It seems that the varroa mite has won. Over the summer break two things happened, outbreaks of the mite were discovered outside the containment line (in fact close to me) and the maker of the best posion refused to pay to have their chemical registered as a bee-cide. They didn;t wat to be associated with killing honey bees.  Finally the decision was made last night to “control” the spread rather than go for erradication. What does this mean for me? Well it means that I’ll have to monitor the hives more closely (doing the sugar roll), treat the hives twice a year with a miticide strip (small extra cost) , and be prepared to lose 10-20% of my hives every year. Thats not so bad. The plus side is that with no wild hives there is no competition for nectar so bigger honey crops and that people will want managed hives for pollenation so fewer niggles from neighbours. Â
Thats rotten…so with no wild bees, how do wildflowers get pollinated??? And why do your neighbors niggle you?
On another front, we had some NZ “Blue Hake” for supper…pretty good, BUT…what is it reallY??? Some disgusting bottom dweller that would chase us gasping to the vomitory if we really knew…some kind of toadfish or witchfish or sea cucumber or ? Now I’m not sure if I really want to know. “Blue Hake”…ha!
Vomitory! Well done Terry!
Sorry to hear about the bees, I guess it’s just an apiary fact now. Good luck with it.
That is the second time i’ve seen the word vomitory in 24 hours. Now to use it in casual conversation. Good word!
Now hake … follow this link http://www.seafood.co.nz/business/fishaqua/species/hake.asp and all shall be revealed. Its a nice fish, well managed and tasty. No its not some nasty bottom dweller and it comes ffrom the clean cold waters of NZ.
Ah the bees .. without managed honey bees there is trouble in some places. People found that gardens did not produce and that fruit trees went unpolinated. My neighbours are cool with the bees but others find that having bees in the suburbs the neighbours kick up a fuss. Mostly because of stings (or preceived risk of) and bee poop on their laundry. I have severl places that i want to put bees but the neightbours rebelled.
ummm…Mr. Fish Guy….ummm…I went to hake and read it. Unfortunately, I then read Hoki, which is a disgusting whiptail-looking fish…and thats the one called “Blue Hake” or “Blue Grenadier”….I knew this was some thing ugly which has been renamed to suck me, Mr. Average Consumer-guy, into buying it. Besides, they eat the hapless lantern fish which use bioluminescence fer goddsake. Of course, it WAS tasty….
Please. That Hoki isn’t disgusting looking. Surely, you saw the video on CNN showing the “Frilled” Shark that was filmed in Japan. Now THAT’s ugly!
You people … as an expert in fish I can say that they are ALL ugly and eat funny stuff ….. their are FISH …. most eat bugs.
Now Hoki is just fine, its a good yet boring white fish. Geeze.
I say just keep eating fish once or twice a week and stop worrying about what your food looks like. Chickens don’t generally win bird beauty pageants either!