bees

My friend Ronni wrote me “Got a dilemma for you. Is there something attacking birch trees locally? I note not only is our birch looking sickly, but many around us are looking the same or are dead. Our once robust tree is only 17. Can I save it, or is it a goner?”

We just completed National Pollinator Week, a designation that recognizes all that pollinators do for our food supply, environment and economy. Last year the Obama administration released a “National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators” led by U.S. Department of Agriculture.

In the 1990s, new insecticides containing the active ingredient imidachloprid came on the market. They were easy for home gardeners to apply, reducing impacts on non-target organisms. They were effective against a variety of challenging insects including bronze birch borers and aphids.

University of Nevada Cooperative Extension’s 4-H presents Capital City Farm Days this Thursday and Friday at Fuji Park in Carson City,

Thirty presenters, including representatives from the Nevada Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Land Management, the Nevada State Museum, and other local and state agriculture and natural resources organizations, will teach preschool and elementary-age youth about Nevada agriculture, where food and fiber come from, and environmental issues related to agriculture.

Recently, my friend Bob in Gardnerville asked me to recommend a native groundcover that was more insect-friendly than vinca, otherwise known as periwinkle. I asked him a few questions about the site. It faces southwest, has poor soil and is irrigated.

Capital City Farm Days returns to Fuji Park and Carson City Fairgrounds April 21 and 22. The event is free and open to youth pre K-5th grade.

Presenters explain where and how we get our food and clothing. Interactive stations engage older students about the challenges facing modern farmers and ranchers: how agriculture affects our environment and how our environment affects agriculture.

I visited Arizona recently and the desert was blooming. The predominant color of flowers, no matter the type of plant was yellow. I wondered why nature has given us so many early blooming yellow flowers, particularly in the daisy or sunflower family.

My friend Monique asked me to write about shrubs that attract birds. A bird-friendly habitat requires food, water and shelter. Food consists of sap, nectar, pollen, seeds, nuts, berries or fruits. Shrubs should be dense enough to support nests, but also allow birds to move about to escape predators.

Bethlehem Lutheran School student Dylan Friend has been notified by the National Geographic Society that he is one of the semifinalists eligible to compete in the 2016 Nevada National Geographic State Bee. The contest will be held in Las Vegas on Friday, April 1.

Bee populations have been declining with the total number of managed honey bee colonies down from 5 million in the 1940s to 2.5 million in November 2015, according to the USDA Agricultural Research Service.

Is beekeeping on your bucket list? If you share certain traits: a love for animals, curiosity about nature and living organisms, an interest in plants and gardening, and have thought of learning more about beekeeping, then plan to attend Mason Valley Beekeepers’ one day introduction to Beekeeping workshop on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016 at the Jeanne Dini Cultural Center, 120 N. California St., Yerington, from 8:00 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Urban Roots is holding their annual fundraiser on Sunday, Oct. 4. The event takes place from 4:30 to 8:30pm in the FarmHouse at Urban Roots, 3001 W. Fourth St., in Reno. This special event features local food, drinks, art, and presentations to showcase the sustainability of garden education in northern Nevada.

I visited a friend this past week who is an outstanding plant person. Peg’s landscape is filled with plant species or varieties that I have not used before. They are perennials with interesting foliage, flowers, form and often scent. They are also water-efficient and hardy for our area. I wandered around her little horticulture heaven being inspired to broaden my plant choices.

The second meeting of Carson Valley Beekeepers will be Thursday, June 18, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the UNR Cooperative Extension. 2621 Northgate Lane, Suite 15, in Carson City.

Ants seem extremely prolific this season. They are everywhere — tiny ones coming up through the seams of the patio, big red ants swarming under the trees and in flowerbeds and even huge black carpenter ants looking for wood to eat.

Extreme drought in the West draws attention to what a precious resource water is. Of all the water on Earth, only a small amount is available for us to use. Since 97 percent is salt water, there is only three percent fresh water for the world to survive on. Of that, slightly over two percent is stuck in glaciers and icecaps.

Yet, even with such a small percentage of fresh water available, we put 50 percent of our home water into our landscapes, often wasting about 50 percent of that by applying it ineffectively or unnecessarily.

University of Nevada Cooperative Extension’s 4-H Capital City Farm Days Thursday and Friday in Carson City will feature 30 presenters teaching elementary-age youth about Nevada agriculture, where food and fiber come from, and environmental issues related to agriculture.

Attendees will include public, private and home-schooled students and their families from Carson City, Storey County, Douglas County and Dayton Valley.

Self-driving cars, robotic bees, soccer playing robots and crowd-sourcing information are just a few things on which new University of Nevada, Reno, mathematics and statistics professor Raul Rojas Gonzalez spends his time.

He comes to Nevada by way of a Visiting Fellowship at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton and Freie University Berlin, Germany where he has been a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics.

Mason Valley Beekeepers of Yerington, Nevada, will be hosting a one-day Introduction to Bees and Beekeeping workshop for individuals with little or no experience who want to learn more about the possibility of beekeeping as a hobby.

The workshop will be held at the Jeanne Dini Center in Yerington from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM and will include lunch and snacks. Written materials will also be provided to participants.

The public is invited to attend the Nevada State Museum's Frances Humphrey Lecture Series featuring The Mysterious Snow Plant, by Pat King, PhD, botanist, naturalist, and dedicated museum volunteer. November also marks the 22nd anniversary of the museum’s Frances Humphrey Lecture Series which began in 1992. The lecture runs from 6:30 - 7:30 pm; doors open at 6 pm.

New York Times author Novella Carpenter will be at the 3rd and Curry Street downtown Carson City Farmer’s Market on July 19 at 11 a.m. to chat about her bestselling memoir, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer.

Carpenter and northern Nevada agriculture expert Mark O’Farrell, of Hungry Mother Organics, are set to engage in a kitchen-table visit. Under a large tent, with seats for 100, the conversation will be led by northern Nevada’s KTVN news anchor Erin Breen. The special event is aimed at raising awareness about the vital role farmers play in our lives.

There is a new Fitness 1440 center at the north end of Carson City in the old K-Mart shopping center. What made me notice this was that I heard that artist Coeleen Lundy had painted a mural in the children’s area of the fitness center.

I love seeing art being spread throughout our city, but what is especially novel about this particular work is that it was done in barter, a word we are all hearing and seeing more and more. Barter: To trade goods and services for, well, goods and services, no CASH need.

University of Nevada Cooperative Extension’s 4-H presents Capital City Farm Days 8:30 a.m. - 2 p.m., April 17 and 18. There will be 30 presenters teaching elementary-age youth about Nevada agriculture, where food and fiber come from, and environmental issues related to agriculture.

Attendees will include public, private and home-schooled students and their families from Carson City, Storey County, Douglas County and Dayton Valley.

A bill that would allow schools to obtain and administer auto-injectable epinephrine in the event of a student having a food allergy attack has cleared committee and is on its way to the General Assembly this week.

While it hasn't gotten a lot of press attention and isn't shrouded in controversy, SB453 is designed to protect children at school if they suffer from a food allergy attack or are stung by a bee and have an allergic reaction.

Carson City and nearby Douglas County as well as Esmerelda and White Pine counties have been designated disaster areas due to damages and losses caused by recent drought, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirms today in a news release.

And the following California counties contiguous to Nevada have also been declared disaster areas because of drought conditions: Alpine, El Dorado, Inyo, Mono and Placer.

By way of background, the “Quilici Cabin” is located in a rural area of Plumas County at an elevation of exactly 6,000 feet on a steep hillside between Portola and Davis Lake in Northern California; and it is jointly owned by Jim, Kathi, Don and Elaine Quilici, all of Carson City.

That two-story cabin was built back in 2003, and from our deck, you have a spectacular, world-class view of the surrounding groves of pine trees and quaking aspen trees plus the nearby and the faraway mountains.

Our mild winter has caused many feral honeybee colonies to begin swarming earlier this year.

Swarming is the method that honey bee colonies use to reproduce. A mature overwintered colony splits into two or more colonies by swarming. A new honey bee colony is formed when the mother queen leaves the old hive with roughly 60% of the worker bees. The mother queen will leave the old hive for her daughter to rule.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah- After inclement weather postponed the first two games of the season, the Reno Aces kicked-off the 2011 campaign Saturday night, falling 8-1 to the Salt Lake Bees at Spring Mob...