Author Archives: Donekola

Honeybee Theft Is on the Rise

by Donekola Posted on July 18, 2013

Somebody in Ontario is rustling bees. The thieves go into bee hives and steal queens, bee boxes and supplies. So far, in Ontario, there have been a handful of similar robberies, according to the Toronto Star:

In May, in another incident reported to police, a thief in the Goderich area decided to take the honey and run, pilfering seven active beehives worth about $2,100. That same month, Kawartha Lakes police were investigating the theft of eight hives worth about $1,600 from a producer near Lindsay.

The buzz in beekeeping circles is that this spring there was also a robbery near Waterloo, another north of Peterborough and yet another in the Ottawa area, none of which made it into the media.

There are a few problems with tracking stolen beekeeping stuff. First, there’s no way to tag queens as your own. Unlike cattle, bees aren’t branded. So whoever swipes them gets away with a clean bee, untraceable to its original owner. The same goes for honey. People who uproot hive frames have it harder: those are easier to track. But as the Star points out, nobody steals a 180-pound box full of 80,000 bees if they don’t know what they’re doing. One apiarist says it would be like stealing an airplane—it requires a pilot to do it successfully.

On beekeeping forums, apiarists generally agree that whoever is stealing is probably a professional beekeeper, not a hobbyist. Times have been tough on the beekeeping industry—and when times are tough some turn to the dark side. The commercial beekeeping world saw a 43 percent mortality rate in its bees last year. One apiarist in Ontario lost 37 million bees.

Ontario isn’t the only place to see bee theft, either. Last year, a 500-pound beehive was stolen from outside a Houston restaurant. In 2010, as colony collapse disorder was starting to seriously make its presence known, there was an 85 percent increase in beehive thefts in Germany. The California State Beekeepers Association has a $10,000 be Theft Reward Program in place.

Some beekeepers are working towards making tiny trackers for bees to locate them when they are stolen, but there’s no “find my queen” app just yet.

5 Gorgeous Landmarks Threatened by Rising Seas

by Donekola Posted on July 10, 2013

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Because of climate change, postcard-perfect lighthouses, parks, and seaside city blocks could soon be swallowed into the ocean. So, you spent last weekend celebrating American independence with patriotic fervor and you’re now enthused about the preservation of American history and culture and all things awesome and bygone. Right? Keep that historical buzz going for a moment to contemplate five sites the National Trust for Historic Preservation—the country’s preservers-in-chief—thinks are most vulnerable to flooding caused by sea level rise. Even though the the Trust fields regular requests for planning assistance from coastal cities across country, the group says no comprehensive models yet exist to address sea level rise and its threat to historic landmarks. That’s bad, says Anthony Veerkamp, a program director with the Trust, because without first taking stock of what we might lose, “inevitably there will be adaptation strategies that do lesser or greater harm to historic resources.” Here are five sites the Trust are most worried about: 1. San Francisco’s Embarcadero California’s Bay Area can expect sea levels to rise by up to 55 inches by the end of the century, putting an estimated 270,000 people and $62 billion worth of San Francisco urbanbling at risk of increased flooding. That presents a major challenge to the three-mile stretch of San Francisco’s downtown Embarcadero district, which features more than twenty historic piers, a bulkhead wharf in twenty-one sections, a seawall built in the late 1800s, and the iconic Ferry Building, fully commissioned in 1903. California’s seasonal king tides already overflow San Francisco’s sea walls and occasionally spill into the Embaracadero, providing a preview for what might happen more regularly if sea levels continue to rise. 2. New York City’s Battery When Superstorm Sandy slammed New York City, waters surged with the added force of a high spring tide over Lower Manhattan’s sea walls, producing a “storm tide” more than 14 feet above the average, smashing a 50-year record. In the Battery—that most southern tip of Manhattan from where New York City boomed—flood waters rose in Castle Clinton, a fortress built to prevent a British invasion in 1812, now a museum and entry point for historical tours of New York harbor. Castle Clinton itself was transformed into New York’s first immigration facility: 8 million people entered the US through here (then called Castle Garden) from 1855-1890. The New York City Panel on Climate Change predicts flooding like this at the Battery will beup to five times more likely by mid-century. 3. Miami Beach Miami Beach might nowadays conjure images of bared flesh and art parties, but accompanying the polished pecs is a unique collection of Art Deco, Mediterranean Revival, and MiMo architecture (Miami Modernism is a flamboyant post-World War II style featuring sweeping curved walls, pylons, and stucco-colored avant garde shapes). “Miami beach is remarkably vulnerable,” Veerkamp says. “You’ve got threats coming from both sides, from the bay and the Atlantic.” The EPA suggests that, by the year 2100, there is a 50 percent chance of a 20-inch sea-level rise at Miami Beach. The majority of the city is a flood zone: the OECD lists Miami as the number-one most vulnerable city worldwide in terms of property damage, Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone writes in his definitive article “Goodbye, Miami“, with more than $416 billion in assets at risk. 4. Gay Head Lighthouse, Mass. Perched on a spectacular escarpment in Martha’s Vineyard, the Gay Head Lighthouse was first lit in 1856 (for lighthouse nerds, it was one of the first in the US to receive a first-order Fresnel lens, which has a jagged-surface that uses less glass and allows light to be projected over greater distances than previous models). The National Trust for Historical Preservation says the lighthouse is in danger of toppling over the edge of the Gay Head Cliffs, a consequence of a century’s worth of erosion which the Trust says is being accelerated by climate change-induced storms. It is estimated that in two years, there will not be enough land left to accommodate the machinery and equipment needed to move the tower. 5. Historic Downtown Annapolis

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5 Gorgeous Landmarks Threatened by Rising Seas

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Climate Change Is Making Canada Look More Like the United States
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Scientists Map Swirling Ocean Eddies for Clues to Climate Change