West Seattle Farmers’ Market today: Sweet stuff

honeyphoto.jpgSunday morning means of course we link you to the “ripe ‘n’ ready” list of what you will likely find at the West Seattle Farmers’ Market; remember it’s the citywide list, so some items are labeled as available only at other markets. But you never know when you’ll find a surprise, as did WSB contributor Christopher Boffoli last week (see comments here) – black locust honey. After reading his comment, we rushed out and got some too (our jar, shown at left); here’s where it’s from. Let us know if you find surprises; 10 am-2 pm, 44th/Alaska.

1 Reply to "West Seattle Farmers' Market today: Sweet stuff"

  • Christopher Boffoli August 17, 2008 (11:56 am)

    you have the time and, I suppose, the interest, you should definitely stop by and have a chat with beekeeper Roy Nettlebeck.
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    For years I’ve been reading in the press about the mysterious condition that has been wiping out honeybees in the US and endangering our agriculture, especially the California almond industry (which produces 90% of the world’s almonds). All along I’ve heard that is some mysterious affliction that science has yet to understand. But Nettlebeck, who has been keeping bees in Puget Sound for more than 40 years, thinks that the situation is a bit less mysterious.
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    Some of his theories were put forth in a recent Seattle Metropolitan article. But when I spoke with him last week he said there is much more to the story than even he revealed in that interview but he didn’t reveal it all for fear that too much truth might make him a target.
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    His view is that the collapse of US honeybee hives has to do with a cascading series of poor decisions, industry panic and government mismanagement. It began with corn that was genetically modified to repel insects so that crops would require the use of fewer pesticides. As an unintended consequence, beekeepers who fed their bees using a sugar solution made of corn syrup unwittingly poisoned their own hives. When bee-dependent agriculture panicked, they lobbied the USDA to put policies in place to allow honeybee breeders to rush production of queen bee breeding stock to replenish bee populations, which made for weaker queens. Even more detrimental was a move to allow importation of bees from Australia which brought to US shores new mites and viruses to which US bees were susceptible. When honeybee populations began to collapse, the powerful almond lobby and the asleep-at-the-wheel USDA (who catalyzed the situation) began to spin theories in the media about a mysterious disease killing bees, even going so far as to suggest that cell phone signals were responsible.
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    It was obviously fascinating talking to Roy. He seems one part college professor, one part farmer, one part conspiracy theorist, one part mad scientist. What is clear is that bees are his life. He pondered aloud his amazement over how the entire hive works together to locate flowers with the highest source of sugar, how they communicate with each other with geometric dances inside the hive, and how they manage to navigate using the sun as a reference point (despite that it is constantly moving across the sky). He also told me about experiments he does by placing test hives at high elevations in the Olympic Mountains. He’ll leave ten hives there to winter. When he returns he uses the fraction of the hives that survive to breed stronger, heartier bees.
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    Overall, just one of the fascinating people who we’re lucky to have at the West Seattle Farmer’s Market.

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