What’s All the Buzz Around Town?
As part of Madison County Fair’s speakers’ series this year, on Saturday October 5th,
the President of Parkland Beekeepers Association, Larry Moses, will present a 101 Class on Bees. This session will cover the history and overview of beekeeping, the importance of bee preservation for future generations, bee genetics, equipment and tools of the trade, where to purchase equipment, cost saving ideas, and how to support bees by avoiding the dreadful damage from pesticides and herbicides, planting bee friendly plants, and constructing favorable habitat. With 10 years beekeeping experience and 7 years as an officer of Parkland Beekeepers Association, Larry brings a wealth of information and practical experience to our community. Weather permitting, an observation hive will be located at his booth.
A Beehive of Activity
While our sundrenched countryside buzzes with activity from baling hay, planting crops, moving cattle from paddock to verdant paddock, collecting eggs, tending expansive gardens, to canning produce, it also buzzes from the sound of bees busily collecting pollen and nectar to feed their colonies.
Eat Honey Because it is Good
In Proverbs the wisest man in the world tells us to eat honey because it is good. Honey is so good, in fact, that Jacob gifted it to the second most powerful man in Egypt during a time of worldwide famine. God even describes the fertility of the Promised Land as flowing in honey.
Understanding both the therapeutic and nutritional benefits of honey, mothers through the centuries suppressed coughs, cured sore throats, healed wounds, enhanced digestion, improved sleep, and enriched their food with honey. Antimicrobial, antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, and anti-inflammatory, honey boosts the immune system, prevents infection, aids in healing wounds and burns, and minimizes scarring. Rich in antioxidants that are linked to reduced risk of heart attacks, strokes, and cancer, honey also lowers blood pressure, prevents blood clots, reduces bad cholesterol, significantly raises good cholesterol, and helps the liver detox.
Comprised of enzymes, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and water, honey is the only food found to include all the substances necessary to sustain life. Ironically though bees hard work sustains life, the life of bees is presently in great jeopardy.
The Bee Crisis
In fact, because of the widespread use of pesticides and herbicides, habitat loss, a dwindling supply of nectar-rich flowers, parasites, and Colony Collapse Disorder, the population of bees continues to dwindle in large numbers. Last year alone, US beekeepers lost over 40 percent of their colonies.
Considering that nearly 85% of the world’s flowering plants and 75% of all fruits, nuts, and vegetables-a whopping $20 billion worth a year in the US alone-depend on these pollinators, the alarming plight of bees should concern all of us. Thankfully unlike atrocities for which we have no control, there are many ways in which each of us can ensure that bees will be here to sustain the life of our children’s children.
Bee Wise
In light of the critical role bees play in our food production, we should be Bee wise and stop using pesticides and herbicides, leave garden edges and field borders untilled and unmown, stumps, rotting logs, abandoned rodent holes, and brush piles for nesting habitat. We can feed bees by devoting areas in our gardens for pollinator friendly plants. And establish native plants with hollow stems such as blackberry, raspberry, sumac, and elderberry.
Providing wildflower-rich habitat is the most significant action you can take to support pollinators. Adult bees, butterflies, and other pollinators require nectar as their primary food source, and female bees collect pollen as food for their offspring. Native plants, which are adapted to local soils and climates, are usually the best sources of nectar and pollen for native pollinators. Incorporating native wildflowers, shrubs, and trees into any landscape promotes local biological diversity and provides shelter and food for a diversity of wildlife. Most natives require minimal irrigation, flourish without fertilizers, and are unlikely to become weedy.For a fact sheet on regional native plants for pollinators in the Midwest, go to https://xerces.org/pollinator-conservation/plant-lists/pollinator-plants-midwest-region/.
The Xerces Society also offers a Kindle or Hardcover resource entitled100 Plants to Feed the Bees: Provide a Healthy Habitat to Help Pollinators Thrive. The international bee crisis is threatening our global food supply, but this user-friendly field guide shows what you can do to help protect our pollinators. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation offers browsable profiles of 100 common flowers, herbs, shrubs, and trees that support bees, butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds.
To help bees thrive in our area, we should plant pollinator-friendly flowers, herbs, vegetables, and trees such as Anise Hyssop, Apple trees, Aster (New England), Baby Blue-Eyes, beans, Bee Balm or Wild Bergamot, Bee’s Friend Flower, Borage, Blazing Star (Liatris), Blueberries, Blue Flax, Butterfly Weed, Elderberry, Catmint Crocus, Nepeta walker’s low, California Orange Poppy, Cherry trees, China Aster, Coneflower (Pica Bella and Purple), Coreopsis (Plains and Lanceleaf), Dotted Mint, Evening Sun Sunflower, Fleabane Daisy, Forget-Me-Not, Globe Gilia, Goldenrod (Showy Solidago Speciosa), Hellebore, Hyacinth, Joe Pye Weed, Indian Blanket, Kale (gone to seed), Lavender, Lemon Mint, Lettuce (gone to seed), Maples, Milkweed/butterfly weed, Monarda, Okra, Oxeye sunflower, Penstemon (Blue and Foothill), Primrose, Purple Prairie Clover, Redbuds, Rosemary, Salvia, Siberian Wallflower, Tall White Sweet Alyssum, Thyme, Tidy Tips, and Spicate Rose Willows.
Native Plant Nurseries in Missouri includeBowood Farms, Elixir Farm Botanicals, George White State Forest Nursery, Hamilton Native Outpost, Missouri Wildflowers Nursery, and Osage Prairie Mercantile.
Seed Savers is another a great source for pollinator friendly plants. They offer a very popular Bee Feed Flower Mix and a helpful resource called The Benevolent Bee. A honeybee hive produces much more than honey. It produces pollen, propolis, royal jelly, beeswax, and bee venom-all products humans have found a use for throughout history. This book is a must for every beekeeper. Learn about how each component of a hive is used today as well as the past. Explore delicious food recipes such as smoothies and fudge and recipes for wellness, including salves, teas, and tinctures, and craft uses. To learn more, order their beautiful seed catalog by visitingseedsavers.org.
Bee Good to Your Children
While basking in the sunshine, running through sweet clover, savoring the nectar of honeysuckle chasing butterflies, capturing fireflies, and sitting under a blanket of stars relishing the sound of whippoorwills and katydids highlight the carefree days of summer, we should Bee good to our children and grandchildren by also highlighting the importance of bees through fun projects like the following.
Show the children a picture of a bee. Point out that like all insects, bees have three body parts-head, thorax and abdomen, a pair of antennae, compound eyes, six jointed legs, and a hard exoskeleton. Considered social insects, bees live in a hive and work together to feed the colony by gathering nectar and pollen, making honey, building honeycomb, tending to the eggs the Queen lays, and caring for the young.
Bees eat both honey and pollen. The honey provides carbohydrates for energy, while the pollen provides protein and essential amino acids. At the same time that bees collect nectar, pollen from the plants sticks on the bee’s hind legs and then rubs off onto other flowers thus pollinating as they go. Without bees there would be very little food available for animals, birds, and us.
Have you heard the term Busy as a Bee? Bees are extremely industrious, working tirelessly to preserve the hive and produce honey for the colony.
Look at a picture of a hive. Ask the children to identify the shape of the honeycomb. Point out the hexagonal shape is the most efficient because there are no empty spaces between the cells.
Bees are very meticulous about grooming each other and keeping their hive clean.
Using crayons, markers, or paint, have the children color a picture of a bee and then a picture of a bee on their favorite flower.
To learn how workers, drones, and the queen live and work together; how they find nectar; make comb, honey and beeswax; and how they care for the young and the Queen, read The Magic School Bus Inside a Beehive,or watch the DVD.
Hold either an oral or written Bee Quiz.
1. How fast do honey bee’s wings stroke per second? a. 200 b. 300 c. 400 (a. 200)
2. How fast can a honeybee fly? a. 5-10 miles per hour b. 12-15 miles per hour c. 15-20 miles per hour (b. 12-15 mph)
3. When bees find nectar, how do they let other bees know where it is? a. sing a special song b. do a dance c. they don’t let other bees know (b. they do a dance that reveals the direction and distance to the nectar)
4. How do bees collect nectar from most flowers? a. long legs b. tummies c. tongues (c. bees usually collect nectar with their tongues)
5. How do bees pollinate thistle plants? a. long legs b. tummies c. tongues (a. bees dip their legs into thistles)
6. How do bees pollinate tomatoes? a. long legs b. tummies c. tongues buzz against it so the pollen falls onto her tummy (b. buzz-pollinate by buzzing against it so the pollen gets on their tummies)
7. Which of these don’t need bees for pollination a. sweetcorn b. beans c. watermelon (a. although most fruits and vegetables are pollinated by bees, sweetcorn is a type of grass and pollinated by the wind. Bees still visit sweetcorn for nectar and pollen.)
8. How many flowers does a honey bee visit during a collection trip? a. 25-50 b. 50-100 c. 100-150 (b.50-100)
9. How many flowers must bees visit to make one pound of honey? a. 1,000 b. 150,000 c. 2 million (c. to make a pound of honey the bees need to visit about 2 million flowers)
10. Approximately how many miles do bees have to fly to collect 1 pound of honey? a. 20,000 b. 55,000 c. 75,000 (b. 55,000 miles which is more than 2 orbits around the world)
11. A colony consists of approximately how many bees? a. 500-15,000 b. 20,000-50,000 c. 50,000-60,000 (c. 50,000-60,000)
Go on a scavenger hunt outside to see how many bees they see gathering nectar.
Hold a scavenger hunt by hiding silk flowers or cut out flowers from construction paper, around the yard or inside the house. Have the children pretend they are bees buzzing around collecting nectar, by collecting the flowers.
Plant a bee friendly garden.
Have your children fill out a fun play on words game. You type in the first part and leave a blank for the children to fill in their answers.
A bee’s favorite haircut is a…buzz cut!
What do you call a bee that’s a sore loser…A cry bay-bee!
A happy bee’s blood type is…bee positive.
What did the bee say to another bee that landed on the same flower…Buzz off!
Beauty is all in the eye of the…bee-holder.
When you cross a doorbell and a bee you wind up with a…humdinger.
A bee’s favorite sport is…rug-bee.
Bees favorite guns are…bee-bee guns.
What do children, dogs, and bees love to play…Frisbee.
Bees are in such great shape because they always take their…vitamin-bee.
Bees favorite flower is…bee-gonias!
Watch Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree-a delightful animated DVD based on the sweet old bear who lives in the Hundred Acre Wood with Piglet, Tigger, and Rabbit. A bear who continually satisfies the rumbly in his tumbly with the delectable sweet goodness of honey.
Beelieve Me It is Delicious
Make some honey treats for your honeys!
Honey Butter:Mash some butter on a plate and add honey. Mix together until smooth. Put on hot biscuits.
Honey Dipping Sauce:Add honey to mustard for chicken fingers.
Honey Nut Granola
2 ¾ c oats
½ c firmly packed brown sugar
½ c nuts (pecans or walnuts)
1/3 c honey
1/3 c butter melted
1 t cinnamon
1 t vanilla
½ c raisins or dates
Preheat over 325 degrees. Combine all ingredients except raisins or dates, mix well. Bake on lightly greased 13 by 9 pan for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in raisins or dates. Spread mixture onto ungreased cookie sheet. Cool. Store in a cool dry place. Makes 6 cups.
Cranberry Vinaigrette
3 T red wine vinegar
1/3 c olive oil
1 T Dijon mustard
½ t minced garlic
½ t each salt and pepper
¼ c honey-or more-to taste
¼ c dried cranberries
1 c pecan halves coarsely chopped
1 small red onion, sliced and separated into rings
1-2 Granny Smith apples sliced
4 oz blue cheese, crumbled
2 heads of tender Boston lettuce
Mix first six ingredients. Place the next five ingredients on the lettuce. Pour dressing and gently toss. Double this recipe for a large salad.
Bay-bees-Never give honey to children under one year of age as it may contain toxic spores to babies.
Bee-ware
Bee-ware! Store bought honey is not all it is cracked up to bee even if it says all natural! Extremely processed, most store-bought honey is pasteurized at very high temperatures which in turn denatures the enzymes and kills the valuable probiotics. It is also stripped of beneficial pollen. What is even worse is that processed honey often contains corn syrup, antibiotics, and heavy metals.
The Bees Knees in Honey
For the Bee’s Knees in honey, purchase unpasteurized raw honey from a local farmer in our community. Preserved in its natural state ensures that you receive all its nutritional therapeutic goodness with vitamins, minerals, probiotics, enzymes, powerful antioxidants, and other important nutrients. Raw honey also contains a blend of pollen that strengthens the immune system and reduces allergy symptoms. Supporting local producers supports the local economy, local bee colonies and the native plants they pollinate. And in a tight knit community like ours, you will know for certain that the honey is truly home grown and unprocessed.
For more information on our educational programs and entertainment, opportunities for farmers, participating in our opening ceremony, volunteering or becoming a sponsor, please contact us at MadisonFairMO@yahoo.com.
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