04/28/2026
I had a little extra fun this evening after dinner. Saturday we put lemongrass oil (attractant) in a swarm box hanging from the maple near the garage and today we caught a swarm! It wasn’t my first swarm to capture but it was the smoothest capture yet.
Two of the largest factors in bee population collapsing (as I understand it) are monoculture - expecting bees to thrive eating only one thing (almond, blueberries, peaches, apples etc) and chemical sprays - herbicide, pesticide, and fungicide. Your standard honey from the grocery store - if it’s even American honey - is coming from bees that have been shipped from Maine to California to Georgia and everywhere in between, following monoculture pollination cycles around the country. We ask the bees to move all around the country and then feed them from a single food source - such as an almond grove - and then expect them to stay healthy. This is a major contributor to colony collapse disorder, diseases and pests surging. So then what does big ag do? They throw chemicals at the bees and medicate them into what they call a “healthy status”. Why should we expect anything different from US food production than what we do to our own bodies here in the US? Abuse then medicate and stay addicted to the same ridiculous system.
What’s the solution? Eat local, in-season, diverse, nutrient-dense, natural, and CLEAN foods.
