Bee hives are best made
of natural material like wood
the need for
Beekeeping
by Michael Thiele, Germany he strength of an agricultural
ecosystem depends on the diversity of crop and field margins. For instance wild flowers have lots of functions in agroecology; not every function is well-known but it is verified that if wild flowers are eliminated by chemical weed control you will lose an important mechanism for biological pest control. Organic agriculture prevents those pests and diseases that are maintained by the so-called “conventional agriculture” of industrialised countries. The well-known problems of “conventional
agriculture” are: * * * *
*
*
insecticide resistant pests; pesticide residues; susceptibility; predator enhancement is impossible; almost no chalcid wasps or hoverflies, no mites, very few ladybirds, no lacewings; very little soil life; instead of ecological diversity there is only species impoverishment; almost no welfare-oriented animal husbandry and nutrition.
The factors that “conventional agriculture” eliminates: wild flowers,
field margins and hedges, are the same factors that maintain the ecosystem. At the beginning of the 20th century “conventional agriculture” increased in industrialsed countries and scientific research predicted that continued organic farming would lead the farmer to ruin. There still existed voices that - without scientific research maintained the contrary, in the long run “conventional agriculture” would lead the farmer to ruin.
Organic beekeeping: more important than you think! Bees, wasps and ants are the most important animals in the world; this and much more can be studied in the highly recommended lectures on bees given by
Rudolf Steiner in 1923. * *
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A Bees
It is a pity that most of the European countries are not crowded with beekeepers managing their apiary organically
Ants invented organic farming; Wasps invented paper and are ancestors of the honeybee (larvae of some wasps are able to cause an internal process of making honey, for instance in figs); Bees developed a perfect external process for making honey.
for Development publication
“.. Therefore, in agriculture more attention should be given to letting insects and birds do their bit in the right way. The farmer should, of course, understand agriculture, but at the same time have insight into cultivating insect and bird life. Generally speaking, it is possible, through establishing wetland pasture, to keep pests away from arable land. The appropriate distribution of woodland, orchards, shrub land, and pasture with fungi growing naturally, is the essence of an almost perfect agriculture, so much so that more is achieved by working along these lines, even if the productive area has to be reduced. In any case, no economical agriculture is possible if in the hope of increased productivity, the ratio of productive to unproductive area is pushed up to such a degree that all | have spoken of is lost. The improvement
of the
volume
of a crop obtained
in this
way is outweighed by the loss in quality, as a result of the facts mentioned above.” Rudolf Steiner, 1924.
