There is a remarkable story unfolding in Ontario and Quebec around pesticides and bees, rooted in two competing doomsday scenarios. Grain farmers claim pests will destroy their crops unless they are allowed to use neonicitinoid pesticides, while beekeepers point to…
How Will We Feed the World?
I’ve been on an extended book tour, giving lectures and reading from “Bee Time: Lessons From the Hive.” It’s been a great ride, and I’ve had the pleasure of talking to a wide range of public, beekeeping, academic and farming…
John Muir’s Words Stand Tall
Op-ed in today’s Vancouver Sun about reading John Muir in Tofino, and the tragic loss of environmental oversight in Canada. http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/Opinion+John+Muir+words+stand+tall+today+assault/11087593/story.html
Perhaps Beekeeping Should Change?
(The post below first appeared as a Letter to the Editor in Bee Culture magazine) It was an interesting January, bookmarked with the American Beekeeping Federation (ABF) meeting at Disneyland at the front end, and ending with the American Bee…
Valuing Valuation
I learned ecology tramping around the salt marshes of Cape Cod in the early 1970’s, where I was a graduate student in the Boston University Marine Program in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. At that time the word “ecology” was mostly accompanied…
The Road Not Taken
We all have our life-fork stories, those crossroads where we could have gone one way but chose another. I was reminded about one of my road-not-taken moments last week, at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meetings in Portland, Oregon.…
Pathways to Urban Nature (Seattle times op-ed)
Seattle Times, 10 November 2015, “Pathways to Urban Nature” http://seattletimes.com/html/opinion/2024979208_markwinstonopedbeesxml.html
Highways BEE Act
There’s new legislation just proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives, the Highways Bettering the Economy and Environment Act (BEE Act), designed to improve the lot of non-voters: wild bees and managed honeybees. The act was introduced by two representatives…
Corporate Influence
I enjoy congruence, when seemingly random bits of information on similar subjects converge. Novel ideas are often inspired by news nuggets from diverse sources that connect by a common thread. Today’s blog about the influence of corporate contributions on academia…
Unintended Consequences
Most of us are aware by now that antibiotics are overprescribed for human use and overused in animal feed to increase livestock weight. The consequences are tragic; disease-causing bacteria develop resistance when repeatedly exposed, and many antibiotics have become ineffective.…