance, basically just a strip you put into your hive. It is a little bit harsh, can put it on with supers in place

Apivar you put on when you don’t have any honey for harvest. It’s a contact pesticide, so it won’t travel through the hive but you put it in an area where the bees will walk.

contact with the strip with

doesn’t harm bees, but it will kill verroa mites.

I’m glad you went though that in detail. WE got that email, but it didn’t.

takes about 6 weeks.

First year recommend just treat, don’t worry about checking, you’re gonna have mites and it’s late in the year.

Bee calmer goes on as a paste, and just goes on as a tray that you slide into bottom of hive, it’s an organic treatment, I don’t think its quite as effective, but it’s better then not doing anything.

What makes honey organic? Unless you can determine that everyone within 3 miles of your hive, does not treat their crop with pesticides and everybody is certified your honey can not be 100% organic.

My honey is 100% natural.

big advantage is nectar is not a good conduit for insecticides

found inside pollen, how much presence of insecticides in our pollen.

tested many many times, the honey is not conducive to storage of insecticides

so even if some of your neighbors, but you hope there’s very little of it making back to hive, it shouldn’t end up inside the honey.

What would you tell someone starting out to get? If somebody does’t have any hives?

First thing

101 beekeeping class

start by reading a good book, now’s the time to start, get a really good book on basic beekeeping.

Penn University has a good one online, free but a very good book

join a beekeeping club, there are clubs throughout the US. Become a member of a club, attend their meetings and make sure you find yourself a really good mentor. And last the best way to start is with 2 hives!

not one, not 4

never gonna have 2 hives doing the same

good to have a comparison

starting with 2 you won’t get overwhelmed!

Can’t stress the importance of a mentor, call, I got a questions, can you come over to look? Can I come look at your hives?

Wonderful craft!

Once you put on the bee suit, and light up the smoker

I teach at the York prep school.

Taking off their bee suits. They’re always shocked at what time it is.

Away from their cell phones, text

super release.

Thank god the craft is on an upswing! There are a lot of people who are becoming backyard bee keepers. I would encourage anyone who wants to take it up to start with your reading!

get a package of bees,

nuke small hive

Gotta et your orders in by January,

buy your woodwork

putting

You can visit NJbees.com

mostly dedicated to rescue, but also a fair amount of info there about beekeeping.

What can people do to help with colony collapse, supporting legislation etc.

Certainly you should be speaking to any of your local politicians and stressing the importance of honey bees. You should plant bee friendly flora, look it up there’s a list.

even in your front yard, planting bee friendly

whole list of bee friendly flora

I have a garden, all of my walkway is planted with clover. I fI could rip up

I would,

Clover is a great pollinating crop. Great source of nectar

Whether it’s in the pot in front of your house or it’s bee forage you plant in your backyard, or we encourage out politicians if center medians could be

Google the whole foods and bees

Whole foods have a picture what the supermarket would look like with out bees. It’s crazy frightening!

Wake up call, people are coming awake of the

make sure that your water source if you notice there are honeybees near your water sources, make sure the bees have rocks to step on.

Final question- if there was one change you would like to see to create a greener world what would it be? For example is there a charity or organization your passionate about or a project you would like to see put into action. What do you feel is the most crucial issue facing our planet in regards to the environment either in your local area or on a national or global scale?

Certainly I have a bias towards honeybees. I can sum it up with 4 words. Clean air, clean water.

Whatever it is that contributes there’s no way we can live without. We need clean air and clean water. Everything else is secondary. People say air is free. well it’s not so free anymore.

Clean air, clean water.

Miriam Goldberger talks about wildflowers helping improve vegetable production in her interview where she discusses her book Taming Wildflowers. 

How do we connect with you?

NJBees.com

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