Archive for the ‘beekeeping books’ Category

As honeybees buzz from blossom to blossom and back to the hive, they may be creating some of the most powerful natural ingredients effective in promoting good health. Supplying the queen bee with the nutrients she needs to outlive and outgrow the average worker bee, the bees also protect the hive from outside invaders through their steadfast work. Take advantage of all their work and promote your own health through all four ingredients created by bees: royal jelly, bee pollen, propolis and honey. Read on to learn more about how these ingredients may improve your daily and overall health.

Royal Jelly

Live like a queen! Royal jelly is produced by the worker bees solely to feed the queen bee, resulting in impressive longevity and reproductive capabilities in the queen. By taking this natural elixir, many people have laid claim to an enhanced physical condition, with claims of increased energy and the ability to fight off infection. In addition, the enjoyment of many other benefits is commonly noted, such as asthma, cholesterol, depression, high blood pressure, arthritis, and diabetes.

This magical creation of the worker bees cannot be recreated by humans, thus, like the queen bee, we must rely on them for its production. A natural source of many essential nutrients that are needed for our bodies to maintain good health, Royal Jelly is a liquid made up of approximately 67% water. To minimize the risk of contamination likely in such a state, it needs to be processed within a few hours of removal from the hive, a method that may include treating the product with a chemical preservative, freeze-drying the product, combining it with a natural preservative such as honey, or freezing or refrigerating it. If Royal Jelly is lyophilized, or freeze-dried, the quality of the nutrients is not affected. In fact, this process preserves the nutritional viability for up to four years and reduces the possibility of contamination during the encapsulating and bottling process, whereas Royal Jelly in its liquid state must remain frozen or refrigerated to avoid contamination.

Rich in B vitamins, fatty acids, folic acids, aspartic acid (for optimum tissue regeneration), amino acids, minerals and natural hormones, royal jelly provides many harmonizing health benefits throughout the human body.

Bee Pollen

Yet another product from the hands of worker bees, bee pollen has been coined “The Food of the Gods” for its superb health benefits and nutritional composition. Within the blossom of a plant, the stamen produces male seed, or pollen, which is collected by bees using their tongue and mandibles, transferred to their second pair of legs as a now-sticky substance, and stored on their body and legs for transport back to the hive. Commercially, mesh wire substitutes for the small chambers in the hive used for collection of honey and pollen. As the bees fly into the hives through small openings in the wire, the pollen is scraped from their legs and falls into a tray which can be removed by the beekeeper for collection. The pollen is often kept in its pure form after the removal of any foreign particles, packaged and then frozen. Pollen can also be consumed in capsule form, which extends its shelf life, usually 3 or 4 years, but, if processed correctly, the pollen loses none of its wonderful nutritional composition.

Vitamins C, A, and E, carotenoids, folic acid, B vitamins, collagen, lecithin (often associated with weight control), amino acids, rutin (a strong antioxidant), and minerals such as magnesium, calcium manganese, and copper all combine to form this complete food. Some believe that life can sustain itself solely on consumption of pollen and water. As for its apparent health benefits, the list is long: increased energy, weight loss, antibiotic properties, controlling asthma, immune system enhancement, regulation of prostate diseases, desensitization toward effects of hay fever, stress reducer and regulation of the digestive system.

When considering where your bee pollen comes from, choose domestic pollen, which is plentiful. Imported bee pollen, often from China, may be procured from unregulated facilities, increasing the likelihood of contaminants in the granules.

Propolis

Considered by many to be nature’s antibiotic, Propolis, created by honeybees from a resinous material in tree bark and leaves, protects the beehive against infection and any foreign organisms. For centuries, humans have used propolis for the same purposes – to fight infections – but also to increase energy and to promote healing.

Quite different than other products created by bees, propolis can be applied externally, as well as taken orally. Using its antibiotic properties, propolis can be applied to cuts and other skin abrasions to sterilize the wound. It is also taken orally as a natural alternative to more modern pharmaceuticals, such as penicillin and other antibiotics. Sporting another advantage over conventional medicines, propolis has shown an ability to maintain its effectiveness, while many antibiotics become ineffective as viruses and bacteria build immunity against them.

The nutritional content of propolis is as varied as that of pollen and royal jelly. It is rich in amino acids and bioflavonoids, promoting healthy immune systems. It also has a high vitamin content, consisting of all known vitamins, except Vitamin K. And it contains fourteen of the 15 minerals required by our bodies for normal function.

Again, being similar to other products from the hive, propolis is associated with promoting healthy body systems. It has been shown to fight against allergies, skin irritations, oral irritations (such as canker sores), respiratory illnesses, fatigue, inflammations and the everyday cold and flu.

To process propolis for human consumption, some will package it raw and freeze it, or the active ingredients can be removed and added to water or alcohol through a specific process, resulting in a liquid form or a dried and capsulated product. Due to its effectiveness, propolis may soon be available in many more products.

Honey

We are all familiar with honey, often thinking of it only as a natural sweetener. But like other products from the hive, it may have many medicinal qualities, including the ability to treat infection and provide energy more quickly than sugar. While sugar is made up of sucrose, honey contains glucose and fructose. Because all carbohydrates must be converted to glucose before our bodies can absorb them, honey, being made of glucose, is more easily converted to energy for our bodies, providing a quicker source of get-up-and-go than other carbs.

In addition to glucose and fructose, honey contains a large array of nutrients like its sister products from the hive, including vitamin A, C, D, E, K and the complete line of B-complex vitamins, minerals, amino acids, betacarotene and antioxidants. As J.S. Taylor notes in the book “Power of the Beehive”, “Bee pollen and propolis enzymes are present in even the purest of raw honey. These possess anti-viral and antibacterial properties that work from within the honey to sterilize wounds and assist healing.” The list of known nutritional benefits from honey keeps growing.

Reap the benefits from the work of thousands of honeybees by taking bee products daily and potentially increase your chances of maintaining an overall good state of health.

According to his official biography, Charlie Nothing “was not born, did not go to school, did not die,” and his main instrument is the dingulator. Obsessive record collectors may recall his name from the 1967 LP The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing, one of the only non-guitar records released on John Fahey’s Takoma label. Contemporary listeners might know Nothing from his powerful performance of dingulation, as he calls his music, in Chicago at the 2005 Two Million Tongues Festival. Featuring a roster of difficult-to-categorize musicians, it was the ideal venue for this difficult-to-categorize performer. Josephine Foster, who was also on the bill, describes him as being like “the incarnation of Ubu Rex” and says, “Charlie seems to lose himself deeply in the raw spirit of performance.”

In the years between 1967 and 2005, you might have crossed paths with Nothing at any number of places. Perhaps it was in a New York loft in the mid 1960s, when he gave a series of performances that had grown out of the drug scene and the jam sessions around his house. Nothing’s first band included himself on sopranino sax, a classically trained Indian tabla drummer and a young Japanese woman who recited litanies of everyday items such as “underarm deodorant, soap, green shoes, pink shoes, lipstick…”

Next came the First Uniphrenic Church and Bank Band, a group that included a young, pre-Blondie Debbie Harry in what must have been some of her first vocal performances. Besides playing the Village Gate, the Uniphrenic band put on a series of Friday night concerts in a friend’s Manhattan loft, where everything, including the toilet, was decorated in always-fashionable black. The loft concerts were extremely popular–perhaps it was the music or maybe it was the free beer–but the fire department eventually shut them down.

Nothing then moved on to Los Angeles, where he performed at an arena show with Frank Zappa; joined and then quit the cast of Hair; and performed a flute concert at the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art. The museum curator assured Nothing that there would be no restrictions on his performance, so the concert took place in the men’s room after hours for an audience of two.

After his stint in Los Angeles, Nothing went north to the Bay Area, where he lived in a squat in the back of a Haight-Ashbury sandal shop and played love-ins, North Beach jazz clubs and similar venues of the era. Nothing recorded The Psychedelic Saxophone of Charlie Nothing during this period. The album featured saxophone improvisation accompanied by concert gong, conga drum and a banjo ukulele that was borrowed from Tiny Tim for the occasion. Nothing also drew the cover art. Not surprisingly, it never cracked the Billboard Top 100, but it did attain some cult success in Europe among aficionados of free improvised music.

Nothing eventually settled in Santa Cruz, California, where he became a beekeeper and an expert in the removal of stinging insects. He did not perform from 1984 until 2004, feeling he had “evolved past the entertaining-monkey-jumping-up-and-down-on-the-stage stage.” But Nothing was not artistically inactive. He published books (under the name Charles Martin Simon), created art in many different media and even sent a tape of music to Ronald Reagan. The White House replied with a nice letter that opened: “Dear Mr. Nothing, The President appreciates your support…”

And he built dingulators, of course, a class of instrument he invented. At first glance, a dingulator has superficial similarities to a steel-bodied National-style guitar. The number of strings varies, up to as many as 21, but seven or eight strings is typical. Dingulators have raised frets akin to those on a sitar, and each one is unique. Classic examples tend to have scrolls and curlicues reminiscent of a Gibson Style 0 guitar or perhaps a Gibson H-4 mandola. They are made from old cars.

Why cars? “Cars have the right kind of steel,” Nothing explains. “Cars have got very soulful steel.” But the steel has to come from older cars: “Metal on new cars, whether it’s American or foreign, is just not up to quality.” Nothing’s current project is to make a dingulator from a 1965 VW Karmann Ghia. There is a political message in his artistic recycling. “It’s a sword-to-plowshare kind of thing,” he says. “Cars to guitars.”

Dingulators have steel strings and friction pegs. Their tuning is variable, organic and evolving. “The ideal would be to never tune them, to just find where they are going and go with it,” he says. “But sometimes I do make adjustments.” Nothing is a highly skilled artisan and welder. The form of each dingulator is hand-drawn in chalk directly onto the metal.

Foster says, “Dingulators remind me of African instruments; they are folk-art masterpieces.” The African influence is probably real. Talking about the origin of dingulators, Nothing demonstrated his favorite kalimba, which had a broken tine that produced a note with a deep, rich buzz. That one buzzing note had the sound he liked and saved the otherwise unremarkable instrument from the trashcan.

What does a dingulator sound like? “They are tuned percussion to animate and punctuate his spoken-word diatribes,” Foster explains. Another point of reference might be Hans Reichel’s early, pre-daxophone, modified-guitar recordings; Derek Bailey’s music also comes to mind. Nothing, though, is unfamiliar with both Reichel and Bailey, so it seems that dingulation evolved on its own.

Nothing can be in-your-face confrontational, especially in his explicitly political songs, but there are more facets to his music. As he demonstrated the voice of each individual dingulator, Nothing improvised music of great beauty, passion and intensity. He plays completely in the moment and is sometimes possessed by musical spirits. What are Nothing’s musical influences? “Everything,” he says. “I’m influenced probably as much by the stuff I don’t like as the stuff I like. So I’d have to say I’m influenced by everything.” One of the things Nothing doesn’t like is Muzak. You can believe him when he promises, “Dingulation will never be on Muzak!”

In 2004, Nothing realized he was, in fact, “a monkey jumping up and down” and he began performing in public again. After playing small venues in the Santa Cruz area, he began to receive invitations to various music festivals, including the Pauze Festival in Ghent, Belgium, and the Two Million Tongues Festival in Chicago. There was, however, one problem with launching this new phase of his career: Dingulators aren’t particularly portable. To get around that obstacle, Nothing has started work on a smaller travel version. He’s building a dingulator with a removable neck that can be stored in the body, making a compact and indestructible steel carrying case. All dimensions were carefully planned to meet international airline requirements for carry-on luggage. It remains to be seen if the airport bureaucracies will be able to cope with dingulation.

Leather Gloves make awesome gifts for men or women. A glove is a piece of garment which covers the hands and has separate openings for the fingers and thumb. A leather glove is just like all other gloves except that it is made out of tanned hide of an animal.

Nowadays there are also synthetic varieties of leather. Leather gloves when worn on the hands offer comfort and protection to the wearer. It was considered as a fashion statement and many people were also hooked to wearing leather gloves. There are even people who go around collecting leather gloves as assort of hobby because of their obsession with them.

At one point of time many people were wearing leather gloves as apart of their attire. Leather has the property of keeping the hands warm and comfortable during the cold winter months. They also offer good grips while keeping the fingers and hands well protected.

Leather gloves are worn in many sporting events like cycling, driving, football, baseball, handball, etc. In the game of baseball an oversized leather glove which has a web in the palm helps to field the ball. Because leather gloves offer better grip football players especially the goalkeepers prefer to use them as it allows them to have a better grip of the ball.

Leather gloves are also used in many occupations and offer excellent protection against harmful chemicals and other occupational hazards. It is common to find many workers in the construction industry wearing leather gloves as it allows them to have better grips and also gives the much needed protection from injuries. Beekeepers wear leather gloves to protect themselves from being stung by bees especially when they are collecting honey.

Leather gloves have been around for many centuries dating as far back as 1592 when Queen Elizabeth I wore them regularly and this is evident from a portrait of her holding a pair of leather gloves in her hands. During the Victorian Era women used to wear leather gloves which were undersized to shrink the size of their hands as it was fashionable and a sign of beauty for ladies to have small sized hands in that era.

During the middle ages soldiers wore gauntlets which are also gloves which were made out of leather and metal. Even in the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus there are instances where the Jews had to produce their leather gloves for examination by the priests to check if there was any mildew present on them and if it was present then the gloves were considered unclean.

Leather gloves are used widely in industrial and construction industries. This is because leather has greater resistance to abrasions and this makes them an ideal choice when it comes to jobs which are of the heavy duty kind. Leather gloves help to protect the fingers and hands from injuries by providing a cushioning impact while workers perform heavy duty jobs like moving machinery etc.

So you’re thinking about starting a social business (i.e. a business that helps a social or environmental cause in some way), or adding a social business element to your existing business? Awesome! And congratulations. If you take action on that intention, you’re well on your way to financial freedom and making a positive impact on the world.

Writing a business plan is one of the first tasks on your list. Well the, what makes a great social business plan? It’s both an art and a science, and there are hundreds of books, websites, and other resources on business plans in general. Here are nine great tips specific to writing social business plans, tips that you won’t find in any traditional business plan how-to.

1. Tell your story. How will your company benefit a social or environmental cause? Why start this particular business, why now, and why you? Do this in the synopsis and subtly throughout the whole plan. As a social business, this story is where you can really shine.

2. Keep it brief. No one wants to read a 50 page business plan, and in fact, no one probably ever will, no matter how special or amazing your cause is. Ideally, keep your plan to ten pages, and most certainly under 20.

3. Continually update it. A business plan is a living document that must be reviewed and adjusted on at least a monthly basis. As your company and your cause grow and change, your business plan should evolve in lockstep.

4. Include a brief Envisioned Future section. What will your company look like in 20 or 100 years? How will the world have benefitted from its existence? Your business is an organization with a good cause, so spell out your vision. It will help you keep your eyes on the prize in hard times, and the visual will also help sell the idea to investors, bankers, donors, employees, customers, and everyone else.

5. Show how and why you will be competitive and profitable in a market that doesn’t really care whether your products are made of recycled materials or if you’re empowering poor women beekeepers in Africa. If everything else is equal (i.e. price, brand recognition, quality, shelf location), you might have a slight edge because of your cause. But probably not. You’re providing a product or service to the world, and you must make a profit doing so. Use your plan to legitimately prove that you will. Remember: you can’t help anyone if you go bankrupt.

6. Don’t get too crazy with the use of words like sustainability, green, social business, good cause, fair trade, and so on. Unfortunately, many traditional business people have negative connotations for all those words, left over from extreme environmentalists of the 70s (think off-the-grid communes and lack of deodorant). Unfair images, but we all still have to deal with that for the time being. Use those words when you must, but keep it to a minimum. If you can, use words like “efficiency,” “improved safety standards,” and “increased profit” instead.

7. Do ample research. As a social business, your company will likely undergo more scrutiny from everyone involved than a traditional business model would, which is unfair but true. Back up everything you say with piles of credible research, some of which you may even include in the Appendices to your plan, where appropriate.

8. When compiling your financial projections, make sure to include a Social Return on Investment, or SROI. Explain how you plan to quantify, measure, and analyze your SROI. Quantification is how you will show the world the good things you’ve done, and how you can decide what your biggest and best levers for change are.

9. Use a template business plan to get started. No need to reinvent the wheel. There are lots of free or cheap business plans out there that can help you write your own amazing plan. Granted most of them are not specifically geared to social businesses, so you may have to improvise a bit.

Or, you could just click here to download a social business plan from Social Business Central, possibly the single best resource for small business entrepreneurs with a conscience. You’ll also find loads of other resources, a social business blog, and much more. It’s a really great website.

How much room do bees need. I mean, your average roof top will do. They only need enough air space to fly around in don’t. they? I know they need to look for food. And what about the neighbours. Will they care of I invite my stripy, buzzing friends here to live with me?Well, did you know, lots of people do keep keep bees on their rooftops, but it depends where you live in the world. More importantly, it depends on the local laws. Bees do a lot of flying around in their foraging activities, in search of water and food. They will in fact travel up to fifteen miles in search of nectar.There might be lots of facts about bees and their habits which you do not know about. I learned a lot from the modern version of Beekeeping For Beginners by Charles Dadant. This book was written over a hundred years ago, but the wisdom to be found within its covers is timeless, and a wonderful reference for anyone interested in keeping bees. See the link at the end of this article.Alternatively you could be talking about the space needed to observe bees in some kind of glass hive. It would need to be large enough for them to be self sufficient and for them to swarm. Is this idea viable.?Yes it is. A ten gallon tank would be the right size to fit about five frames. But there are potential problems with what you might or might not be able to see the bees do in this type of project.

What do you do with a man who decided to begin distance running competitively at 65 years of age, then went on to set track and field records, some of which still stand, and won five gold medals in international competition?
What do you do with a man who still works tending beehives and processing honey despite his age?
What do you do with a man who at 105 years of age drives or walks-depending on the weather-from his home to the post office and then to his business office six days a week?
If you want to be able to enjoy longevity and productivity like he does, you study him! And studying Waldo McBurney of Quinter, Kansas just became easier because he has written and recorded his life story in a new audio book called, “My First 100 Years!” According to the Audio Publishers Association, McBurney holds another record-the oldest person to narrate their audio autobiography.
With wit and wisdom, he chronicles his childhood and early life, college years at Kansas State University where he earned a degree in horticulture in 1927, his working life as an entrepreneur, manager, and laborer, and the role that faith, family, exercise, and nutrition play in his positive attitude toward life. In fact. He covers 21 areas of life that need balance and attention if longevity is to be yours. But at the same time, Waldo is quick to point out that while it has worked for him, your mileage may vary. “Lifestyle is more important than genetics,” he says. “We don’t get to choose our parents, but we can choose how we live and what we eat.”
Reviews for “My First 100 Years!” are a testament to the motivating nature of McBurney:
“What a treasure! I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this wonderful story! It was like being transported back to a simpler time, where country schoolhouses, daily farm chores, and personal responsibility were the norm for the day! Waldo’s detailed picture of hard work on the family farm in the early 1900′s, and his reverence for a wise and thrifty Mother who could run circles around Martha Stewart encouraged me to count my blessings and to appreciate the modern day conveniences we so take for granted. With gentle humility, and a wonderful sense of humor, Waldo McBurney challenged me to examine my priorities and see life through his valuable filter of wisdom and life experiences. He shares a wealth of his own health and fitness information, which has motivated me to dust off my own running shoes, and think twice about what I eat. If you are a runner, know a runner, or are just interested in knowing the secrets to a long and successful life, this man’s fascinating story is a MUST HAVE! I guarantee that you will be inspired and encouraged as you listen to this story of the youngest centenarian you will EVER meet!” ~A.Ibe-Boise, Idaho
“…we don’t just read about McBurney’s life, we hear it directly from him. In slice of life segments, we’re treated to a portrait of a man who filled his life with work, faith, family and fun. A beekeeper and medal winning runner long past the time others have given up both work and sports, McBurney recounts his adventures…a mixture of autobiography, philosophy, advice on healthy living and eating. A story of encouragement, faith and hope.” ~Author’s Choice Reviews
So if you’ve been wondering what to give a recent retiree, or need a Christmas gift for anyone in that age group, Waldo McBurney’s book could help add years to their lives. Free gift-wrap and free shipping from the publisher’s Web site www.audiobookman.com from now until Christmas.

Honey use and production has a long and varied history. In many cultures, honey has associations that go beyond its use as a food. It appears in literature, religion, linguistics, folk belief and is frequently a talisman and symbol of sweetness. The main uses of honey are in cooking, baking, as a spread on breads, as an addition to various beverages such as tea and as a sweetener in commercial beverages. It is the main ingredient in the alcoholic beverage mead, which is also known as “honey wine” or “honey beer” (although it is neither wine nor beer). It is also used as an adjunct in beer. It is a sweet fluid produced by honey bees and derived from the nectar of flowers. It gets its sweetness from the fructose and glucose, has attractive chemical properties for baking and a distinctive flavour which leads some people to prefer it over sugar and other sweeteners.It contains Carbohydrates (Sugars and Dietary fibre), Fat, Protein, Water, Vitamins B2 (Riboflavin), B3 (Niacin), B5 (Pantothenic acid), B9 (Folate), B6 and C, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sodium and Zinc. It is a mixture of sugars and other compounds. With respect to carbohydrates, honey is mainly fructose (about 38.5%) and glucose (about 31.0%). Honey’s remaining carbohydrates include maltose, sucrose, and other complex carbohydrates. It also contains tiny amounts of several compounds thought to function as antioxidants, including chrysin, pinobanksin, vitamin C, catalase, and pinocembrin. The specific composition of any batch of honey will depend largely on the mix of flowers available to the bees that produced the honey.Its collection is an ancient activity. Eva Crane The Archaeology of Beekeeping (1983) states that humans began hunting for honey at least 10,000 years ago. She evidences this with a cave painting in Valencia, Spain. The painting is a Mesolithic rock painting, showing two female honey-hunters collecting honey and honeycomb from a wild bee hive. In Ancient Egypt, honey was used to sweeten cakes and cookies, and was used in many other dishes. Ancient Egyptian and Middle-Eastern people also used honey for embalming the dead. In the Roman Empire, honey was possibly used instead of gold to pay taxes. Pliny the Elder devotes considerable space in his book Naturalis Historia to the bee and honey, and its many uses. The fertility god of Egypt, Min, was offered honey. In some parts of post-classical Greece, like Rhodes, it was formerly the custom for a bride to dip her fingers in honey and make the sign of the cross before entering her new home.Honey in the Bible. The Old Testament contains many references to honey. In The Book of Judges, Samson found a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of a lion (14:8). In Matthew 3:4, John the Baptist is said to have lived for a long period of time in the wilderness on a diet consisting of locusts and wild honey. The book of Exodus famously describes the Promised Land as a “land flowing with milk and honey”.In Jewish tradition, honey is a symbol for the New Year—Rosh Hashana. At the traditional meal for that holiday, apple slices are dipped in honey and eaten to bring a sweet new year. Some Rosh Hashana greetings show honey and an apple, symbolizing the feast. In some congregations, small straws of honey are given out to usher in the New Year.In Islam, there is an entire Surah in the Qur’an called al-Nahl (the Honey Bee). According to hadith, Prophet Muhammad strongly recommended honey for healing purposes. The Qur’an also promotes honey as a nutritious and healthy food.In Buddhism, honey plays an important role in the festival of Madhu Purnima, celebrated by Buddhists in India and Bangladesh. The day commemorates Buddha’s making peace among his disciples by retreating into the wilderness. The legend has it that while he was there, a monkey brought him honey to eat. On Madhu Purnima, Buddhists remember this act by giving honey to monks. The monkey’s gift is frequently depicted in Buddhist art.In Western culture the word “honey”, along with variations like “honey bun” and “honey pot” and the abbreviation “hon”, has become a term of endearment. In many children’s books bears are depicted as eating honey, (e.g. Winnie the Pooh) even though most bears actually eat a wide variety of foods, and bears seen at beehives are usually more interested in bee larvae than honey. In some European languages even the word for ‘bear’ (e.g. in Russian ‘medvéd’, in Czech ‘medved, in Hungarian medve, in Croatian ‘medvjed’) is derived from the noun which means ‘honey’ and the verb which means ‘to eat’. Honey is sometimes sold in bear-shaped jars or squeeze bottles.Because of its unique composition and the complex processing of nectar by the bees which changes its chemical properties, honey is suitable for long term storage and is easily assimilated even after long preservation. History knows examples of honey preservation for decades, and even centuries. A number of special prerequisites are, however, necessary to achieve these conservation periods. It includes sealing the product in vessels of chosen material, kept in a favourable environment of specific humidity, temperature, etc. One example is the natural process of bees sealing of the honey in honeycomb cells with wax caps. Acacia honey is known to be more resistant to crystallization.Traditionally honey was preserved in deep cellars and stored in ceramic or wooden containers; however glass is now the favoured material. When conventional preservation methods are applied, it is not recommended to preserve it for longer than 2-3 years. As honey has a strong tendency to absorb outside smells, it is advisable to keep it in clean, hermetically sealed vessels. It is also advisable to keep it in opaque vessels, or stored in a dark dry place, preventing it from absorbing any moisture. If excessive moisture is absorbed it can ferment. It should not be preserved in metal containers, because the acids in the honey may promote oxidation of the vessel. This leads to increased content of heavy metals, decreases the amount of nutrients, and may lead to stomach discomfort or even poisoning. Because honey has a high tendency to absorb outside smells and moisture, it is not advisable to preserve it uncovered in a refrigerator, especially together with other foods and products. Excessive heat can have detrimental effects on the nutritional value of honey. Heating up to 37Deg C causes loss of nearly 200 components, part of which is antibacterial. Heating up to 40Deg C destroys invertase, and important enzyme. Heating up to 50Dec C turns the honey into caramel (the most valuable honey sugars become analogous to sugar).For more than 2000 years, it has been used by humans to treat a variety of ailments through topical application, but only recently have the antiseptic and antibacterial properties of honey been chemically explained. Wound Gels that contain antibacterial honey and have regulatory approval for wound care are now available to help conventional medicine in the battle against drug resistant strains of bacteria MRSA. As an antimicrobial agent it may have the potential for treating a variety of ailments. Antibacterial properties are the result of the low water activity causing osmosis, hydrogen peroxide effect and high acidity.Some studies suggest that the topical use of honey may reduce odours, swelling, and scarring when used to treat wounds; it may also prevent the dressing from sticking to the healing wound. A review in the Cochrane Library suggests that honey could reduce the time it takes for a burn to heal – up to four days sooner in some cases. Antioxidants in honey have even been implicated in reducing the damage done to the colon in colitis. Such claims are consistent with its use in many traditions of folk medicine. Most micro-organisms do not grow in honey because of its low water activity.It appears to be effective in killing drug-resistant biofilms which are implicated in chronic rhinosinusitis. Topical honey has been used successfully in a comprehensive treatment of diabetic ulcers when the patient cannot use other topical antibiotics. It has also been used for centuries as a treatment for sore throats and coughs, and according to recent research may in fact be more effective than most common medicines. Mixed with lemon juice and consumed slowly, it coats the throat, alleviating discomfort. The antibacterial and antiseptic properties aid in healing sore throats and laryngitis.NB: Honey frequently contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to infants as the endospores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in the infant’s immature intestinal tract.A main effect of bees collecting nectar to make honey is pollination, which is crucial for flowering plants. The study of pollens and spores in raw honey can determine the floral sources of honey. Because bees carry an electrostatic charge, and can attract other particles, the same techniques of can be used in area environmental studies of radioactive particles, dust, or particulate pollution.Let’s applaud the Honey Bee…

The average perception of a honeybee is the insect that has five eyes, two wings, and makes honey. What many people fail to realize is that honeybees have a lot more to them then these simple assumptions. For example they were brought here from Europe in the 1600′s, and since then honeybees have become widespread across North America and are bred commercially for their abilities to produce honey.  The major reason honeybees are important is because they pollinate approximately 130 agricultural crops in the U.S. including fruit, fiber, nuts, and vegetable crops. Unfortunately for us the honeybee population has hit a major decline in the U.S. and elsewhere.  This major population decline is signaling an environmental imbalance which can lead to a devastating blow to our food supply.  In fact Albert Einstein once was quoted saying, “if something eliminated the honeybees from our planet, mankind would soon perish”.  While there may be many different reasons attributing to the decline of the honey bee, there are a few theories that stood out.

                Colony Collapse Disorder, which is the proper term coined for the disappearance of bees, may be occurring because of the brutal methods of beekeeping and the increase in the number of beekeepers.  The bees are put under a lot of stress during this process, for example being filled up in large trucks and crisscrossing all over the country seeking pollination work. These bees may be suffering from the effects of an unhealthy diet that includes a diet of food similar to power bars and energy drinks to get them to perform longer and harder.

                Many believe that our increasing use of chemical pesticides and herbicides, which honeybees ingest during their daily pollination rounds, are largely to blame.  Another leading suspect is genetically modified crops, which may generate pollen with compromised nutritional value. It may be pollen from genetically modified crops and chemicals that have tipped the balance of the colonies leading to the collapse of bee populations. This theory is credible by the fact that organically raised bees, which are not subjected to genetically modified crops and chemicals, are not undergoing the Colony Collapse Disorder that the other bees are experiencing.

                Some researchers are targeting the cell phone towers that are rapidly being put up, which causes atmospheric electromagnetic radiation, as a reason for this colony collapse.  The hypothesis is that the radiation being omitted through the towers and mobile phones may be interfering with the bees’ form of navigation.   This information is credible because research has shown that when cell phones are placed near a hive the bees would not return there. Research is currently underway in the U.S. to determine the extent of the effects of such radiation on bees and other insect populations.

                Global warning may add to the colony collapse disorder, through accelerating growths of mites and fungi that have been known to take over entire bee colonies.  Also, the strange change in weather patterns may be throwing off the colonies because the colonies are used to more steady weather patterns.

                One not commonly used theory is that of the Honeybee rapture.  This is a term coined by Christians, meaning that this is just one more step to the return of Christ. The bible speaks of a great famine in the last days in Rev. 6:5-6, Has the third seal already been opened on the book Jesus is given in Revelation 5:1, and is this honey bee disappearance evidence that the seven seals on the book are preparations for the seven year tribulation period rather than judgments inside the tribulation period?

                Although there are many theories as to why colony collapse disorder is occurring, recent meeting of leading bee biologists yielded no answers, but most agree that a combination of factors is likely to blame. “We’re going to see a lot of money poured into this problem,” says University of Maryland entomologist Galen Dively, one of the nation’s leading bee researchers. He reports that the federal government plans an allocation of $80 million to fund research in connection with CCD. “What we’re looking for,” Dively says, “is some commonality which can lead us to a cause.”   In conclusion this phenomenon occurring in our lifetime is as real as it was when Albert Einstein predicted it all those years ago. If something is not done immediately with this problem not only may we be affected, but our children, and our children’s children could be going through what may be the most devastating famine our world has ever seen.

Peter A. Gloor has coined the term COIN, which is an abbreviation for Collaborative Innovation Networks.  A COIN, according to Dr. Gloor, is “a cyberteam of self-motivated people with a collective vision, enabled by the Web to collaborate in achieving a common goal by sharing ideas, information and work”.  The Internet permits these participants to develop and disseminate creative ideas to anybody across the globe almost instantaneously, and at minimal cost per transaction.  This is the underpinning of ever accelerating rates of innovation and problem solving, and organizations ignore this new reality at their peril.Perhaps structured business processes are to the last few decades of the 20th century what assembly line production was to the industrial age — a drive for ever increasing efficiencies and cost savings.  According to Dr. Gloor, the current challenges for businesses are to optimize flow of knowledge, streamline unstructured innovation processes and turn organizations into COINs.   COINs, however, may be considered by some managers as a threat to their traditional hierarchy and even to their traditional authority.In his book Swarm Creativity, Dr. Gloor suggests that “swarm creativity”, with analogies to social insects where no insect is in charge, may be the only way we can succeed in a world that is continually increasing in complexity and that can not be comprehended by a single individual.  The traditional structure of having a central commander to coordinate activities and provide and communicate a clear vision and direction, such as is done through the chain of command from chief executive officer, to vice presidents, managers, supervisors, and finally to the insect workers, may not be the best model for today.  COINs permit self organization, agility, flexibility and a strong sense among all participants that they want to succeed in innovation.  And they want their innovation spread and accepted, in many cases, world-wide.  In COINs, members share all their findings, the results of their common work, and the credit for the results of their collaborative work.  Dr. Gloor has analyzed a number of COINs and concluded that their results can be “awesome”. He has identified seven “critical success factors” for COINs.  The most surprising is the seventh:  “Know when to change to a conventional organizational structure” (once a commercial product has been developed, move it to a project team or a business unit!).  Gloor ends his book on an optimistic note explaining that COINs can be actively created and their unique culture maintained. I had an opportunity to ask Dr. Peter Gloor some questions about his ideas.Vern Burkhardt (VB)  How did you first become interested in collaborative innovation networks?Dr. Gloor:I accidentally discovered the power of COINs when I was leading the e-Business practice for Deloitte Consulting in Europe, at the height of the e-Business hype. A few of us got excited about knowledge management and virtual communities. As the firm officially did not want to support our interests, we formed a special-interest group of enthusiasts, spread out around the world, and collaborating mostly virtually, outside of the official organizational structure. What I found is that this group worked far more efficiently than a conventional group managed in top-down style. Without official blessing, and with almost zero budget, we created new consulting products and marketing materials of high quality, and high commercial value.VB:  Is it true that collaborative innovation networks appear to emerge and work best among highly self-motivated people, who may even be considered as renegades if they are in most large organizations?Dr. Gloor:Yes, absolutely, I saw this over and over again. This finding is supported by academics researching disruptive innovation such as Harvard professor Clayton Christensen, who found that disruptive innovators usually move out of a large company in order to grow their business.  In my own professional career working at a large multinational corporation we started a WWW-based Intranet without official blessing, at a time when the concept was virtually unknown. Against all organizational obstacles, we created one of the first company Intranets, which became a huge success. Most of the people in the team later left the company, but used the skills they acquired very successfully in their further careers.VB:  One of the interesting features of COINs, as I believe you describe them, is they operate best without designated leaders.  Is that the essence of good teamwork?Dr. Gloor:A COIN has leaders! Only they are not appointed from the outside, rather it is the community members selecting their own leaders. A COIN is not egalitarian, but a meritocracy. And if leaders are not to the liking of the COIN anymore, the COIN is very quick in replacing them. The Debian Linux opensource developers set an excellent example, having replaced their own leaders repeatedly in a grassroots way, while fully documenting this process on their Web site. VB:  It seems that managers would be very motivated to encourage the emergence of COINs in their organizations, and yet you suggest in your book, Swarm Creativity, that most managers would rather live with a problem than with a solution they do not fully understand or control.  Is it mainly a fear of loosing control over their employees or a fear of “disruptive innovations” that keeps many managers or even entrepreneurs from embracing COINs?Dr. Gloor: Human nature does not like change. Most people prefer a stable and secure environment. A COIN brings disruptive change. Ultimately the output of a COIN leads to radically new, superior solutions. But the way to get there can be quite rocky, and might take uncontrollable twists and turns. Most managers like to be in charge, like to know what is going on at all times, and like to control their environment, which is all an antithesis to COINs. I see that trend changing, however, having now worked with many “enlightened” managers who trust in the self-organizing swarm creativity of the organizations they are leading.VB:  In Swarm Creativity you make what you describe as a “bold leap” by saying that steps can be taken to make COINs happen.  Will that be one of the keys to success for organizations and businesses in the future?Dr. Gloor:Making COINs happen means to create an environment where COINs flourish. Nurturing COINs is similar to a beekeeper who nurtures a swarm of bees, such that the bees produce more honey, or that the swarm swarms and splits such that a new swarm will emerge. Organizations, which want to nurture COINs, are like beekeepers supportive of swarming. Swarming is a risky process, it is largely uncontrollable, and yet, the expert beekeeper observing his/her hive will usually catch the swarm, and get it back to double the honey output. The same metaphor applies to organizations supportive of COINs. Observe the COIN members, let them develop their ideas, provide a fertile nurturing ground for developing new ideas, and you will reap the rewards.VB:  What do you think might be some of the problems in the world, which if dealt with by COINs, might result in practical solutions that could actually be implemented and make life better for those who do not have the resources or expertise to address the problems?Dr. Gloor:There are far too many examples to give an exhaustive list. COINs can be put to work basically in any imaginable surrounding, from environmental issues, to bridging the digital divide, to increasing efficiency in large corporations. I can only give a few non-representative examples. There is a community called TenCube organized by Julian Gresser, which wants to develop new energy cells with ten times the capacity at a fraction of the price, to power light sources in developing countries. They have already built a first successful pilot.  The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) initiative sets another great example for the power of COINs. It is a radically new alternative to Intel/Windows powered laptops.  Leveraging the power of COINs, “Queen Bee” Nicholas Negroponte has put together a small team of highly motivated volunteers, who have taken on multibillion dollar multinational corporations to produce a superb product at a fraction of the price. The OLPC laptop is to be given to all children world-wide, originally for a price of $100, now up to $188, but still much cheaper than comparable products from established vendors.  There are also COIN success stories in decidedly old-fashioned industries such as retail: Swiss retailer Migros has created a new low-cost product line called M-Budget, which was the product of an internal COIN. It established the M-Budget product line against large organizational obstacles, becoming a huge success. Microlending as organized by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunnus sets another great example, where a community self-organizes to bootstrap new business. In microlending, lenders do not put up physical assets, but use their social capital in their community as collateral to secure a loan.And finally, the way LEGO integrated the work of outside enthusiasts who hacked the software of their Mindstorm product line also nicely documents the commercial viability and power of COINs. Dr. Gloor’s description of the benefits of COINS is a compelling reason why they should be nurtured and encouraged to thrive in an organization.  Who would argue against making their organization more innovative, more agile, able to uncover hidden business opportunities, adept at reducing costs and time to market, and identifying and rewarding innovators irrespective of where they are in the organization’s hierarchy?  Dr. Peter Gloor is a Research Scientist at the Center for Collective Intelligence at MIT’s Sloan School of Management where he leads a project exploring Collaborative Innovation Networks.  His book Swarm Creativity:  Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks, which was published by Oxford University Press, can be purchased online from amazon.com.

No one really knows when the first time someone thought about collecting the honey from hives. We do know that the art of beekeeping has been around for a long time. Archaeologist have discovered cave drawings depicting collecting honey. These caves were found in Africa and Spain’s eastern regions. Archaeologist believe that the cave drawings were created in 7000BC. Most of these pictures show people scooping honey out of rocks and trees but a few of them depict images of humans standing, unstung, in the midst of a swarms of bees. Scientist believe that these early cave dwellers somehow learned that smoke had an interesting affect on bees. The earliest artificial bee hives were made out of pottery, clay vases and bowls, and straw baskets resembled the trees and rock crevices that the bees were drawn to in nature. Early beekeepers learned how to capture swarms of bees in these containers. Once trapped the bees proceeded to turn the containers into a bee hive. Evidence that many ancient civilizations, such as the Myans, raised bees and collected their honey. Aficionados of Roman history know that bees and honey played a role in the Roman culture. The Goddess Mellona, was the protector of the bees. The Greeks also had a great deal of respect for the honey bees. On Mt. Olympus, the home of Zeus, they sipped the nectar provided by the gods (experts believe that the nectar that the Greeks referred to was honey). Greek mythology claims that bees were responsible for building Apollo’s second temple. When he wrote his book, The History of Animals, Aristotle wrote about how bees were able to locate flowers. In the period of time between the 1500′s and 1851 was an evolutionary time for beekeeping. The first critical change in beekeeping happened late in the 1500′s. It was during this time that information was learned about the life cycle of the honey bee. Once beekeepers understood the way that bees lived they were better able to take care of the winged insects. Adaptations to artificial hives started taking place. As beekeepers, agricultural enthusiast, and scientists, yearned to learn more about the life cycle of bees, beekeepers look for ways to design a hive that would allow them to easily see inside the hive. An American, Lorenzo Langstroth, designed the first mobile bee hive. By the time the 1850′s got here the European honey bee was introduced to California. After California the honey bees were introduced to Oregon and Canada. It is believed that there are over 210,000 beekeepers currently in the United States. Collectively these beekeepers keep and maintain over three million active bee hives.