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Thank you Mr Brown for this article, which gave me the basic principals. I was in a hurry to try, so with no bee box, that’s what i did…

I took the half top part of a big soda bottle as a bee box.
I made a cardboard cone for covering the half bottle.
I screwed a plastic plate on top of a broom handle.
I got a small part of a new sponge so my bottle could cover it. (Rinse the sponge carefully)
I made the syrup with bottled water and poured it on my sponge.
I dressed with flashing colors.

How to use this:
-I cover the bee and the flower with the half bottle, and when the bee tries to fly to the sky in my bottle, I just place it on top of the sponge bait in the plastic plate.
-I let her fly inside for a while so that she will run out of fuel (3 to 5 min), then I cover the bottle with the cardboard cone to cut the light.
-i pull up the cone a little bit to see if the bee has landed and is foraging. Once she has done so, I slowly take the bottle away and am done.

As time has changed, I use “Google earth” for bee lining, and I look for many lines going to the hive. (Think of what you do and choose the proper spots to be able to use landmarks visible on Google earth.)

When you have a lot of bees coming, take away your bait and hide it. When flying in search of it, they will run out of fuel and will rush on the bait when you put it back (3 minutes later.) The best is to replace your sponge with another one with almost pure honey because it takes more time for the bees to suck it up. As soon as you have enough bees on your sponge, take the plate (no chock) and move it in the direction you think suitable to get a new direction line. With the bees sucking honey, they won’t move, and you have 3 minutes before they take off. The plate must be at rest on the new spot when they take off. If they fly around for new landmarks before they go to the hive, they will come back. (You may need a few intermediary stops before you reach a suitable spot.) Keep a “bait sponge” in a plastic plate on the ground on the first spot, and on each new spot, so that you can start again if they don’t come back. If you want to continue the day after, the bees will check your spots once in a while, so they will be back not long after you’ve replenished your bait.

Warning: sponges will take on a bad smell for bees after 24 hours, so rinse them with chlorine/water/water/sugar water and finally syrup before you use them again.

PS: If your first bee has been flying around to record landmarks, she should be back soon, and then you should do as Mr Brown says. Be patient for her before you catch other bees, or you might be looking for many hives and it will be a big mess on your computer screen. It’s a fascinating process.To finally locate the hive, use your binoculars slowly and carefully to see bees going and coming.

I saw an old box very similar to the one described in a local museum, labeled “a Queen Cage”. Didn’t look like any queen cage I’ve ever seen before. Thought it might be a bee-lining box. Then found this great article describing the very box. Your plans are almost identical to the museum box. Sounds like fun - will have to make a box and get bee lining with my grandsons - I think they would love it.

Thanks a lot for writing this article. I do agree that marking the bee would help in timing the correct turn-around time and distance thus calculated.

Thanks again,

Henry

I’m a bit confused by the nomenclature here.  What does the term ‘native invasive’ even mean? In plain language it is an oxymoron since the second word is the antonym of the first (“white black” or “up down”).

By the content of the story, it is apparent the author wishes to create and impose a highly specific suite of human-chosen plant species on his property, ie. a garden, and to strictly limit any plants that he does not desire to be there. At the end of the day, it is the landowner/gardener who gets to play God. This renders meaningless the words ‘native’ and ‘invasive’ as they are normally understood by scientists. It would be helpful here if the author would admit he is simply making a highly artificial and engineered landscape that has little connection to nature or to the natural forest of the Northeast.

Native species in New England, plant or animal, already have a tough enough time. The last thing they need is being pilloried as being ‘invasives’ in their own native habitat.

Thanks,

Doug Watts

Hey, we felt that 1995 derecho in Connecticut! The weirdest thing was hearing it coming.

And sometimes it works the other way. We took down a set of 100+ foot-tall white pines growing too close to the house, and we guessed they were 50-55 years old. A ring count of the stumps showed 56 years.

(Of course, we cheated a little—we have photos of the house taken ca. 1950 and there wasn’t a tree to be seen for miles at that time. It was amazing to learn that the entire area, save for farm fields and house sites, has reforested in our lifetime!)

Would appreciate suggestions for abeginner to raise mushrooms in Alaska

Oaks can grow really fast compared to other hardwoods, in the right conditions.

Your final paragraph is incorrect.  The current official surface wind record-holder is Barrow Island, Australia at 113.2 m/s (253 mph), during a cyclone.  (If the 10m mast used at barrow island disqualifies it as a “ground-mounted gauge”, then so does the fact that the Mt Washington anemometer was mounted on the roof of the observatory.)

I’m not an expert on what sick foxes like to eat, but a fox with mange might eat any of the foods you mention. So will skunks, raccoons, stray dogs and assorted rodents, so be aware that you can’t control what animal helps itself to this food.  You could attempt to trap the fox using a large Havahart trap, with the same caveat.  Good luck.

A good question, Mike. I think the answer is no, but i’m at peace with that fact. One of the things that so impresses me about woodcock management is the way it reaches across “party lines,” so to speak. The way it unites hunters and naturalists and birders, all striving for a common cause. What’s next—hunters joining a campaign to protect rare songbird habitat? Let’s hope!

If a fox with mange visits my property daily is there something I can feed it, such as Natural Way dog food, lamb&rice;? Chicken raw or cooked? How would I trap it so as to get it to The Lincoln County Animal shelter?

I wonder if there would be such keen interest in the woodcock, if it were not such a joy for some to shoot?

Hello. I´ve noticed a few times that some of the new leaves on the European common ash tree (Fraxinus exelcior) are red, but only in young specimens that are 2 or 3 years old. I´ve never seen it in older trees. So why does it happen, I wonder?

It would be a lot simpler if those were the only parasites to worry about. Unfortunately many people contract what are called co-infections, sometimes with Lyme sometimes without. Anaplasmosis, babesiosis, bartonella, Rocky Mountain spotted fever (even in NH), and tuleremia can all be transmitted by ticks. Over 70% of ticks in NH have been tested and found to carry some pathogen. Wearing gaiters sprayed with permethrin, soaking pantlegs, and spraying DEET from the waist down have all worked well for me, but not before contracting anaplasmosis and babesiosis last summer.  Don’t take tick parasites lightly - it’s not worth it.

This comment came in as a Letter to the Editor for the printed magazine.

Irwin Post’s excellent article in Autumn 2010 issue brings a most useful message to Yankee tree farmers. I grew up on 600 acres of excellent sites with abundant weeds in northwestern Windham County, Vermont, not far from Post’s place. 53 years ago, I began work at Oregon State University College of Forestry leading a research program to meet the needs of western foresters with weed problems. Plants take up space. Space is crucial for any photosynthesizing organism, so desirable plants tend to grow much better if undesirable trees, shrubs or herbs are prevented from overtopping them. If one has to do it by axe, saw or bulldozer, the energy and maybe cost may be huge, and one faces the prospect that disturbance will simply beget more weeds. Chemicals are tightly controlled by law, and those registered for use in forests are safe, economical and effective for many uses to promote wildlife forage, timber species composition or control of cull trees. Over a dozen different chemicals may be used in forests, each providing a different array of results. Timing, application rate and dosage are crucial in their selectivity. Nearly all of those useful in the Northeast will persist in the environment for more than a month or two, and none are as toxic as coffee by a long shot. County Agents are excellent information sources on how to control weeds. Many in Yankee Land are unaware of technology pertaining to forests, but there are Extension publications that are very helpful. I write the Forestry Chapter, revised annually, in the Pacific Northwest Weed Management Handbook. You can get it on-line (http://uspest.org/pnw/weeds) if there is nothing closer to home. The links are available from Oregon State University Cooperative Extension Service, where publications list Pacific Northwest Weed Management Handbook, Ed Peachy, Editor. Individual chapters can be purchased on-line. Thank you, Mr. Post, for introducing a most valuable topic!

Mike Newton, Professor Emeritus
Oregon State University College of Forestry
Corvallis, OR

Just for reference, we have found ticks on us, or our dogs, every month of the year except January and February.

Thanks for taking a special interest in Maine.  I have been on the roads here for 37 years and still find surprises around every bend.  May it always be so. You asked what your readers are up to so I will give you a brief snap shot of my time. 

I am an arborist in the Blue Hill area.  In my work, I meet folks at all levels of social strata. Having learned about the invasions of plant pests and diseases, I try to educate my contacts about their effects on their trees and the larger consequences on our forest community.  There is an active movement in Maine to preserve forest habitat that acts like a rising tide of interest in responsible stewardship.  However, awareness of the potential future onslaught of pests like the Emerald Ash Borer, Asian Longhorned Beetle, and the present incursion of the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid is sorely lacking.

Consequently, I took it upon myself to invite speakers from the U Maine Extension and the Maine Forest Service to talk about invasive plants and insects.  From the conversations I had with some of the attendees, I learned that, although they are very concerned, they were quite unaware of the potential scope of the looming disaster.  Word of Wooster has not yet made an impact here.  I just hope Blue Hill and other communities in Maine do not have to go through the same agony Wooster did with the ALB.  Unless we somehow raise awareness of the problem, it seems our fate is sealed.

Here is where you come in.  As an educational organization, please think about ways to reach more folks in our New England forest region to educate them about invasives.  I have one suggestion that I submitted some months ago to Northern Woodlands.  We have a wonderful community radio station here, WERU, 89.9.  You can easily find their booth at the CG Fair.  They are commited to producing shows on public affairs.  Please consider hooking up with them and other community radio stations across New England to produce the magazine or at least features from it on the radio. You will undoubtedly reach an audience already sympathetic to all the issues raised by NW, including invasives.

Thanks again for asking.

Tony Aman

Derek—

I agree with you entirely that turning this thing around is an enormous challenge, and I also share your concern that there isn’t enough grass-fed meat available to feed all 7 billion of us. (Though I’ve never seen a good analysis of this question - have you?)

But all environmentalism is local, so to speak, and we already have small-scale, grass-fed grazing here in northern New England. My farm is a good example. We grow vegetables on every flat acre that we own, pasture sheep on the moderate slopes, and keep the steeps in forest. Since we can’t grow vegetables on the slopes without creating undue soil erosion, the only way for us to realize calories from these acres is through meat. Since we can do this without contributing to climate change, surely we should, no? Especially since doing the opposite - foregoing the sheep and sending folks to the supermarket for vegetable-based protein that doesn’t grow in Vermont, would only be adding to the problem?

In a more theoretical framework, nearly all agriculture prior to the discover of fossil fuel was animal-based. Animals provided power for tillage, fertilizer for the soil, and calories for humans. I’m not sure I can envision a global, post-fossil fuel agriculture that doesn’t return in some way to this model. Industrial vegetable production as it is currently practiced, including organic agriculture, is enormously dependent on fossil fuel. Vegetable protein is more efficient than animal protein only on a per-acre basis; once you look at calories in (fossil) vs. calories out (food), our lowly sheep, wandering around the pasture under their own steam, start to look really good.

—Chuck

Of course, most people simply just need to read the headline—“see, there’s nothing wrong with meat!”—in order carry blissfully on as they were, occasionally grabbing some grass-fed beef from their local Whole Foods, thinking they’re “doing their part”.

The reality is, the demand for meat is so huge—and growing globally—that a return to small-scale, grass-fed animal farming is completely unfeasible, so it doesn’t really matter that local farming of this sort can be sustainable and “closed-loop”. With the global climate in crisis, we simply can’t have our cake—or meat, as it were—and eat it too if we actually care about turning this thing around. (In concert with a plethora of other changes, both institutional and individual, global and local as well.)

The following comments came in while our website was being retooled. We are re-posting them now for the authors.

Chuck: Thanks for writing a thoughtful and informative piece. However, I would like to clarify an important point. In the statement I gave you I also said that if indeed there is a net flux of C to the atmosphere from woody biomass harvesting at landscape scales, it is compensated over time by offset fossil fuel emissions. The time lag over which that offset ultimately exceeds the C debt is currently the subject of intense scrutiny by researchers all over the U.S. and globally, including the Carbon Dynamics Lab here at UVM.

One additional clarification: the position of my quote in the article may be misleading. This statement was a response to the question of whether there is a fundamental difference between what some people are calling “biological carbon” and carbon emissions from fossil fuels. My opinion is that there isn’t if the ultimate concern is the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The source of the carbon is irrelevant as long as more carbon is fluxing to the atmosphere compared to the amount that is being taken out. Thanks for the opportunity to comment.

Bill Keeton
Burlington, Vermont
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I’ve heard much about the so-called ‘carbon neutrality’ of burning our forests to offset our burning of coal. But to claim that somehow improves or reduces CO2 in the atmosphere is insane. CO2 has no memory of how it got there. And to suppose future forests are going to increase/re-sequester the instantly released CO2 from bio-incinerators is so ridiculous a child would know better. Globally, the trend is the elimination of forests, not the reverse. North America once had forests from ocean to ocean. Look at it now! And burning what forests remain isn’t going to improve it. The better use of the underbrush, slash, and ‘rounds’ (young/non-commercial trees) is to allow them to enrich and maintain the forest soils rather than exposing bare soils to winter elements, leaching, erosion, compaction, and reduction of bio-diversity. Bio-incineration is a boondoggle much like corn ethanol was. We can’t get out of the hole we’re in by digging it deeper. We can’t eliminate climate change by burning our forests!

pinbalwyz

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Pinbalwyz… It’s amazing how much you can learn just be observation! Now can we add another factor in here. Non-native invasive species. Weather it be beetle or barberry. If you want to see some great forested areas suffering from non-native invasives, stop down into Massachusetts! Very slow to no tree regeneration in in hot spots. We sometimes hear about the “tipping point.” The point in which we may let these species encroach, proliferate, and gain a strong foothold. The seed is there. If it’s not… someone who doesn’t know will be planting it! Matter of fact, UVM’s “Landscape Plants FOR Vermont” includes barberry and Norway maples! Not very useful biomass in my mind! Those should not even be considered as options! Just because we don’t have problems now… What happens when the Asian longhorn beetle makes it way around? In Massachusetts, there is not enough biomass to be burning. We need as much shade as we can get here! And please stop planting these non-native invasives. It may take a generation or two to see some serious ramifications. ... Isn’t preserving for generations what we want to do?

Paul Cysz