Monday, June 28, 2010

Gophers: Cute and Essential

So, we got a local discussion going on here about gophers. Heather Hacking's Blog SowThere has two articles in the last three weeks. (One & Two) and Jeremy Miller's blog has one. Gophers can be a problem and or a delight.

I am here to make give pause and paws (and beak and claws) to the killing. So there is my article on why I don't kill gophers, and below are a few youtube videos meant to do just that.

The first is the cutest gopher movie - about a real life pet gopher - then there are the ones about the predators - and gophers have lots of them. Coyotes, egrets, herons, many varieties of hawks, and owls - especially Barn Owls, cats and dogs. My personal favorite gopher predator is the gopher snake. Haven't yet found a video of a gopher snake eating a gopher.

So my suggestion, is when possible, make your environment more friendly to those predators of the gopher rather than eliminating them yourself. In a natural system you are looking for balance, not perfection. Same as you want some plants with aphids in your garden to attract beneficial predators, same goes for the larger "pests". Everything contributes, as I said in my other post on gophers.

(No comment on the "sport" of gopher fishing.)

The thing is, that gophers just have a darn hard time. Everything seems to like to eat them. So - you want eagles and egrets, herons and wolves, coyotes and cats, dogs and snakes, barn owns and other fowles - to just starve to death?

Go gopher go!


















! But then there are tons of ways to make a living selling stuff that just doesn't seem to solve the gopher problem in the long run. Here are some gopher killing resources.!


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Sunday, June 27, 2010

Bees, Bees, and More Bees

A friend of mine, Tara Bambrick, who came down from Canada to help me start both of the cChaos Farmers Markets - the Fire House Certified Farmers Market, and the Chapman Food & Fitness Festival, is setting up a bee buzness up in Canookville. You can watch her develop her site at Bees Alive. I told her I would look up all the movies and books I could find for her to include on her web page.



And here are some links to Bee Books, Movies, Fact, and Fiction


















http://daviswiki.org/Backyard_Beekeepin


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Bees Blog 2: Links to More Articles & Books on Bees



Hunting Wild Bees


Managing Alternative Pollinators: A Handbook for Beekeepers, Growers, and Conservationists


Native Bees on Wildflowers in Western Australia





COMPETITION FOR NECTAR BETWEEN INTRODUCED HONEY BEES AND NATIVE NORTH AMERICAN BEES AND ANTS  


Alternative forage plants for native (wild) bees associated with lowbush blueberry, vaccinium spp., in Maine (Technical bulletin / Maine Agricultural Experiment Station)


Farming For Bees: Guidelines for Providing Native Bee Habitat on Farms


The diversity of native bee (Apoidea) communities in the Adirondack mountains in bogs and in relation to elevation and succession. (Insects and Environmental ... An article from: The Ohio Journal of Science


The Orchard Mason Bee (osmia Lignaria Propinqua Cresson), Life History, Biology, Propagation & Use Of North American Native Bee


Native Bees on Wildflowers in Western AustraliaNative Bees on Wildflowers in Western Australia


Native flowers for beesThe effects of the introduced honeybee (Apis mellifera) on Australian native bees (Occasional paper / National Parks and Wildlife Service)


Bibliography of Tropical Apiculture: Apis Mellifera Native to Africa Pt. 9



Alternative forage plants for native (wild) bees associated with lowbush blueberry, vaccinium spp., in Maine (Technical bulletin / Maine Agricultural Experiment Station)


Farming For Bees: Guidelines for Providing Native Bee Habitat on Farms


The Orchard Mason Bee (osmia Lignaria Propinqua Cresson), Life History, Biology, Propagation & Use Of North American Native Bee


Native Bees on Wildflowers in Western Australia


Native flowers for bees




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