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bees

Started by billy rubin, April 17, 2020, 08:09:43 PM

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billy rubin

lol

agriculture is not lucrative. my last year in california i grossed 150k, and lived in a condemned cinderblock bunkhouse in a cotton field because a friend let me stay for free if i fixed it. no water, no electricity, no pump in the well. you could lie in bed and see the stars through the roof at night. i couldnt afford to buy anything. farmland is worth more if you plant condominiums.

seriously, farming in america is a fragile paradigm. youre alwayz one seasons failure from ruin, and going cutthroat corporate is the winning ticket for modern us agriculture.

figure a dairy that grosses 400k annually will need about 360k reinvested. that 1/10 profitability is about standard.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Randy

Quote from: billy rubin on May 16, 2020, 10:53:44 PM
lol

agriculture is not lucrative. my last year in california i grossed 150k, and lived in a condemned cinderblock bunkhouse in a cotton field because a friend let me stay for free if i fixed it. no water, no electricity, no pump in the well. you could lie in bed and see the stars through the roof at night. i couldnt afford to buy anything. farmland is worth more if you plant condominiums.

seriously, farming in america is a fragile paradigm. youre alwayz one seasons failure from ruin, and going cutthroat corporate is the winning ticket for modern us agriculture.

figure a dairy that grosses 400k annually will need about 360k reinvested. that 1/10 profitability is about standard.

Well that bites. I wonder how the agriculture industry will fare after the COVID-19 pandemic is over? :query:
"Maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happens." -- Homer Simpson
"Some people focus on the destination. Atheists focus on the journey." -- Barry Goldberg

Icarus

Soy bean farmers are in deep trouble on account of Trumps tiff with the Chinese. Dairy farmers are dumping a million gallons of milk every day.  Cattle ranchers are not doing so well either.  Much of our produce comes from Mexico or Chile, or Peru.  A huge proportion of our orange juice comes from Brazil.  The American farmer is in deep trouble.

Farming is already a colossal gamble. But the big time farm corporations are the ones who get the bulk of subsidies. The small farm industry is screwed. On top of all that there is the problem of harvesting things like lettuce or tomatoes and so many other things that the "illegals" do. Dammit Donald Trump, we need those people. They are important to us because they keep our dinner tables adequately supplied. .

billy rubin

beekeeping too. lots of the central california bee outfits are manned at least partly by illegals. the men and boys from certain villages would come north together every year to work the same ranches. everybody i worked with except one guy was illegal. i azked him once, and he told me

la migra es mi amiga!

but the rest had to stay away from the police. i have no idea how theyre doi g now. not well i imagine

randy i missed your queztion abiut medication. bees get bacterial infections, viruse, fungal disorders and parasites. some are introduced from overseas and the bees here have no tolerance or immunity. and the pests evolve resitance to poorly thought out treatments pretty quickly.

i treated with antibiotics for brood disease, heavy duty pesticidez for mites, menthol crystals for endoparasitez, and changed strains to stay ahead of fungus.

if yore doing honey or queens you have to juggle medications with schedules in order to keep the hivez clean of chemicals during the appropriate period.

foreign honey, especially chinese, is not subject to the same standards as american. there have been some serious snafus with honey from china. not a good source.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Randy

Who knew that beekeeping was so involved? Obviously you did. As for me, I'm finding the subject quite fascinating. I'm glad you started this thread, Billy.
"Maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happens." -- Homer Simpson
"Some people focus on the destination. Atheists focus on the journey." -- Barry Goldberg

billy rubin

its like everything elze. more to it than you know unlwss you do it.

itz where food comes from in america, but people think of beekeeping as if it was run by happy old men and women spending zunny afternoons in their backyards.

its not. itz 3000 hours a year, trucks, forkliftz, diesel, and range wars.


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Randy

It isn't related to beekeeping exactly but I found this article worth a read: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/16/us/florida-blue-calamintha-bee-trnd/index.html
"Maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happens." -- Homer Simpson
"Some people focus on the destination. Atheists focus on the journey." -- Barry Goldberg

billy rubin

heres the problem:

"It's one thing to read about habitat loss and development and another to be driving for 30-40 minutes through miles of orange groves just to get to a really small conservation site," Kimmel said. "It puts into perspective how much habitat loss affects all the animals that live in this area."

most of our orange juice now comes from china and brazil, as concentratez. i think the fresh orangez are still mostly american.

orangez are excellent for honeybees, but clearly not for this little zucker


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

billy rubin

there i was at about ten in the morning,  minding my own biusiness and working on a motor, and i hear a bunch of scouts messing around in the stacks of supers over by th edoor. so i go look, and theres a bunch of em checking it out. so i say, swarm coming.

and then lat in the day, like seven PM, they came in. thats way late in the day for  swarm



"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

billy rubin

here it is



i love swarms. swirling clouds of life and optimism


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Randy

How often do you get stung?
"Maybe it's just a bunch of stuff that happens." -- Homer Simpson
"Some people focus on the destination. Atheists focus on the journey." -- Barry Goldberg

billy rubin

from a swarm, almost never, literally zero. that one i think i got stung two or three times, which surprised me.

that one was a dry swarm, clearly they'd been hanging in a bush somewhere for two or three days and were getting desperate, running out of the food they'd brought along with nowhere to store anything they could bring in. when that happens they get more and more unhappy until they find a place to live

when i was running bees commercially i think id get stung two or three thousand times a year. some days, not at all, sometimes if i made a mistake forty or fifty times all at once.

getting stung ceases to be a big deal when it happens a lot. the unpleasant part is driving them around for two or three days straight in the spring with no sleep


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Icarus


billy rubin

fascnating

i did one of my graduate degrees on silurian invertebrates form lithuania, but i didn;t know that honey bees were interesting to them.

estonia, latvia, lithuania, and the official nordic states are all viking. probably the most important thing about bees was that you could ferment honey to brew mead

i inadvertantle left a comb out f one of the beehives last week, and the bees drew out wild comb in the empty space. i was going to cut it out and put a frame in there but it was too late in the day and the weather is gloomy. they were not happy to see me and made sure that i knew it and so i had to close the box back up


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Tank

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.