The not so sweet side of honey
Natural beekeeping offers an alternative to the present way of commercial beekeeping. It is a method that respects the life and life cycle of bees instead of making the business of harvesting honey easier and more lucrative for humans. Bees are exposed to a huge range of manmade events that endanger their lives: monoculture, glyphosate, electromagnetic fields, interference within the hive like killing queens and drones, preventing swarming and so on. Observing wild bees which still live in hollow trees in woods will help us gain insight into ways to keep bees the natural way. What can we learn from them? How do they manage to deal with the varroa mite, with foulbrood and other pathogenic infections? What is their secret? Is there even something that we can learn for ourselves?
WHO SHOT JFK? (Or who didn't)
November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.
But who shot him? Oswald?, The Man on the Grassy Knole? Was it 3, 4 or 10 shots? The Magic Bullet!, What did LBJ have to gain? Was George H Bush involved? Who was the Umbrella Man?
Factual history is not what they tell you!
Water Meadows – the Myth and magic of the Drowner
Growing up in the Yorkshire Dales Kathy has a love for the countryside and history. She has worked in agriculture and conservation since 1980. Kathy gained a Doctorate in Agricultural History and Ecological Management, from Imperial College London, in 2004. She presently runs a consultancy for land owners and farmers, advising on conservation (in the widest sense of the word), ecology, and hydrology. She has many years’ experience as a successful lecturer and mentor.
The origins of water meadows are lost in medieval times. Surface water irrigation expanded in Wessex and throughout England from the sixteenth century and was a sustainable intensive integrated agricultural system until the twentieth century. This talk looks at the origins of water meadows in England, their management and importance to agriculture through the centuries, and why they are still important in terms of landscape history and ecology today.