20 maj 🐝 Biernes dag 🐝 Day of the Bees

20. maj er biernes dag. 🐝 Alle biers dag, også honningbier. Der er mange, der hader på honningbier for øjeblikket. Jeg prøver af moderere synspunkterne, og taler ud fra mine erfaringer som "dyrker" af vilde bier, honningbier og have i over 30 år, hvor jeg har læst, tænkt, iagttaget og lært.
     Jeg har "holdt" vilde bier, siden jeg var lille, vel rettere prøvet på det, og da jeg flyttede i hus, slog jeg mig løs. Jeg lod jord og sten ligge i bunker, jeg lod uslåede hjørner, kvasbunker, gamle stammer, sidste års stauder ... ligge i hjørnerne. Jeg har altid haft totalt mange vilde bier og humlebier rundt omkring på grunden.

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20 May is International Bee Day. 🐝 Day of all bees, including honey bees. At least in Denmark, most people liking biodiversity are hating on honey bees at the moment. I always try to moderate this hate, with my 30 years as a garden keeper and a bee-keeper with and without wild bees and honeybees ... thinking, reading, watching and learning.

I've been "keeping" wild bees since I was a kid, and when I moved into our house, I went wild. I left dirt and stones in piles, I left uncut weeds, brush piles, old logs, last year's perennials ... in the corners. I've always had a lot of wild bees and bumblebees around the property.

Solitærbiernes huller i den vidunderlige trappe 🐝 Solitary bees' holes in my wonderful stairs.

humlebier i fuglehuset, 🐝 bumblebees in birds' houses,

og alle mulige og umulige andre steder. Men det var og er ikke nok.

🐝

Here, there and everywhere, still it was not enough. Listen to my tale of bees and woes.

🐝🐝

     I Danmark er det kun humlebier og honningbier, der bor sammen i familier, resten er såkaldte solitærbier, det vil sige en bi, en rede. Så selv om jeg fra starten har haft en vild have med plads til alle mulige og umulige insekter ... dog ikke hvepse, de og børn trives ikke sammen på min matrikel ... så skete der noget efter et par år i eget hus.

     Jeg fik pludselig næsten ingen jordbær eller æbler, og dem, der var, var ligesom krøllede og sære. Jeg købte nye jordbærplanter, flyttede dem, vandede og gødede, lige meget hjalp det ... Så var jeg til et foredrag om bier og bestøvning på biblioteket, hvor der var billeder af jordbær, der havde stået under bitætte net. Det var et portrætfoto af mine jordbær.
     Da jeg så næste forår ikke så en eneste honningbi - men masser af vilde bier - i mine erantis, startede jeg en lille efterforskning. Resultatet var, de herboende biavlere enten var flyttet eller var kommet på plejehjem. Jeg tog fat med bestøverpenslen, og fik æbler, jordbær osv igen. Det kunne gå an,mens træerne var små og havde 20-30 blomster hver, men jeg håbede på at træerne ville blive større. Et par år senere fik jeg bier ... ikke mange, men nok. Det har jeg så ikke længere, men heldigvis er der en anden biavler med et par stader indenfor 5 km.

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In Denmark, only bumblebees and honeybees live together in families, the rest are so-called solitary bees, that is, one bee, one nest. So even though I've always had a wild garden with room for all sorts of insects... not wasps though, they and children don't get along on my property... something happened after a few years in my own house.
  Suddenly we had almost no strawberries or apples, and the ones we ad, were kind of curly and weird... I transplanted strawberries, I bought new plants, I fed and watered my strawberries, with no better outcome.
  Then I went to a lecture on bees and pollination at the library. They showed pictures of strawberries that had been under bee-proof nets. It was a portrait of my strawberries.
     When I didn't see a single honeybee - but plenty of wild bees - in my erantis the next spring, I started a little investigation. The result was that the local beekeepers had either moved away or gone into a nursing home. I grabbed a brush and set to work, and we had apples, strawberries, etc. again. This was not a permanent solution,, OK as long as apple trees grow one metre tall with 20 or so apples and the same for prunes and pears, but I hoped for my trees to grow! Some years later I had my first beehive ... never many bees, but enough. I no longer have bees, but luckily there is now another beekeeper with a few hives within 5 kilometres.

Mine bier flytter ind. 🐝 My bees moving in.

     Næste forår gik jeg længe og troede, at bierne ikke gad bestøve mine æbletræer, selv om stadet stod lige nedenunder. Det var bare mig, der var der på det gale tidspunkt altså ... de var der nemlig kun mellem 9 og 10 om formiddagen

     Alle biarter "går på arbejde" i forskellige planter på forskellige tidspunkter. Alt efter både planternes pollen- og nektarudskillellse, og hvornår de opdagede planten.

🐝

     The following spring, I thought for a long time that the bees didn't bother to pollinate my apple trees, even though the hive was right underneath. It was just me being there at the wrong time ... they were only there between 9 and 10 in the morning
     All bee species "go to work" in different plants at different times. Depending on both the pollen and nectar secretion of the plants and when the bees first discovered the plant.

 🐝 🐝

     Det er en balancegang. Honningbier kan ikke længere overleve vildt i Danmark så vi er nødt til at have biavlere med bistader, der skal ikke være flere honningbier end naturen kan bære, men de er nødvendige for bestøvningen af frugtplantager og frøafgrøder, for hvis de solitære skal stå for al bestøvningen, skal rigtig meget jord altså henlægges til bi-boliger.

🐝

     It's a balancing act. Honey bees can no longer survive in the wild in Denmark (because of the varroa mite), we need beekeepers with hives, But we should not have more honey bees than nature can support, on the other hand they are necessary for pollination of orchards and seed crops, because if the solitary bees are to do all the pollination, a lot of land must be set aside for bee housing.

Wordle was tough today, I find that it is a bit unfair. Today's solution is not even a word ... or only half a word!
Today’s average difficulty is 4.6 guesses out of 6, or moderately challenging.
Anyway, 4.6 is ~ 5. I am average Wordler again.

Wordle 1.431 5/6
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⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩