Bee Killer or Killer Bee?

Mention the word bee to most people and they shudder.  Not in the same way that people shudder over a spider or snake, but in a way that indicates a certain painful sting if one should be in their vicinity.  A common statement made is that they are allergic to bee stings. Funnily enough many people who say that they are allergic to bee stings don’t carry a bee sting kit or wear a Medic Alert bracelet! If you are truly allergic to bee stings, you could die without immediate treatment.

Most people who have been stung by a bee will experience pain and swelling in the area. This may last an hour or two or a few days. This is not an allergy, but merely a reaction. This can be treated with  Echinacea applied to the area that was stung, and taken internally. Vinegar is also useful to apply to the stung area. I once received 30 or more stings to my face and head and was fully recovered after two days. I have developed a sting gel which works very well indeed. I was the guinea pig, and the stung area was better in two hours (better = hardly noticeable).

It is an extremely rare event for a swarm of bees to attack an animal or human. It does happen, but usually because the swarm in its home was disturbed in some way. Sometimes they make a home in a compost heap or an old box or tree trunk, and they are stumbled upon by accident by a dog or human on a walk. They still won't attack unless seriously disturbed. If they do it is a very serious situation and apparently jumping into water doesn’t really help because the bees wait for you to come up for air. Bees might also attack someone who has strong perfume on or who smells bad to them – but this would be a few bees, generally not a whole swarm. Bees are very sensitive to smells and noises.

Making propolis

 

Bees who are happily gathering pollen on a shrub on a warm and sunny day, are not going to stop what they are doing to give you a sting! They are too busy to be bothered. Likewise bees that are swarming won’t sting you as they have their minds on finding a new home and protecting their queen. You can handle a swarm of bees which has clustered on a branch, with your bare hands. Do not be afraid of a swarm which flies over your garden or even lands in your garden. Just leave them alone and they will move away in a day or so.

And this brings me to the bee killers….. People who grab a can of insecticide the minute they see a bee. And even worse, people who kill an entire swarm that has landed in their garden or moved into a corner of their shed or into a cavity wall.

By now everyone knows that bees are endangered and that without bees 75% of the fruit, nuts and vegetables we eat will not get pollinated, so we won’t have enough food anymore. This is a world-wide problem. In some parts of China where there has been an appalling over use of agricultural chemicals, all the fruit trees have to be hand pollinated.

Bees are endangered for a combination of reasons: They have become weakened by Commercial Bee keeping practices such as repeatedly moving hundreds of hives great distances – this stresses them; feeding them sugar; using chemical agents in the hives; Agricultural practices such as monocropping, aerial spraying of poisons onto the crops; loss of habitat; Gardeners using insecticides, fungicides and other poisons (even organic poisons)in their gardens; spraying fruit trees when they are in flower; spraying flowers; Diseases spreading throughout the world – various bacterial, viral and parasitical diseases have spread across continents severely affecting bee numbers. And then there’s you – the bee killer who sprays or burns a whole innocent swarm, just looking for a home.

Create a bee garden

 

Bee killers far outnumber killer bees. Bees are peace-loving hard working insects who like to be left alone to do their thing. Love them and leave them and they’ll make you honey. Plant them a nice wild flower garden, or leave part of your garden to go “wild”. Place a shallow dish of water up high somewhere for them. They are very thirsty in the dry hot summer months. And stop buying insecticides. Leave the poisons on the shelf in the garden centre and supermarket – you’ll be sending the big companies like Bayer a strong message.

Bees deserve our respect. They do an enormous job for us, apart from making honey. Let's all help save the bees. Every little helps

Planning and harvesting.

It's that time of year when there's quite a lot of harvesting to be done. It's very frustrating when the fruit is ripening, or there's a glut of spinach waiting to be picked, but you are just too busy to get there!! I had quite a few plums on my tree, but they were eaten by birds and, believe it or not my dogs, because I was unable to harvest them. I caught Rocco on his back legs trying to reach higher into the plum tree, and realised where all the low down plums had gone to!

I have lemons ripening all the time and there's nothing more frustrating than picking them, and they get mouldy in a bowl. So now my method is to pick them, peel them and squeeze them. The peels go into alcohol for maceration for a constant supply of limoncello. The juice gets frozen in ice cube trays for drinks or other use. However if  I plan properly, I'll make hummus on the day that I've picked a couple of lemons, and use some of the juice straight away for this delectable food.

Spinach can be overwhelming in its abundance. What to do with it all? My solution is to check the leaves for dirt and insects, bung them whole into a plastic bag, and freeze them. Once they are frozen, they can be bashed into spinach crumbs, the stalks are easily removed now, they take up very little space and can be used in soups, stews and egg dishes as one needs it. I do the same with other greens like Chenopodium (goosefoot), Amaranthus (pigweed), Urtica (stinging nettle) and Portulaca (purslane).

Chenopodium

 

Another good way to use greens is by drying them. A dehydrator is nice to have, but greens dry quickly in the shade on a hot sunny day. Once dried they can be crumbled up and a whole mountain of greens will fit in a large jar. In this way you can skip the vitamin pills or those supplements with phytonutrients that cost the earth, because you have your very own concentrated chlorophyll and minerals.

Dried spinach

I have an apple tree that I love for it's foliage, but a harvest from it is not guaranteed. Mostly the fruit has codling moth or some other scabby problem, so it's not really edible. But the fruit is organically grown, and quite a bit of each apple is unblemished and perfect for juice. If I had enough I'd like to try cider making or even cider vinegar, but the number of apples hasn't got big enough yet.

I have never tried salting green beans, but many years ago an aunt and uncle of mine used to do this with their green bean harvests. They would wash the beans and dry them and cut them up as if ready to cook them. Then they would put a layer of salt (non-iodised, sea salt) into a jar, a layer of beans, a layer of salt etc until all the beans were packed into jars. They said that when it came to cooking the beans, they tasted like they had just been picked. To me this sounds better than frozen beans.

These are just a few ideas for dealing with harvests. I have more for another day. Enjoy.

My complete letter to the weekend Argus regarding the Banting diet (Tim Noakes)

Prof Tim Noakes was thinking in a unidirectional way when he wrote his book. Unfortunately the body has more than one system and to only look at the endocrine system is in my view, a mistake. Diabetes is on the increase throughout the Western world because of the shocking western diet - high in processed foods, salt, sugar and fat, and low in fibre, fruits and vegetables. Prof Noakes claims it is genetic. 

In South Africa we have many people blindly and slavishly following the Banting diet without any knowledge of their own physiology. I have patients whose cholesterol levels have soared on the diet, with an increase in LDL and a lowering of HDL, including raised triglycerides. Not a good scenario, any cardiologist would agree. 

Many people on the Banting diet will love the permission to eat more meat (usually from feedlot farms) and fat and not worry too much about vegetables. By doing so they will increase the amounts of veterinary drug residues, like deworming drugs, antibiotics, hormones etc and  other toxins that are stored in animal fat, Omega 6 which occurs in feedlot raised animals and causes increased inflammation, and nitrates from processed meat which predispose one to cancer. At the same time there is a reduction in valuable fibre from grains and root vegetables, a consequent reduction in short chain fatty acids made by gut flora(which act as anti-inflammatories);  a change in gut flora to bacteroides which can predispose one to colon cancer. High fat diets leading to increased amounts of bile acid predispose one to colon cancer, atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, irritable bowel disease to mention a few problems. Healthy gut flora play an important role in protecting us against disease; a diet high in fat and low in fibre could do the opposite. 

The Banting diet actually recommends that people cut out refined carbohydrates. This is a good idea. Whole grains and fibrous vegetables like beetroot (which Prof Noakes doesn’t allow) are important dietary elements.  We need plenty of fibre and the micronutrients and phytochemicals from a vast array of colourful (preferably organically grown) grains, fruits and vegetables to have a healthy microbiome which will keep us healthy.

 

 

 

 

Birds and Bees

It's been a busy time in the garden. Birds flit about non stop building nests and feeding their young with never a quiet moment as they sing their individual songs. We can learn from them - to be joyful every day no matter the weather or hardships. So often when they have gone to all the trouble of rearing a chick or two, the chick is killed by another bird or animal, and they just carry on with life.

A pied barbet hammering away at the fig tree.

Where I live we are very blessed with an abundant bird life. If there are aphids on a plant, you can bet a white eye or two will be busy having a feast. The thrushes poke about in dead leaves looking for grubs and worms, and are as effective as chickens in getting rid of unwanted creepies. A weaver bird has made hundreds of nests in a wild peach that overhangs my garden wall, and each one has been rejected. I love the sound the weavers make. I have been on holiday to some places in the UK where there is not a single bird call and where I am struck by the dead silence in the early mornings. It's a sad fact that millions of birds have died as a result of insecticide use.

Birds bring joy to the garden and are important to keep the balance of nature. If birds die out insects will take over. Some evenings I can hear owls hooting. Because of people using rat poison, owls are often poisoned. We need owls too!

From birds to bees. It's been quite an adventure! I now have a second hive and was given a swarm to put in, and the bees are very happy. They settled in immediately and I can't wait to have a peep to see how they are progressing with their comb making. I have been harvesting honey from hive no 1 and I got severely stung when the bees crawled up under my bee suit, without me realising it. However with the use of herbs, it was soon quite bearable and I healed very quickly. Lessons are to be learned every day!
It is amazing how serene one feels when just watching the bees go about their daily work. On the whole they don't bother one at all, they just go about their daily business with dedication. On occasion they might be a bit defensive but one learns not to aggravate them by digging too close to them, or cutting grass too near them. These are danger signals for bees and they can get irritated. Usually one or two will dart about threatening to sting. People are very scared of swarms, but when bees are swarming, they are not dangerous at all. They are too busy protecting the queen and looking for a new home.

If a swarm is disturbed in an aggressive way in the hive or nesting spot, that is a different story. Then they will be an aggressive swarm and can kill a dog or a person. This happens rarely, but always makes the headlines!! Recently a dog disturbed a swarm that was nesting in someone's compost heap and they attacked and killed him. This is nobody's fault, as the swarm wasn't in a hive.
I have three dogs and they very rarely get stung. They understand not to go sniffing around the hive, and even know they shouldn't go into the bee garden. It's all a matter of respect.

A frame of capped honey

 



 





Nature deserves our respect because nature is perfect. We are the ones to mess up the balance of nature. Let's give it some thought and take the time to enjoy the parks and gardens with respect!

Tips to enrich your garden's biodiversity

Biodiversity is a term to describe variety of living things within a system or environment.  As I am concentrating on gardens, it is practical to see your garden as a micro-environment, in relation to the size of our country. If all the gardens in SA had only lawn with one or two shrubs and a tree, that would severely limit the biodiversity of the environment under our control.  It would also be detrimental to the health of the country in terms of its biodiversity.

Conversely if everyone in SA who has a garden, focussed on creating ecosystems that favoured biodiversity, imagine what a positive effect that would have in general!

When I look out of my window on a summer day, the air is filled with insects hovering or flying about. I feel like I’m in an aquarium, with all those creatures flitting past me. I like to think that I’ve created a good environment for a rich biodiversity in my garden. I am lucky because I think quite a few of my neighbours have also taken this approach.

So what are we looking for when we think of having biodiversity in our gardens? We are aiming for a rich bacterial and fungal life in the soil, earthworms, a balance of insect life, some snakes, frogs, chameleons and varied bird life.  In order for all these different entities to thrive we need to have some rules:

• Don’t use poisons in your garden. A fly that has just been sprayed with poison, could be eaten by a chameleon immediately afterwards. Snail bait is dangerous for the endangered leopard toad and your pets. Bee numbers are declining worldwide due to the use of insecticide poisons. Poisons also leach into the soil killing valuable earthworms. Poisoned rats can kill owls.
• Reduce the amount of lawn in your garden. It is a dead space for chameleons, lizards, frogs as it provides no shelter from predators and no food. It also does not provide habitat for insects.
• Provide plenty of ground cover in the form of low growing plants like Plectranthus species.
• Don’t be too tidy in your garden. Logs, pieces of wood, stones and mulch – all provide shelter for small creatures and breeding spots for various insects. Mulch also keeps the ground moist for earthworms.
• Allow a corner of your garden to be “wild” with weeds and grasses that you allow to self seed. Seeds attract birds and the wild grasses and weeds are a good habitat for breeding insects, and provide food for pollinators. Prince Charles is famous for his wild garden and meadows at Highgrove
• Plant indigenous plants  to provide foods for local species of pollinators like the carpenter bee and African hummingbird moth. Hypoestes aristata which blooms in autumn is a good choice. Aloes provide good food for bees in autumn and winter.
• Provide plenty of water in bird baths and low containers, for birds and insects as well as frogs. Your children will delight in watching tadpoles and dragonflies.
• The small brown slug eater snake likes to hide under planks of wood. Provide a spot for some of these. They are not dangerous.
• Put an owl box in a tree and a bat box on your wall high up under the eaves. Bats get rid of millions of insects for us, and owls take care of rats and mice.
• Plant herbs to attract bees and butterflies. I once had a rosemary hedge that chameleons loved. Basil, lavender, yarrow, lemon balm, sage species and nasturtiums are some of the herbs that pollinators love.
• Allow as many annuals as you can to go to seed. Self seeding encourages a lush environment and birds eat many of the seeds.

Your garden can be a paradise of biodiversity, with interesting creatures and beautiful plants. I’m always amazed how much noise there is in my garden, especially bird song, but also the sound of frogs in autumn and the very loud hum of bees in some of my trees. It is such a privilege to have a garden and a patch of soil to be the guardian of. Let’s unite to create swathes of biodiverse areas where nature is in harmony.

Hawthorn for the heart and for the bees.

                                          Hawthorn berries

Is it a coincidence that hawthorn is harvested in Autumn? I don’t think so. Just as citrus fruits are winter fruits, full of vitamin C to help with colds and flu, hawthorn is there to help keep us warm and prevent chilblains.

Hawthorn is native to Europe but grows well here. It can be a shrub or a small tree, depending on how you prune it. It has very long, sharp thorns. It is deciduous and the leaves turn a beautiful translucent red and yellow in autumn. Even the carpet of leaves at its base is very pretty. In spring the blossoms attract bees, and to hear the loud hum of thousands of busy bees in the stillness of the morning is truly awesome.

Hawthorn is one of the oldest known medicinal plants used in European medicine - its beneficial actions on the heart were first reported by first century Greek herbalist Dioscorides and later by Swiss physician Paracelsus (1493–1541) (Weihmayr and Ernst, 1996).

Hawthorn is the ultimate nurturing herb for the heart. The flowers, berries and leaves are used each with its own particular nourishing or medicinal effect.

Hawthorn is widely regarded in Europe as a safe and effective treatment for the early stages of heart disease and is endorsed by Commission E- the branch of the German government that studies and approves herbal treatments. It is used to promote the health of the circulatory system and has been found useful in treating angina, high blood pressure, early congestive heart failure and cardiac arrhythmia. It has been found to strengthen the heart and stabilise it against arrhythmias. It also strengthens the entire cardiovascular system, improving blood flow to all our organs thus improving our general health. It is my own opinion that using hawthorn can delay visual and hearing problems due to old age, as blood supply to these organs is well maintained.

Hawthorne should be used under the care of a phytotherapist for circulatory or heart problems.

 

 

I have just harvested a few kilograms of hawthorn from my garden, and am inspired to use it for myself. Apparently one can make a jelly from the berries to eat with cheese. There are quite a few recipes on the internet for this. What a wonderful herb!

 

The soil of life

The secret is in the soil.

Soil health – comparing the soil of our planet with the “soil” in our body.

When I was lecturing at the University of Western Cape, I used the analogy of soil to show the importance of prebiotics and probiotics.  In the human body, we know how important bacteria are in keeping us healthy. (Actually our bacteria consist of many different types of micro-organism, collectively known as microbiota, not just bacteria.) What many of us don’t know is that bacteria in the soil are just as important, and this article is about your health as well as the health of the soil in your garden or on your farm.

Your digestive tract.

We are accustomed to being given probiotics every time the doctor prescribes an antibiotic. Antibiotics wipe out our bacteria, and the probiotics help replenish the good bacteria. They say that we have more bacteria in our bodies than there are stars in the universe or cells in our body. We need the balance of our bacteria to be a healthy, thriving colony of “good” bacteria keeping the “bad” bacteria in check. Probiotics are naturally available in some types of yoghurt, certain cheeses, sauerkraut, and other fermented  products like miso, tempeh, kim chi and kefir.

What we eat, feeds the bacteria. This is where prebiotics come into the picture. Prebiotics are insoluble fibre from certain foods like Jerusalem artichokes,garlic, onions, leeks, bananas etc. that feed the probiotics. The typical western diet is notoriously low in prebiotics. In my practice I see many people who never eat vegetables and fruit, so their diets will be deficient in prebiotics. If we treat our body like a dustbin, eating loads of “junk food”, we can expect malodorous (bad smelling) wind and stools. This is not a good sign, and I always tell my patients that our stool is a good barometer of our health. Healthy bacteria = healthy person.

This however, is not the whole story. One of the most important prerequisites of a healthy bacterial colony is the “soil” of the digestive tract. The trillions of gut bacteria have to have something to cling to. A natural diet of lots of vegetables and fruits, whole grains and legumes provides the fibre which bacteria cling to. This is what I refer to as the “soil” of our digestive tract.

In certain diseases where there is a lot of gut inflammation, gut flora have a hard time establishing a healthy colony on the weeping, raw surfaces. Where there is chronic constipation caused by a diet of refined food, gut flora have a hard time as the “soil” is dry, compacted and stagnant. (Fibre holds moisture and helps prevent constipation.) “Bad” bacteria can contribute to constipation, causing a vicious circle.

Fibre therefore, from a variety of sources (not just bran) is very important for gut health, and contributes towards a healthy inner ecosystem that has a profound effect on our overall health.

 Tips for a healthy digestive ecosystem:

1. Eat plenty of vegetable especially onions, garlic, leeks, and asparagus.
2. Some companies manufacture prebiotics and claim that it is difficult to get enough in your diet. A diet rich in vegetables, fruits, grains and legumes will have enough prebiotics.
3. Make sure your gut bacteria are balanced by not mixing foods in weird combinations (steak with a sugary drink and ice cream) or having too much sugar which feeds “bad” bacteria.
4. Have some plain yoghurt, kefir, miso, sauerkraut from time to time.
5. Avoid unnecessary antibiotics (viral infections) and other medication which can upset the bacteria.

Prebiotics and probiotics for the soil.

When we look at the earth, the amount of arable soil is extremely small. So small in fact, that it is endangered .  Farming practices such as overgrazing, excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, ploughing  and natural events such as flooding, wind and drought make for an alarming reduction in arable soil. The soil of this planet is an ecosystem in itself, and needs to be nurtured as such. Bacteria form a vital part of this ecosystem, and influence the plants’ ability to absorb nutrients, just like our gut bacteria help us absorb vitamins.

Just like in our gut, soil bacteria come as “good” and “bad” bacteria. Healthy soil has mostly “good” bacteria, which suppress the “bad” bacteria, help detoxify the soil and provide a medium that is a good home for earthworms, insects and fungi – life forms essential to soil health. Healthy soil also facilitates the absorption of nutrients by the plants. One sign of healthy and balanced soil is the number of earthworms that can be seen when you dig, because healthy soil tends to hold moisture better, allowing them to move closer to the surface. They say you should see about 30 per spade of soil. I’m sure for most of us that is not the case, which shows how much work there is to do!

Each one of us can make an effort to improve the soil that we are guardians of, if we are fortunate enough to have a garden. One thing that farmers and gardeners can do to help the soil stay healthy is to use manure (probiotic) and humus (rotted vegetable matter) to provide fibre for soil bacteria to cling to. Healthy soil is a living substance, teaming with bacteria, just like our digestive tract. Fibre is the key element to ensure that bacteria can cling effectively. Sand and dense clay are not good growing mediums unless they have humus and compost added.

Make your own compost and mix in some manure to add to your soil. It’s more effort than buying fertilizer, but will keep the soil alive and help it to thrive. Every patch of healthy soil on this earth makes a difference. Soil which is alive with bacteria and earthworms is earth which will nourish plants and ultimately nourish us. Soil which is dead from the over use of chemicals and poisons is dirt and only serves to anchor plants.

Tips for a healthy soil ecosystem: 

1. Avoid using artificial fertilizers and poisonous pesticides, as these adversely affect the bacterial and insect/earthworm content of the soil.
2. Keep a layer of mulch on the soil to maintain some moisture and allow a natural rotting process. (Many gardeners think it looks untidy and remove all leaves etc. But it’s much better to leave them.)Humus is the prebiotic of the soil.
3. Apply some manure, well rotted compost, and chicken pellets to the surface of the soil from time to time. Don’t dig it in, but allow the earthworms to do the work. Manure is the probiotic of the soil.
4. Plant legumes such as lupins and dig them in when they are young and green. This is known as “green manure” and nourishes the soil.
5. You can buy bacteria for your soil and for use in compost making.

There is a lot more that can be said about soil health, but that can wait for another time. It is very sad that conventional farming and even gardening practices, do a great deal of harm to the soil. Similarly modern medicine incorrectly prescribed and abused is harmful to human gut bacteria.