Secrets of bee hotels Saturday, August 8, 2015 Urbanites of all sorts have taken to building "bee hotels" for the "pollinator" bees that don't produce honey but, as Maclean's notes in its June 1 issue, not all is going well with these artificial nesting sites. Researchers tracked 200 bee hotels in Toronto over three years and found that wasps occupied three quarters of them. The advice? Put the bee hotel where a northeast sun hits it. Bees like warmth in the morning. More than four storeys high and introduced bees abandon them. Ground level is better. Make the holes into the rooms big enough for larger females. Furthermore, parasites resulted in heavy losses and no solutions were offered. Another researcher told Maclean's the problem may be with the city itself. It's just not conducive to bees and he says the same rules don't apply in orchards. "At their worst, bee hotels may act as population sinks for bees through facilitating the increase of parasites and diseases as a result of functional responses to unnaturally high nest densities and nesting site entrances set up in two-dimensions rather than in the more three dimensional arrangement found in nature." The study's authors don't advocate quitting, just doing more research on what does work. "We advocate for due diligence on the part of retailers and promoters of bee hotels to avoid 'bee-washing' . . . as applied to potentially misleading claims for augmentation of native and wild bee populations." The study on bee hotels can be found at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122126 BF Soil Mapping: has electrical conductivity technology's time finally come? Thai chicken in Canada?
Calf Auction Raises Funds for Youth Monday, June 30, 2025 Wyatt Westman-Frijters from Milverton won a heifer calf named Ingrid through a World Milk Day promotion by Maplevue Farms and a local Perth, Ontario radio station. Instead of keeping the calf, 22-year-old Westman-Frijters chose to give back to the community. The calf was sent to the... Read this article online
Cattle Stress Tool May Boost Fertility Friday, June 27, 2025 Kansas State University researchers have developed a cool tool that may help reduce cattle stress and improve artificial insemination (AI) results. The idea came from animal science experts Nicholas Wege Dias and Sandy Johnson, who observed that cattle accustomed to their environment... Read this article online
Ontario pasture lands get $5M boost Friday, June 27, 2025 The governments of Canada and Ontario are investing up to $5 million to strengthen shared community grazing pastures. This funding supports the province’s plan to protect Ontario’s agriculture sector and help cattle farmers improve pasture quality, ensuring long-term sustainability and... Read this article online
Health Canada sets rules for drone spraying Wednesday, June 25, 2025 Health Canada has approved the use of drones, also called Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS), for pesticide application under the Pest Control Products Act (PCPA). Drones are considered aircraft by Transport Canada, but Health Canada treats them differently due to their unique... Read this article online
Twelve Ontario Agri-Businesses Receive Funding Support Wednesday, June 25, 2025 Bioenterprise Canada has announced the successful recipients of the second call for proposals under the Ontario Agri-Food Research Initiative (OAFRI) Commercialization Stream. Twelve organizations across Ontario will receive support to bring innovative agri-food solutions to the... Read this article online