Category: Animals
Congress Joins Fight to Save the Honey Bees
From US News Washington Whispers:
In advance of a House hearing on the status of colony collapse disorder, the name given to the disappearing bee syndrome, some 21 House and Senate Democrats and Republicans will join Burt’s Bees and Häagen Dazs Wednesday at a conference to air the problems facing the bee. Right smack in the middle of National Pollinator Week, the event on Capitol Hill will feature lawmakers interested in the bee, like Sen. Hillary Clinton and House Agriculture Committee’s Rep. Dennis Cardoza, the nation’s bee man, the Agriculture Department’s Jeff Pettis, and supporters from Häagen Dazs and Burt’s Bees. Afterward, Häagen Dazs’s new vanilla honey bee ice cream will be served and Burt’s “Help Honey Bees” lip balm will be offered.
Air Pollution Impedes Bees’ Ability to Find Flowers
Air pollution interferes with the ability of bees and other insects to follow the scent of flowers to their source, undermining the essential process of pollination, a study by three University of Virginia researchers suggests.
via Washington Post
Bats In Hell? Deadly Bat Illness Baffles Researchers
Researchers race against time to solve deadly bat illness – The Boston Globe
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1185143625/bctid1534625573
DORSET, Vt. – The little brown bat careened out of Aeolus Cave into the bright March afternoon. Crashing into a snow bank, it clawed up the icy mound, wings flailing wildly. Spent and starving, it fell still.
Dozens of furry bats, many shivering uncontrollably, littered the snow around the cave’s mossy entrance. Others in various stages of dying were tucked into rock crevices nearby – deeply bizarre behavior for animals that avoid light and so despise winter they can hibernate until early May.
A wildlife biologist breathing through a respirator gingerly picked up the still creature – one more critical clue to a mysterious illness that is killing the bats of the Northeast.
Cow Manure = Lights On!
moo, baby, moo.
via Reuters
California cows start passing gas to the grid
On a dairy farm in the Golden State’s agricultural heartland, utility PG&E Corp began on Tuesday producing natural gas derived from manure, in what it hopes will be a new way to power homes with renewable, if not entirely clean, energy.
Honey Bee Preservation
I was reading up on the honeybee die-off known as colony collapse disorder (CCD) and found a couple of sites to bookmark:
American Beekeeping Federation (http://www.abfnet.org/)
Foundation for the Preservation of the HoneyBee (http://www.honeybeepreservation.org/)