Went to the super giant mega international market today while waiting for our traps to catch some feral cats† for a client. There wasn’t a single whole tissue pork or beef cut for less than $5 a pound. Ground pork was $4.50 a pound. Cow feet were more than $5 a pound.
This makes chicken the only affordable option for making meat based meals for cheap right now.
Once these fertilizer shortages caused by the war in Iran take hold the price for vegetarian meals are going to skyrocket too.
By the midterms things will be way worse than they are now. Time to stock up on rice, beans and pasta. Start that herb garden now so you can flavor your calories.
I planted 200 onions this year. They are already looking great. I might have to start looking at more 18th century recipes. They loved onions.
† no. We are not eating the cats. This is a standard TNR situation. Pulled four kittens that were about two weeks old. One of them was already dead and one wouldn’t have made it through the day without intervention. Fix yo damn pets.
That’s great news for quickly replenishing commercial hives. If something wiped them out suddenly we would be facing global famine and a lot of hand pollination work.
If the bee superfood becomes commercially available, I’d be putting some out to boost the wild bee population around me, but I guess that’s how you get swarms. LOL.
I read that they would also make a “beeline” for the best food option, which if it’s that, means they wouldn’t be pollinating flowers, just feeding on the new food. So probably better as a tool for beekeepers, so they can still go pollinate flowers
Wild bees are typically solitary and don’t form swarms. Honeybees also wouldn’t swarm over finding a food source.
If you want to help wild bees, plant wildflowers.
That’s the problem they are finding, climate change is reducing the amount of naturally occurring sterols in pollen, so the bees can’t get all the nutrients they need from naturally occuring sources. 😞 Planting more flowers won’t correct for that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I gather this has only been found for honeybees.
So far, yes, but the last paragraph:
“The same technology could also be adapted to support other pollinators or farmed insects, opening new paths for sustainable agriculture”
So it could help any pollinator.
Planting yarrow and milkweed is great for native bees, at least where I live.
I suspect this would not boost native mason bees to the same extent. Each mason bee makes about 25 cocoons for her eggs in a season, while a honey bee queen can lay 200k, and the remaining work goes to the rest of the hive.
Or do you mean putting out the supplement for feral honey bee hives?
The latter… Supplements for everyone! 😉
I thought I read that commercial honeybees have never been in danger (are there other types of commercial hives?).
Commercial bees were the most in danger. For a while beekeepers were losing upwards of half their hives each year. It’s easy enough to replace the lost hives but it takes time and resources.
Between colony collapse disorder, neonicotinoid and other indiscriminate insecticides and Varroa destructor mites they had a very rough decade. Things are getting better now.
Maybe someone will engineer their demise intentionally. Never know when it could be really needed and for what.
Or CRISPR a food to create an army of hunter killer bees. 🙌