CHAOS WASHING MACHINES

This article about newly installed urban beehives in Japan is interesting. Bee disappearances are happening over here too, though they have a different range of explanations for them.

Beekeeping is no longer limited to rural areas, as city centers and residential areas are becoming hives of activity. And surprisingly, it seems bees are adapting well to the "penthouse" lifestyle atop tall buildings.

For instance, a shopping mall in Tokyo bought some beehives for this spring as part of a development effort in the area.

Two years ago, in Tokyo's Ginza district, a volunteer group, the Tokyo Mitsubachi (honey bee) project, set up a rooftop apiary with about 20,000 Japanese as well as Western bees near one of the main avenues in the well-known shopping area.

The bees keep themselves busy on nearby roadside cherry trees and horse chestnut trees year-round. About 300 kilograms of honey is collected each year from their hives and a local shop recently started to sell cakes and traditional confectionery made with the honey.
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Membership in a Tokyo beekeepers cooperative in Fuchu, Tokyo, has doubled to about 80 in the past five years. New members include former company employees, a former prosecutor and a professor.

There also seems to be many people raising bees who are not members of cooperatives. "I'm surprised at how many people have visited me recently and ask me to sell them beehives," a beekeeper in Saitama said.

Though it takes some effort, for example, feeding bees sugar water when there are few flowers during the colder months, many people say the pleasure of collecting honey cannot be beaten. Raising bees also offers an opportunity to get a little closer to nature, they say.

But something mysterious is happening to bees.

Two years ago in Shiibason, Miyazaki Prefecture, more than 1 million Japanese bees kept by Hisaki Nasu disappeared overnight, leaving 149 of his 150 hives empty. Right before the disappearance, Nasu said he saw the bees throwing their larvae from the hives.

Nasu, 73, said he had never seen anything like it in his 65 years of raising bees. Known in the area as "the man who can talk with bees," Nasu said he still could not figure out the mystery.

According to an expert, bees leave hives when there are changes in the environment, such as conifer planting, agricultural chemicals, climate change and yellow sand from China.

The mountains that have been the bees' home have experienced drastic changes, but in cities, flowers blossom along the streets and parks all year--plus there are no predators to raid the hives for honey. It may be that cities are becoming oases for bees.

That last line is very interesting. In the US, the hobbyists might very well be the ones who save the honeybee.

(Hey you reading this--it isn't too late to get started with bees this spring!)

A couple of things I noticed about beekeeping when in Japan was that honey is far cheaper there than in Korea and that they have some really interesting packaging for the honey that I am hoping I can find at home. I only saw a few hives in Kyushu, but with a car I am sure I could have found significantly more. Next time. One honey store in Kyoto I stopped in that had hundreds of different varieties of honey had plastic bags that looked like plasma bags or like the Platypus collapsible bottles for backpacking. They made quite graceful containers for honey.