Rob Recommends His Dad. (Fair enough)

"Farm blogs is a great idea, you should run with it.

I'd like to recommend my Dad http://campbellshoney.onsugar.com He's the real thing. 75 yr old beekeeper in Canada."

Seems clear to me. Go check it out.

Argentine beekeepers no longer in clover (IHT)

Reuters
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
By Helen Popper
Beekeepers had it easy when cattle roamed freely across the flower-filled meadows of Argentina's Pampas plains. But a boom in soy farming has changed all that.
The legendry prairies have fast become one of the most efficient swathes of cropland on Earth, leaving little room for wild flowers and leading beekeepers in the world's No. 1 honey exporter to move their hives and even sow their own flowers.
"They say that wherever the cow goes, the bee follows ... They live in harmony and both benefit from flowers. But things have changed," said Patricio Crespo, a vet and beekeeper from the town of Chivilcoy, a typical Pampas town that lies some 100 miles from the capital, Buenos Aires.
"It's a shame and it's sad, not just for beekeepers," he added.
Fields of soybeans, corn and wheat have spread across the fertile plains in recent years due to soaring global demand for food and biofuels.
Some ranchers and dairy farmers have moved their herds to distant provinces where soybeans do not flourish, and more and more animals are being reared in feedlots, freeing up valuable arable land for crops wherever possible.
Chivilcoy has seen a sharp reduction in its grazing area, alarming the district's 300 beekeepers who are battling falling honey production -- a picture played out across the region as wild flowers become scarcer.
Flowers provide bees with the nectar and pollen they need to feed and make honey, and a variety of species keeps them supplied for many months.
"Nowadays, the profits aren't what they used to be and there are virtually no fields left that aren't used for farming," Crespo said, adding that 13 percent more land around Chivilcoy would be planted with soy this season.
PROSPERITY
The arrival of genetically modified soy and surging demand from China has seen Argentina's production of the oilseed more than doubled within 10 years, catapulting the farming industry out of a decades-long decline.
Argentina is the world's No. 3 soy exporter behind the United States and Brazil and the crop accounts for nearly a quarter of total export earnings.
It has brought new prosperity to the sleepy towns of the Pampas and played an important role in the country's recovery from an economic crisis in 2001-02. But for beekeepers, it means industrialized farming that conspires against them.
"One of the characteristics of Argentina was that you didn't have to invest much to get good production, especially in the Pampas because of the meadows, prairies and the low-key agriculture before soy burst on the scene," said Lucas Martinez, president of the Argentine Beekeepers Society.
He said the average beehive used to produce up to 130 pounds of honey per year, but yields have fallen to a third of that in many places, meaning beekeepers need more colonies to maintain production.
Conflicts occasionally flare as beekeepers compete for the floweriest spots and several provinces famous for their citrus and apple orchards have started charging beekeepers who travel to the regions with their hives during the blossoming season.
HERBICIDES
Argentine beekeepers have not had to contend with the mysterious mass bee deaths seen in the United States, which scientists say may have been caused by disease.
Modern farming methods are also blamed for falling bee populations in Europe and North America, a trend that could eventually harm the supply of food crops that rely on them for pollination.
In Argentina, beekeepers think falling hive productivity is linked to the crop boom, although either very dry or wet weather has particularly hit output in the last two years.
"Soy, the soy-takeover as we call it, is the biggest problem but actually any crop that is planted uniformly across large areas with the use of herbicides deprives bees of the flowers they need," said Alicia Basilio from the University of Buenos Aires' School of Agronomy.
"The biodiversity that's essential for bees is in decline due to the advance of this crop," she said, sitting before the half-dozen white beehives that make up the university apiary.
However, honey connoisseurs in Argentina, which the Agriculture Secretariat says accounts for 25 percent of world honey exports, say the shift to far-flung regions is producing unusual honeys from native plants and organic products.
"The changes in Argentine beekeeping are tremendous and happening very quickly," said Beatriz Achaval, who helped develop a 10-year national beekeeping plan that seeks to promote the country's increasingly diverse honeys.
Honey exports brought in some $134 million (76.7 million pounds) in 2007, a tiny sum compared with multibillion earnings from grains sales.
Global honey prices have risen in recent years, partly due to supply shortages. Argentine exports slid by more than 20 percent last year in terms of volume.
In Chivilcoy, Crespo has sown traditional meadow plants such as pink and white clover and purple-flowered alfalfa that were once plentiful. He remains optimistic about the industry's future despite the challenges.
"Honey continues to be very much valued in the world (and) beekeepers have a great capacity to adapt, they're very creative," he said.
(Editing by Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Eddie Evans)

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French bees find a haven in Paris (IHT)

Jean Paucton's bees crawl over honeycomb

on the roof of the Palais Garnier in Paris.

Corinne Moncelli offers guests at her Eiffel Park Hotel more than a view of the Paris landmark. She serves them honey from bees she keeps on the rooftop.
There are more than 300 known colonies in the French capital, up from about 250 five years ago, according to the National Beekeepers' Association. Hives have appeared on the roof of the Opéra Garnier, on balconies and in parks.
Bees are thriving in cities because "flowers and plants are changed constantly and there aren't pesticides," said Moncelli, who co-owns the hotel with her husband, Pascal.
The success of a three-year-old French program to encourage beekeeping in cities, the largest such project in the world, is sparking hope of a revival among their country cousins. Global agriculture, valued at € 153 billion, or $214 billion, relies on pollination by bees, according to the French National Institute of Agricultural Research, or INRA.
As in the United States and in Britain, where bee colonies are dying, about 300,000 to 400,000 French hives have disappeared every year between 1995 and 2007, victims of pesticides, pollution and disease.
"We need bees in the countryside," said Henri Clément, president of the Paris-based National Apiculture Association, which ran the project. "The potential of cities is limited. Our operation in the city is one of creating awareness."
The Eiffel Park Hotel began beekeeping three years ago, when it turned one of its terraces into a site for two to three hives, which produce 150 kilograms, or 331 pounds, of honey a year. The hotel gives honey out as gifts and serves it at breakfast.
"We say 'close the jars when you're done and avoid wearing lots of perfume or the bees may think you're a big flower,"' Moncelli said.
The apiculture association rolled out the French urban program in 2005, and will present its results next year in Montpellier, France, at a conference organized by Apimondia, a global group of beekeepers' associations, based in Rome.
The United States and Britain also have used cities as breeding grounds for bees, although the "French program is very well developed and has huge scale compared to others," said Asger Sogaard Jorgensen, the president of Apimondia. "In many countries, the countryside has become a desert for bees."
The United States saw large hive losses in 2006, 90 percent or more in some cases. Colony Collapse Disorder, the sudden, massive disappearance of bees, was found in 35 states and has harmed hives in Asia, Europe and South America, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Pesticides, mites and viruses are among leading causes.
In Europe, about 84 percent of crop species depend directly on insect pollinators, especially bees, according to a June report co-authored by Bernard Vaissière, the head of research at the INRA. France is Europe's biggest agricultural producer.
"There is mounting evidence of pollinator decline all over the world and consequences in many agricultural areas could be significant," the report said.
Jean Paucton, who has kept bees on the roof of Paris's opera house for about 25 years, has seen that rural decline first hand. The retired opera house accessory artist said that the hives, which overlook the Galeries Lafayette department store in central Paris, are healthier than the ones he keeps in the country.
Paucton's city hives produce 450 kilograms of honey a year. He sells little jars of it to the opera house gift shop for about €4, which are resold for €14.50. Paucton, 75, said losses in the countryside can be as much as 50 percent, while the number in the city doesn't even approach 5 percent. Some years, he doesn't lose any in the city, he said.
"The harvest is worse and worse in the countryside," he said. "There aren't farmers anymore. There are only agricultural companies and they use pesticides."
His experience is mirrored by that of Michèle Bonnefond and Armand Malvezin, the beekeepers who maintain the Eiffel Park Hotel's hives. The couple also keeps hives in Corrèze, one of France's most rural regions, and there have been bigger losses there.
On a recent weekday, they sprayed smoke on the hotel terrace to calm the bees before extracting honey. They scraped a layer of wax off the honeycombs, placing it in a centrifuge machine, catching the honey that flew against the sides of the machine, through a faucet into jars. They said they don't obtain such rich supplies from their Corrèze hives.
The apiculture association has called on the French government to block the use in the country of some pesticides, which it says harms bees. Like with its city project, it is also encouraging more people to keep bees in rural areas.
Meanwhile, Olivier Darne, 37, an artist and beekeeper who designed an exhibition at the Parc de la Villette in Paris, that ran through Sept. 28 and included a glass-walled bedroom near a hive to bring people closer to the bee, said he's worried.
"Bees are dying everywhere but in cities," he said. "The bees are speaking to us."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/01/healthscience/parisbees.php

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A Vermont Family's Farm - Bosky Dell Farm (VT; 22 acres; Dairy, pigs, poultry, vegetables, honey)

I was put on to Bosky Dell Farm by Mary Barrosse Schwartz, of the Schwartz family whose farm it is. It's an inspirational blog and what I particularly like about it is the co-operative nature of what they are doing, which is very much how my family manages and produces our food here in the Auvergne.

(Only yesterday, for example, I was helping to finish a pigsty for 4 piglets that 5 five families are going to share, buying them in at 30kg and fattening to about 100kg on 'petit lait' and cereal from the dairy/cheese making farm owned by three of the families involved. I'm also going to be doing the milking one morning a week, in return for cheese and fresh milk.)

Bosky Dell Farm House

Mary was kind enough to write, and I'll let her do the talking:

"We decided as a family that even though we had our demanding day jobs, and even though food is plentiful in the local grocery stores, we’d grow our own food, mainly in response to higher prices for lower quality foods. When we tasted the honey from our own hive, we swore we never tasted honey as delicious and fine. Our pork was the best pork ever. Our milk, a creamy ambrosia, each glass a spiritual experience. Potatoes from our dirt tasted like potatoes my grandpa raised – carrots snappier and sweeter – and the corn could be eaten raw because it was so fresh and tender.

We have 22 acres of land behind our home, set in an upscale Vermont village. We treat our neighbors to the milk and eggs, meat and veggies we raise as a way of saying thank you for putting up with the lowing of a mother separated from her just weaned calf, or the smell of manure when we are moving the composting piles around.

We also work with a group of friends that we gradually seduced with home grown roasted chickens and many bottles of wine around our kitchen table to grow a large root cellar garden on another family’s land. We grow pork and chickens with the collective too, and buy produce in bulk from a supplier in the winter. It is a true co-op. We help each other in all ways that have to do with growing food.

We have miniature Irish Dexter cows, which we milk to drink and to make cheeses, and they are sometimes slaughtered for meat. We have laying hens, bee hives, and occasionally piglets running around. We make our own maple syrup by standing around outside in the freezing cold in late winter over a steaming pot of sweet maple sap. It is well worth tapping and hauling the sap, to taste that rich maple flavor.

We preserve much of our own food by canning, freezing and root cellaring. We even preserve the hides from the cows.

Our website discusses the recipes, shows the processes, and features our clan of teenagers and barnyard animals in photos of the garden, farm, and home. We’re learning to do much of what is going into our homestead as we move along – so we have our ups and downs, like all farmers. We share both. One friend said that one month this year was a daily saga akin to the tale of Job. I had forgotten that we had a tough month because you can’t dwell in the past when the cows need to be milked.

I hope people learn from what we learned and share.

I hope more people see and understand that if the Schwartzes in East Dorset, VT can do it, they certainly can raise their own good food too."









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City Bees Blog

Toni from City Bees Blog (http://citybees.blogspot.com/) started in 2005, the blog a chronicle of the beginning of his beekeeping adventures. It has since become a method to mentor other beekeepers, share stories, and build a community around connecting with nature wherever you are.

Toni lives in a major American city, but has beehives on the roof and at a monastery in town -- as well as a suburban historical site - along with four dogs, a cat, and a fish pond (presumably not on the monastery roof).

Toni isn't entirely sure whether this makes for a farmer "but it would sure be an honor".

Toni mostly follows beekeeper blogs and then theme blogs like "locavore eating" or CSAs. As for recommendations "I have to think about this a bit," Toni writes, but I await with interest: quality not quantity being the watchword of this blog....




www.aplaceintheauvergne.blogspot.com
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