Honey

[Guest guest]

> ladylaroda

>

> this was not to be the first thing to do , yes ice or something cold is

> what you do at first, the honey is to be use to help the healing after

> the 2 days , it will aid ithe healing very much, and there will be little

> or no maks on the body,

>

 

Maybe along the same lines of the honey...a few years ago I got a monthly

health newsletter

written by Dr. Julian Whitaker. He listed sugar as one of the things to

have in your

'medicine cabinet' because for a small wound, you could sprinkle sugar on it

(immediately),

and it would mix with any fluids being oozed by the wound, and would kill

germs...

Nancy M

[Guest guest]

rop threat: too few bees byMark Clayton | Staff writer of The

Christian Science Monitor

When was the last time you saw a honeybee on a flower? If the answer is

" not recently, " it wouldn't be surprising.

It's not easy being a bee in America. In the 1980s, wild bees in the

United States were devastated by an invading parasite, the varroa, or

" vampire mite. " Since then, the situation has gotten even worse.

The bee population has been steadily dropping, mainly because of varroa

but also because of pesticides and predator birds.

Now, as pollinating season hits full swing in the United States, farmers

of the 90 or so crops that depend on bees for pollination are feeling the

tightest pinch ever.

" For the first time in our history [pollination] is a limiting factor in

crop production, " says Keith Delaplane, professor of entomology at the

University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental

Sciences. " For a long time ... it was one of those things that just took

care of self. "

With virtually no wild honeybees left, US farmers rely on commercial bee

colonies. But this year only about 2.6 million colonies remain to

pollinate the millions of acres of melons, cucumbers, almonds, apples,

avocados, and kiwi, to name some of the crops that depend on honeybees.

That slender bee army - down from 3.2 million colonies in 1990 - is all

that stands between Americans and a vastly more boring diet.

Scientists and beekeepers are feeling the pressure. Hope for crop

pollination this year rests temporarily on new chemicals to kill the bee

parasites, but the mites have been developing resistance to them. So

researchers are exploring long-term solutions such as genetically altered

bees that can resist mites or bees that are imported from eastern Russia

and have adapted to the varroa mite.

Some bee experts worry that regional shortfalls in bee availability are

only going to get worse before they improve.

" We're very concerned about the declining effectiveness of the

chemicals, " says Troy Fore, executive director of the American Bee

Keeping Federation in Jessup, Ga. He says there's a threat the mites

could wipe out more commercial bee colonies in coming years if new

solutions are not found soon.

Impact on almonds

Perhaps the most extreme example is California's big almond crop (1

billion pounds annually) that requires pollination every February. This

year, there were barely enough bees to pollinate the state's 520,000

acres of almonds, says Joe Traynor, a pollination broker in Bakersfield,

Calif., who matches farmers with beekeepers.

With two bee colonies needed per acre, more than 1 million hives are

required. California has about 500,000 hives and about another 500,000

were trucked in. Some farmers who wanted two hives made do with a hive

and a half.

" There's clearly a shortage of bees for almonds, " Mr. Traynor says.

" That's where your crunch is. "

The bee pinch, he says, is not nearly as tight for most other

bee-pollinated crops such as apples, cantaloupes, or cucumbers because

there are fewer total acres and commercial beekeepers can keep up with

demand.

Honeybees are not native to the US. A British subspecies arrived with

colonists in 1680 and spread rapidly nationwide. In 1984, though,

beekeepers discovered that a new parasite, the trachea mite, was

devastating wild and commercial colonies.

Already, the impact of the mites over the past 15 years has been huge. In

Florida, for example, the number of commercial bee colonies has fallen

from about 360,000 around 1990 to just 220,000 today, according to

Laurence Cutts, Florida's recently retired top bee inspector.

" There's a lot of concern out there, because the surviving beekeepers

know that if we don't find some way to control varroa they're going to

lose their business, " says Frank Eischen, a research entomologist for the

US Department of Agriculture who is working on a new generation of

chemical pesticides to kill bee mites. " I have great hope we will get

through this gap. "

But Dr. Eischen calls any chemical treatment a " Band-Aid " approach that

won't last. Instead, he says the best hope for US bees is for a genetic

solution - an internal modification of the bees that makes them immune or

resistant to varroa and other mites. He says several techniques are being

explored.

From Russia, with buzz

Thomas Linderer, a research geneticist at the USDA's Honeybee Breeding,

Genetics & Physiology Laboratory in Baton Rouge, La., thinks Russian

honeybees may be the solution.

The bees come from the Vladivostok region of eastern Russia, where

they've had 150 years to adapt to the varroa mite and develop a

resistance to them.

Charles Harper, a commercial beekeeper from Lafayette, La., is cautiously

optimistic about the Russian bees.

About 90 percent of his Russian colonies have survived the past three

winters with little need for antimite chemicals. He even dares to hope

the new strain may repopulate the US with wild colonies - as the earlier

European bees once did.

" I saw a wild colony just the other day in a tree - bees were going in

and out, and they had been doing that for three years, " he says. " Chances

are those bees were Russians. That gives me hope. "

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope,

soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones,

without signposts. C. S. Lewis, " The Screwtape Letters "

 

Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't

hear the music. George Carlin

 

Violence is more than anything a cowardly escape from the challenges

of living at peace. Peace will arrive when we begin to love our children

more than we hate our enemies. RossCannon

00o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0less Bush, more trees0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0oo0o0

The difficult place that the U.S. is in can not be diminished by waging

more wars. The violence done in our name generates more violence

and hatred against us. The solution arises from changing our attitudes

about other people. We need to stop the theft of their resources and

labor and begin to treat others with respect and dignity. RossCannon