Buy every condom in town and prick holes in them !!!!
All Chrstian men rejoice -
Be upstaanding -
Let your creative juices flow
Your Country needs you and your descendants
Panto Time's Up!
Welcome to Christmas Panto
Watch out!
He's Behind you
Oh no! he's not
OOOOh YES! HE IS
OOOOH NO! HE'S NOT....... coda
BNP Reality Check
Consider, for a moment, They have shown great endurance and fortitude in getting so far from Home!
They have endured great hardship just like our gallant troops.
Surely the best thing to do would be to give them a rousing welcome and a fast track to an army career and when they have served their New Queen and Country they will all have a Taxable Income which would go a long way to pay the pensions of Childless European Nations of which we are told we are one.
Let the Sunshine In !!
Then in came the Clean Air Act which along with North Sea Gas removed the need for Household Chimneys and within a few years the lichens grew back on the roofs and the Grand City Buildings were scrubbed clean.
So in those far off days, long before the Environment had been invented, all those nasty smelly factories were closed down and the machinery sold to India and China
Today , as the sunshine bathes the Earth once again. some fool has just invented the Climate and claims that it is changing.
So what are we to do about it?
There is a secret plot underway, it seems, I wonder why the Government is handing out precious cash to entrepreneurs, who are coming to lag the loft - as I speak.
Perhaps when the evil Power Stations are closed down and the Taliban hold the Gas Hostage and Nimby prone windmills are never built we will be able to keep our homes warm using just our body heat.
Roll on the Ice Age
Beekeeping: natural, simple and successful
Beekeeping: natural, simple and successful
by Johann Thür, Beekeeper
Translated by David Heaf from Bienenzucht. Naturgerecht einfach und erfolgsicher
by Johann Thür, Imker
(Wien, Gerasdorf, Kapellerfeld, 2nd ed., 1946)
by Johann Thür, Imker
(Wien, Gerasdorf, Kapellerfeld, 2nd ed., 1946)
Part I Thriving
The law of retention of nest scent and heat: the basis of health, thriving and yield
In order to thrive and produce, bees depend completely on heat. It is as important for as nourishment for them.
Science has established that bees require various temperatures. During overwintering with no brood, the average temperature of the middle of the cluster is 22–25ºC. In contrast, the normal brood temperature is 34–35ºC. To ripen honey, even 40ºC is necessary.
But the average air temperature is well below these limits. Brood and bees are essentially without their own bodily warmth. The difference between the temperature of the air and that required by the bees has to be produced by the bees themselves throughout the entire year, summer and winter. Theirfuel is honey which they have to consume greatly in excess of their bodily needs in order to produce heat.
For example, in accommodation with enclosed natural comb, the winter consumption in the six months from 1 October to 1 April comprises about 2 kilograms, whereas in the conventional, heat-dissipating framed hives, 6 to 8 kg or more are needed.
This excess consumption within six months of, on average, 5 kg per colony is purely excess consumption in maintaining the very essential minimum temperature.
In order efficiently to utilise this costly, life-supporting and life-giving heat, nature has enabled the bee, a super-organism comprising colony and comb, to keep the heat in, to retain it. This retained heat is amass of warm air, impregnated with scent, and thus germ-free. It suppresses harmful bacterial activity and hinders the occurrence of diseases.
The whole issue of this multi-facetted heating effect culminates in the law of germ-free retention ofnest scent and heat
Since a deficiency of retention of nest scent and heat calls for significantly increased food consumption and inopportune effort by the bees, and causes the hitherto seemingly inexplicable emergence of particularly infectious diseases, especially Nosema, which appreciably damages beekeeping, it is of great importance that we give paramount attention to the retention of nest scent and heat.
This has become even more important as the development of bee culture since the invention of the frame has acquired characteristics determined by the frame that are in direct contradiction of the retention of nest scent and heat required by nature.
This leads to serious harm for the bees, to wasting sugar and to a generally far-reaching deterioration of beekeeping.
Frames, and the hives based on them, suppress natural comb construction and, with this, the retention of the nest scent and heat.
Modern artificial bee breeding has barely any inkling of this.
As early as 1936 Weippl wrote in Bienen-Vater (Beekeeper):
'The combs in hollow trunks of trees, the homes of bees since Creation, as well as in skeps, are fixed to the walls.
Each corridor between the combs forms a closed space, like a room.
Thus, in winter, the heat of the cluster cannot flow away through the many gaps between the frames and the hive walls.
This avoids not only
- loss of heat, but also
- draughts,
- condensation in the hive and
- excessive consumption of stores.'
The warm air is not lost downwards, because it is lighter. And it is kept in at the sides and above through the cul-de-sacs in the naturally constructed comb.
Only the used air of respiration drops downwards, laden with carbon dioxide, and at the open bottom margins of the comb it is exchanged with fresh circulating air.
These open comb lower margins can be regarded as the mouth of a central breathing process that, with the help of the bees sealing the margins, breathes just the right amount of fresh air and organically prevents an excess penetration of cold air.
The law of retention of nest scent and heat in the spaces between the combs is so perfectly adapted to nature that it even enables bees to live in comb constructed out in the open air, provided they can protectively model their comb structure without being hindered by beekeepers and can stay protected from predators and damage.
But it is equally clear that even in the most ingenious of framed hives, however thick their walls are, bees cannot properly flourish if in the spaces between the combs the law of retention of nest scent and heat is not fulfilled. And artificial beekeeping, with its framed hives, is very far from fulfilling this law.
Since frames were introduced, at the time of writing about a hundred years ago, progressive beekeepers have all turned to framed hives. This is the most significant milestone in the development of bee culture.
The natural beekeeping that has been carried on successfully since the dim and distant past in a very simple, albeit laborious way, with only natural equipment and unarmed with specialist knowledge has been eclipsed by the rise of artificial beekeeping using frames.
The knowledge possessed by a few in the past, and natural beekeeping itself, have been forgottenand have given way to the most glaring errors and misinformation based on frames. Frames facilitated insight into the secrets of the bees and thus constantly created new concepts, viewpoints, hives and methods of management.
Natural simplicity was replaced with multiplicity and contradiction shrouded in artifice, and beekeepers, not to mention beginners, could no longer find their way.
The search for new types of hives and methods of management continued unabated and is the best evidence that none of them were satisfactory.
(Indeed, something was lacking and that is retention of nest scent and heat.)
Each beekeeper held that his particular hive was the best, provided he still remained faithful to it. However, that all existing framed hives give rise to significant shortcomings and harm the bees, and appreciably reduce yields, is almost completely unknown because modern beekeepers, almost without exception, no longer have any idea of the natural requirements of bees.
The element of life, the retention of nest scent and heat, is fundamentally destroyed by the heat dissipating and draughty framed comb that is open on all sides.
The disastrous consequences are a feature of this artificial beekeeping and must lead to the realisation that all existing framed hives go against nature and are dispensable.
The realisation that our little songbird, the bee, needs warmth, must sink in such that we are clear that the nest scent and heat promoted by honey has to be retained and that management and equipment such as hives must be strictly suited to and subject to it. And ongoing developments, the phase of artificial beekeeping, have taken us on dangerous detours from this requirement.
It is incontrovertibly established that with framed hives, and their lack of consideration of the law of germ-free retention of nest scent and heat, bee epidemics have developed and spread.
Since then, they have become a constant and ineradicable phenomenon – above all, Nosema, which in Germany alone has destroyed 800,000 colonies according to statistical estimates.
The USA has conducted an unsuccessful campaign with the expenditure of significant resources against foul brood.
In 1932 in Russia, of 18,000 colonies investigated, Nosema was found in all stages.
At the 1936 Karlsbad beekeepers' conference special praise was given for the Gerstung method and hive which brought the end of old types of hive with natural comb, yet in the same breath it was reported that, for a number of years, diseases gaining the upper hand are causing beekeepers a lot of concern and that numerous diseases are reducing the harvests year on year.
All other countries with framed hives constantly report significant losses.
In contrast, areas with their natural beekeeping still intact report healthy colonies with satisfactory yields.
Do not such facts eloquently tell us something?
In search of help, isolated calls that pop up saying 'back to nature' fade away without effect because they are interpreted to mean a return to the primitive conditions of our grandfathers' time.
That, at that time honey was harvested in excess so that it met not only the entire demand for sweetening but also so much remained over that various drinks, especially mead, could be made, is overlooked or dismissed with the assertion that bee forage has declined since then.
Certainly alterations have taken place in agriculture, but 'flowering' as an eternal force of nature remains, and incredible quantities of nectar have to dry up each year because not all the available nectar is collected.
Twenty years ago, at the 1925 conference of beekeepers in Vienna, Weippl, an economic adviser and at that time the head of the Austrian School of Beekeeping, gave a lecture in which he said, inter alia:
Over and over again in lectures and in the specialist press there is reference to the wild bees of the woods, that are wholly self-supporting, without any assistance, be it through feeding, foundation, comb or other care, yet they flourish magnificently, for, if the aforementioned assertion is justified, then they would have died out long ago.
And ultimately the home of wild bees in the woods that was assigned to them since Creation is far more appropriate and better than the most ingenious and best constructed hive.
It is the hollow tree trunk, rotten inside, therefore incredibly warmth retaining, not getting wet, impenetrable in summer to excessive heat, with combs built to the walls on all sides, not hanging free like backdrops as in frames, admittedly not the most convenient for the beekeeper, but for the bees unbeatably the best home.
The living conditions for the wild bees in the woods are far better than those of our domesticated bees and the disadvantages for the latter can only at least partly, but never fully and completely, be removed by the most careful management, greatest possible protection and appropriate feeding. These apposite comments were not to bear fruit because neither Weippl nor the whole body of the other beekeepers were able to find a way out – and yet it lay so close at hand!
To summarise, I argue that the unnaturalness of the framed hive rests in the following: as a result of the spaces between the combs being open on all sides, the nest scent and heat escapes, and with it the germ-free, disease-inhibiting scent-substances.
The honey supers situated above multiply the wastage of the nest scent and heat. Each time they are extended more is wasted.
And when on top of that the hive is opened, the nest scent and heat floods out.
Certainly in naturally constructed nests – for example in hollow tree trunks – there is comb a metre long on occasion, but never empty honeycomb above the brood.
The repeated loss of heat from framed hives means that it has to be constantly replaced by increased food consumption by the bees. This costs a lot in honey and does not always succeed when there are unexpected setbacks due to weather.
It results in abandoned brood, infection foci and diseases. Crippled bees, weakened replacement generations, delayed development, increased numbers of heating bees tied up, shortage of foraging bees are all, however, unavoidable even with the best management and favourable weather, and they reduce the harvest.The loss of heat causes granulation of the winter stores and the significantly increased consumption of heat makes necessary an unnatural introduction of sugar that is consumed as a supplement, and represents an irresponsible burden on a beekeeping economy.
Furthermore, prematurely exhausted colonies hold back the spring development and are a link in the chain of harvest diminution.
The unprotected spaces between the combs allow bad weather and the cold and wetness of winter from the entrance to pass into the combs that hang free like theatre backdrops.
The heat of the nest as it flows away from these open inter-comb spaces cools down and there forms winter condensation, causes mould formation etc, and the valuable nest scent and heat escape from the nest.
What use here is the best winter cladding of the hive and the most careful closing up when the living bees and their stores remain surrounded by such gaps that introduce cold and wetness to disturb their warmth?
In such framed hives the bees cannot be protected by any precautions taken by beekeepers. The most insightful beekeeper can hardly conceive what the bees have to suffer under these conditions. Yet this harm is alien to the natural comb method.
These two indications alone should suffice to rule out these artificial hives. But the beekeeping fraternity lets itself be deceived by the apparent successes it has achieved.
The crowning achievement of this work of destruction comes with the beekeeper's dearest hive component, the honey super! It can never be big enough if it is not also full and frequently opened too soon, without heeding the fact that every empty cell draws the heat out of the brood nest.
The so-called honey supers also contradict the natural arrangements, the bee's method of construction, their instincts as well as the extension of the colony, which under natural conditions takes place from above downwards or from the front to the back, but not the other way around. The bees only hesitatingly let themselves be driven in such a way, which is usually forced on them by the most unnatural means, such as brood rearrangement. The bees instinctively sense this unhealthy arrangement and try to diminish it. Their initial efforts go into connecting the honeycomb in the supers with the brood comb by means of bridge comb, in order to get rid of the thermally disrupting comb interruption. It is taken for granted that a beekeeper who likes tidiness must not tolerate such misplaced constructions. They are removed because otherwise they would impede the mobility of the frames and even in beekeeping schools it is taught that such messy comb should be eliminated in beekeeping.
Such beekeeper interventions ignore even the most primitive natural requirements of the bee. It is a call for help that demands an answer. The bees even try to fill the gaps between top-bars and quilt or crown-board, in order to counter to some extent the loss of heat, i.e. in order to get closer to the law of retention of the nest scent and heat. But the beekeeper, with his lack of understanding reinforced by bad teaching, removes it.
Good, it hinders mobility, then that shows that the construction of the hive is incorrect. The bee cannot become something different, so it is a matter for the beekeeper to adapt himself to the unchangeable demands of nature – above all the law of retention of the nest scent and heat – by constructing the hive in the right way.
These briefly presented harms are incontrovertible facts.
Failure to recognise their origin justifies the assertion that the frames with their inter-comb gaps that are open on all sides and let heat flow out have become the curse of beekeeping.
They give rise to the faulty construction of all framed hives. As a result of this, the technology has been led astray and it can only lead to the failure of beekeeping.
From then on, bees and beekeepers have stood powerless before the collapse of the noble art of beekeeping, which ultimately must lead to a decrease in our cultivated flowering plants. In this lies a great responsibility for the beekeeper.
And there is a way out!
In the bee's natural way of constructing comb, retained over millions of years, in which comb and container form an enclosed unit, in which the law of retention of nest scent and heat rules and protects all, is where there are healthy colonies capable of productivity without intervention – even without human management or sugar. It is there that the solution can be found!
It culminates in the law of retention of nest scent and heat that gives life to all.
Beekeepers: learn to read the book of nature! There, written in bold lettering are the wisely conceived and unchangeable laws of creation. To heed them, to act according to them and to implement them at the right time must be the beekeeper's greatest commandment, so that the drink of the gods, the flowing nectar from the cornucopia of blessing, becomes pure honey.
Part II
The new natural comb hive with moveable layers – 'The natural comb magazine hive'
About 200 years ago the Nassau preacher Christ distributed the magazine hive named after him, which is apparently still in use today (1945) in several places.The most essential things about it are the magazine, 28 x 28 x 14 cm in size1, equipped with comb; the removable floorboard and a kind of box roof to close it up. The number of these magazines is matched to the strength of the colony at any particular time by placing them underneath and by the time of the main nectar flow they are stacked up to seven high. Even 200 years ago they formed a transportable hive of mobile layers in which the law of retention of nest scent and heat was fully observed. Christ estimated the productivity of his magazine hives to be fivefold greater than that of the simple straw skep.
The natural-comb magazine hive
In fact there was a stroke of genius about this hive. The magazine required four boards, seasoned, nailed together, and eight bars for the comb support. Managing it requires practically no beekeeping knowledge or work; in the main it comprises putting empty magazines underneath and removing the filled honey boxes at the end of the main nectar flow. The normal annual beekeeping work was done with a few manipulations and, in the cheapest and simplest way, a superior, successful and totally natural beekeeping was possible, free from disturbing interventions and measures.Christ successfully campaigned against the kind of skep beekeeping that involved asphyxiating bees with sulphur or taking the harvest in various hives that, through inappropriate construction, impaired the retention of nest scent and heat and thus caused the occurrence and spreading of diseases. Regarding diseases themselves,
Christ wrote that he knew of no true bee diseases. He recommended: 'that people should keep only populous stocks and always leave them with large stores of honey. That way they will, to their advantage, remain a stranger to bee diseases. Their simple food from the best juices of plants and flowers would completely protect them from diseases'.
But Schiller's words: 'But we weave no eternal bond with the powers of fate...' came true with this hive too. It was whirled away in the march of progress. After 100 years, the frame was resurrected, filled the whole beekeeping fraternity with admiration, heedlessly drove aside everything that stood in its way as a hindrance and also led directly to the demise of this superior hive.
If you compare what our framed beekeeping demands in knowledge, equipment, interventions and work, what failures constantly accompany it and what quantities of sugar are used as supplements, then it can only make your hair stand on end and convince you with all clarity what false path developments have taken since then. Christ's magazine hive also contributed a lot once again to restoring beekeeping to an impressive level after it was almost destroyed as a result of the Thirty Years' War.
As we look back today, 200 years later, filled with respectful admiration, it should be an incentive to us to make something similar happen in our fatherlands so severely afflicted and impoverished by the results of war. This is our hour of need and absolutely demands: 'That simple, profitable beekeeping should replace the costly, artificial beekeeping that has degenerated into a hobby.' Smallholders and farmers capable of keeping bees should be enabled to keep bees successfully with this simple hive that they can easily make themselves, without significant outlay on materials, without specialist knowledge, money or labour, without machines or gadgets, without using sugar or foundation, and in a purely natural manner. This demand cannot be met by any of the existing hives.
Even the skep so readily sent into battle is eliminated because it is not suited to the present size of colonies. Its volume of bee space is insufficient for it to contain a strong colony. It would have to swarm. If it does not swarm then its development is not optimal.
The often recommended arrangement with a separate super on top of it is unnatural and harmful because the empty super draws out the warmth of the brood nest.
Putting an empty eke underneath naturally encourages the bees to make brood comb below, fills the skep with honey which then prevents the bees from using the skep as their actual home. Such recommended arrangements are uneconomic and detrimental.
The only workable method of harvesting, namely asphyxiating with sulphur, is barbaric and wasteful. Cutting the comb out is damaging and awkward. But Christ's magazine hive gives us a suitable model that has been tried and tested.
With the following minor alterations it is adequate to meet the demand we have issued:
'The unframed floor board' must contain: an adjustable flight hole with an alighting niche; the space between the floor and the box should comprise six centimetres as an essential comb-free space for bee chains to form, for surplus young bees to keep clear of the comb and for resting foragers. Together they form a flexible heat regulator for the nest.
This floor is eventually given an intermediate floor for winter. Towards the back, over the whole width, a cleaning wedge (Putzkeil), through which a non-intrusive observation of the colony and adequate inspection is possible at any time without disturbance, even in winter. Each magazine should have the internal dimensions 28 x 28 x 14 cm and, for several reasons, this should be strictly observed.
The wall thickness should be at least two centimetres. Eight top-bars for comb, two centimetres wide and six millimetres thick are seated in rebates or on battens with appropriate spacing for the bees, exactly forming a plane with the upper rim of the magazine. A box roof with a weatherproof and watertight covering concludes the construction.
Normally three magazines are used. The bees actually live in two of them. The third is needed as space for the honey. The brood box space of two superimposed magazines when filled with comb comprises, in a cubic shape of 28 x 28 x 28 centimetres in size, eight naturally constructed combs that retain the nest scent and heat. This has 60 square decimetres of comb surface with approximately 50,000 cells. That is as much as seven Austrian broad-combs. The intermediate top-bars automatically built into the comb by the bees effectively strengthen the construction. The cubic shape corresponds to the spherical clustering of the bees and is the most economic shape to use. A brood nest comb of 28 x 28 centimetres extending through two magazines, with seven and a half square decimetres of comb surface, is the ideal size for tried and tested square comb. Together with the deepened floor, the volume of these two magazines comprises 26 litres, which is the same as a large skep.
With two magazines, this hive is big enough until the start of the nectar flow for housing the winter stores, for overwintering a strong colony and for brood development of a vigorous laying queen. The third magazine placed empty underneath at the right time in spring offers sufficient space for brood and colony expansion. Filling it with comb requires about 300 grammes of wax which corresponds to the yield sought in comb frames of mobile hives and completely and naturally satisfies the bee's instinct to build.
The generally held idea that continuation of comb construction without foundation will produce only drone cells, is a silly fable that is repeated parrot-fashion. Indeed, if it were true then feral colonies would long since have comprised mostly drones. Only providing space incorrectly favours drone cell construction.
The bees of course expand in accordance with their development into the magazine placed underneath and with them the brood nest. They know how to organise their construction properly and certainly do not need any foundation or intervention by the beekeeper. The topmost box, that automatically becomes a honey super as the bees develop, contains about ten kilograms of surplus honey.
Placing more magazines underneath according to demand allows one to house colonies and harvests of unlimited size. Christ's hive has its renaissance in a new form as a natural-comb magazine hive with moveable layers. It fulfils the demands required of it, especially that of retaining the nest scent and heat in its natural completeness and effectiveness, and thus takes its place as a hive that is right for our time and of the best quality and productivity.
Beekeeping with natural comb in moveable layers is not a retrograde step, but a timely progression that works with nature and is based on real success, whilst avoiding everything that goes against nature. In contrast, strange fancies have killed the artificial beekeeping that has degenerated into a hobby. In it the queen is artificially hatched in artificial incubators. She may be escorted to her mating in a select crowd of largely foreign subjects.
Every male member of her own colony is carefully kept away. At this isolated place a male of the beekeeper's choice and alien to her colony is forced on her. A free choice of drones is denied her. She bears an unnatural marker on her back for the rest of her life. Her royal highness now awaits the beekeeper's intervention. In cool calculation the old queen is forcibly removed and killed beforehand.
A colony robbed of its queen suffers greatly. An interminable moan, a wail audible at a distance, makes known their pain. And before the colony finds its way back to the ordinary demands of everyday life, before it can manage to replace its queen in the way provided for by nature, the beekeeper foists on it this artefact of a queen, without any evidence of her suitability, supported only by the success of the beekeeper.
Yet only too often the bees lose their patience and throw such royal blood at the beekeeper's feet. And if for once all is successful, it happens without consideration of phenomena that are as yet unknown. We know this much; that such means do not serve nature and that human intervention in this way produces only limited success together with serious degeneration. In artificial hives – a joy to beekeepers, but a pain to bees – the brood is moved around, divided, re- hung, covered up, hung in between, sometimes compacted, sometimes spread out – largely without reason or understanding.
Yes – everything is so convenient with frames! One innovation follows on the tail of another. Then again there is stimulatory feeding, saturation feeding, emergency feeding. The males, the 'mood-makers', are killed in their thousands in their cells. They are to be denied the food. Honey is valued as a life-giving substance for children and invalids but for bees, these delicate organisms, it is replaced with sugar which is supposed to be better than honey. Unnatural hives and principles are forced on bees. Natural requirements, above all the all-enlivening retention of nest scent and heat, is inconvenient for the beekeeper. Otherwise he would have to consign to the fire his framed hives that cost him so dear. It is true that he has an inkling about heat, and prefers to heat his bees electrically, or wraps them inadequately in rags like beggars. The gadgets he needs fill whole catalogues. The variety and features of hives are without bounds. The 'Beekeeping Advisory Committee of the Third Reich' found it necessary in 1940 to put a stop to this interminable development. Based on a knowledge that none of the existing hives did justice to requirements, it invented a new hive, the Einheitsblätterbeute, which comprised 'only' 74 moveable parts. They were so convinced about the perfection of their new 'standard hive' that they outlawed any further creation or invention of other types of hive. The natural requirements of the bees – above all the principle of warmth, the retention of germ-free nest scent and heat – was given no consideration. What wonder that the hopes placed in this hive could not be fulfilled. They had to take account of this unexpected fact, this fiasco, and within two years three new secret designs were installed in various Nazi administrative districts for secret trials. They remained unknown to the beekeeping fraternity, and will remain so, as the problem was still unsolved. It cannot be denied that beekeepers using artificial methods exercise a great deal of care. No price is too great for their avowed dear ones. For their nature-deprived, feebly born and thus often sick children, disease quarantine stations are set up, disease inspection services established and every suspect bee sent for investigation. Research, investigation and testing goes on all over the world. Bacteria have been discovered and named so that they cannot be confused with each other. But the actual causes are still shrouded in darkness and so many more colonies will die out, until ...Yes, until people finally realise that this pitiful creature cannot flourish in this unnaturalness and that nothing is able to replace the retention of germ-free nest scent and heat. When we realise, what level of theoretical knowledge this artificial beekeeping requires just to keep it alive artificially, then we are forced seriously to reconsider and steer onto the route indicated by nature. In contrast, in the natural comb magazine hive, how easily the entire operation runs its yearly course. Beginning with overwintering: the two lowest fully occupied magazines remain undisturbed as winter accommodation of normal construction. The honey magazine on top is taken away as harvest. The magazine stuck down with bridge comb can easily be lifted by cutting across the surface it is resting on by means of a thin steel wire. The remaining normal housing should be clad for winter and the entrance narrowed against mice. An intermediate floor can perhaps be inserted. The combs are sufficiently filled with honey to last until the next flow thanks to the size of the magazine and the limited consumption resulting from natural retention of the nest scent and heat, and because it remains protected from interference by the beekeeper. The combination of natural comb and retention of nest scent and heat saves sugar, inhibits diseases and a healthy colony sees in spring. Natural development takes place without intervention, and by the time of the main flow the colonies are ready to go. The spring work comprises removing the winter cladding and the intermediate floor, enlarging the entrance and placing an empty magazine underneath. Nature herself gives the cue through her flowering and the increase in strength of the colony. Honey is stored in each cell that becomes empty. The circle of brood is pushed naturally downwards as the colony develops onto newly constructed comb, and the bees grow into the magazine placed underneath. The upper storeys of honey get bigger and finally fill an entire magazine. Brood, construction and foraging can develop naturally and unhindered as long as the nectar flow holds out and as long as the beekeeper provides more space when required, by putting further magazines underneath, which if he wants can be done well in advance. Swarming, as an emergency situation resulting from lack of space, is prevented because there is never a lack of space. Restless life fills the hive; the drones hum beautiful love-melodies and set the mood. Harmony and production reigns everywhere, free from interfering beekeepers. This continues until the flow abates. The resulting removal of full honey magazines relieve the bees of excess. The winter cladding of the two remaining boxes left as habitation and the reduction of the entrance, conclude the beekeeper's work for the year, the execution of which requires no special knowledge. The occasional taking of a swarm or dealing with the occasional emergency are soon learnt by practice or by asking a neighbouring beekeeper. The extraction of honey can be done without a centrifuge by melting the honeycombs on the low heat of a cooker. The wax collects at the surface and is lifted off when cool. Underneath is the ripe honey, which when bottled, capped and kept in a dry place keeps indefinitely. The most appropriate containers are tinned, enamelled or glazed ceramic. One is relieved of even this work if comb honey is preferred. It goes without saying that combs fixed to the top bars and separated from the walls can also be centrifuged and even reused in the hive. Constructing this hive, preferably according to the pattern already described, is undoubtedly possible by anyone who has the will. And if a little care is exercised it will completely satisfy both bees and beekeeper. Genuine smallholders make far more difficult things. The main thing to watch is that the inner dimensions are exactly 28 x 28 x 14 centimetres and the corners are square. In no case should anyone be tempted to use some sort of frame instead of top bars. That would make impossible the retention of the nest scent and warmth in the gaps between the combs and would once again unavoidably bring about the many harms. The entire timber requirement comprises about one square metre of board of at least two centimetres thickness. It can be used without planing. Small pieces of scrap board, discarded beehives etc., can be used. Populating the hive can be done by installing a swarm of appropriate size during the main flow and represents the main capital expenditure. Foundation is not used. Inserting starter strips or guiding beads of wax is helpful, though not absolutely necessary. The hive can be installed in the open, in a sunny, quiet, sheltered spot that is shaded from the hot sun, protected from disturbance and at an appropriate distance from neighbours. It is important to ensure that the hive is precisely vertical. The retention of nest scent and warmth inherent in the natural construction of comb saves having to feed sugar. And what profit accompanies beekeeping? We know that in artificial beekeeping – and this has to be admitted by any honest beekeeper – that the costs, effort, labour and sugar consumption in this kind of beekeeping is disproportionate to the average yield and that the profit aimed for is only an illusory profit. The few professional beekeepers go their own ways. But the large majority of beekeepers are those who constantly feed more sugar than the honey they harvest, those who harvest nothing at all and only maintain their colonies by letting them go hungry or by buying in to replace colonies that, through their own fault, they have let die from diseases and epidemics. These beekeepers are the economic backbone of the natural bee breeder in the Kärnter region (of Austria, Tr.). If you read about the net profit of the Austrian Beekeeping School in Bienen-Vater (Beekeeper) then you discover that the model apiary of this institution, despite migratory beekeeping and even with good harvests, almost always feeds more sugar than it harvests honey. This is not the fault of the people in charge – these apiaries are the model example for training new beekeepers. These training centres for modern artificial beekeeping, the main items on the curriculum of which are artificial queen breeding and treating bee diseases and epidemics caused by beekeepers, regard themselves as above nature, try to fly in the face of nature ... hence their lack of success. And what are the prospects for beekeeping that is allied to nature, such as with the magazine hive with natural comb? Regarding figures for yield ... yes, we should take care not to chatter about them. We shall give away only so much, namely that such a properly installed colony, as a result of the comprehensive life-giving and supporting retention of the nest scent and heat which is based on natural comb construction and has worked for millions of years, ensures a timely colony development and with it its yield at harvest. It is exceptionally rare that in a whole season the flowers are completely ruined by rain. But at the time of the main nectar flow a colony that is ready on time, even in areas of average forage, is in a position in a few days to fill a honey magazine with honey that is surplus to its own annual requirement, which comprises about 60 kilograms. This surplus for the beekeeper is at least 10 kilograms of honey and a quarter of a kilogram of wax. In good areas and seasons for foraging it can be many times this amount. As dependable as these figures are, they do not justify taking out a pencil and calculating 10 x 10 colonies gives at least 100 kg honey and such and such amount ... etc. No, this calculation, despite all its accuracy is false if the foraging area – four kilometres radius, the flight-range of foraging bees – is overpopulated with colonies. All overpopulation is to be avoided, something any prospective beekeeper has to take into account in order to protect himself and others from harm.
The creation of surpluses, and thus the yield at harvest, is in a high degree influenced by the type of hive. Arguments against this are only an indication of disregard of natural processes. Creation made bees for pollinating flowers and not for gathering honey for human beings. Only the extravagant abundance that nature provides for the certain success of her objectives allows the bee to gather honey in excess. The 'emerging and fading' of all earthly things is fulfilled by the bee through the formation of colonies and through the ageing and destruction of cells. Comb and bee form an organic unit; the individual bee is only a freely mobile member of it. It cannot survive alone, just as little as can the colony without the cells of the comb. This natural course can be influenced with appropriate means to the benefit of an increased storage of honey, and this is possible first and foremost by means of the hive. In studying the natural home of the bee we notice that the cavity, however big it is, has its boundaries. The bee forages to fill this space with brood, bees and stores, and in this process arises its ripeness for starting new colonies.
Swarming follows as a natural 'emerging' or developing. The brood cells gradually age and become thick and black. It is comparable with calcification of the arteries. The organic unity of comb and bee ages, loses its productivity, and finally this leads to dying out, to natural 'fading'. A beehive, that hinders filling according to need by spatial expansion, hinders the ripeness of the bees for swarming. As long as this ripeness, and thus swarming, stays hindered, the surplus of honey increases through the maintenance of the continued undivided efforts of the bees. The feeling of abundance, the restriction of space, must be denied the bees early on, otherwise it will trigger the swarming instinct, which, once triggered by delayed provision of space, can no longer be stopped. Ageing can be held back by renewal of comb. With these two permitted means the natural 'emerging and fading' is held in balance and with it the maximum increase in strength of the bees.
The resulting damming up achieves a surplus of honey beyond the natural limit. The means to this is the beehive which must be elastically adaptable to the space requirements of the moment and permit comb to be renewed, i.e. the opposite, so to speak, of the home of a feral colony. Equipping a hive only serves the convenience of the beekeeper; the bees need only the empty space. A hive should never go against the nature of the bee, but this has hitherto unfortunately been little heeded and so much damage done, as for example with the comb frames that are open on all sides with the consequent violation of the retention of nest scent and heat that is so essential for life.
Observation of nature shows that the habitation of the bees exerts a decisive influence on the honey yield and has to be considered by the beekeeper if he wants to make a full and lasting success of beekeeping. He should not let himself be confused by semblance of success. The new magazine hive, with natural comb in moveable layers, takes full account of this by providing the most harmonious situation for bee existence. In the centre are the bees forming a winter cluster richly surrounded, above and at the sides, by their own stores which remain digestible through a gentle inflow of heat from the nest and which form a protective cushion of warmth for the bees; the honeycombs thickly drawn out so as to make the reduced gaps between them easier to keep warm; the combs fixed to the walls at the sides and top, forming cul-de-sacs to keep hold of, to retain the germ-free nest scent and heat that is essential for life.
Above the bee cluster there is never an empty cell to waste the heat. Such a well protected winter colony moves from the bottom upwards according to its consumption of honey. And then at the top, in the warmest zone, the brood activity begins. Initially it comprises small patches, but becomes ever bigger as the sun climbs in the sky, forms a sphere, so as finally to fill with brood all the cells not taken by stores. The nectar flow begins and all surplus honey is stored over the brood, each cell filled with it as it becomes free. The brood is pushed down into the magazine placed underneath, onto freshly drawn comb. There the instinct to build finds its fulfilment within limits determined by the nectar supply and the development of the colony, free from compulsion or restriction by the beekeeper, thus any reduction of the yield is avoided while at the same time the comb is automatically renewed. No queen excluder is used. The last brood to emerge in autumn provides the space necessary for the winter cluster that is forming and the upwards movement makes a successful start once again.
The retention of germ-free nest scent and heat resulting from the naturally constructed comb suppresses bacterial life, hinders the emergence of diseases, keeps the stores digestible and the loss of heat within narrow bounds. This saves having to feed and thereby the increase in the cost of the operation through the expense of sugar. No foundation is used, so wax harvested is surplus. Wax starter strips are permitted. The bees normally remain protected from disturbances and interventions by the beekeeper, although if necessary, inspection by means of moveable layers and also through a limited mobility of combs is easily possible at any place of choice.
The removal of filled honey magazines supports nature because this surplus should not have to be kept warm by the bees in winter. The timely insertion of empty magazines underneath hinders the restriction of space that must take place in a natural bee habitation and thus be the cause of undesirable swarming. No limits are set to the storage of honey, the expansion of the colony ,or the instinct to build. The insertion underneath of further magazines enables harvests of any size to be made. The constant automatic renewal of comb prevents the combs from becoming excessively old, so comb and bees remain young. Unlimited harmony increases the yields.
Through the advantage of having mobile layers with unlimited addition of space and automatic renewal of comb this new magazine hive with naturally constructed comb is superior to any other natural comb hive. The management of this is so simple that with it, smallholders and farmers – people in the best position to keep bees – can carry on a natural, simple and really successful beekeeping, without any specialist knowledge and without significant expenditure of labour or cost.
Any beginner who can assemble a few boards from a plan into this easily self-built hive that is unprotected by patents – assuming he does not prefer to buy it – and who obtains possession of a good swarm, can with the least amount of knowledge keep bees and thereby help improve the food supply situation. The hive's up-to-date shape and appearance extensively fulfils all the demands that may ever be made of a beehive that accords with nature. The high degree of yield security makes this natural-comb magazine hive, that has been tried and tested for centuries and is now improved, stand out as a home for bees that can completely satisfy both bee and keeper, and which takes account of the demands of our time.
Note 1. It is likely that the dimensions are not quite right because conversion may have been based on the wrong 'pouce' (inch). It is almost certain that L' Abbé Christ used the 'pied du roi', a French unit. In his book the boxes externally measure 13 pouces. So this means about 11 pouces for the interior. The French 'pouce' converts to 2.7069 cm. This would make the interior size 298 mm, or only 2 mm smaller than that of the Abbé Warré hive. (Tr. – based on a personal communication from Eric Zeissloff; see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_units_of_measurement). Translator's acknowledgements I thank Bernhard Heuvel for his advice regarding translation questions and Pat Cheney for her copy-editing of the draft.
REGENERATING SOILS WITH RAMIAL CHIPPED WOOD
LAVAL UNIVERSITY
Every one involved in agriculture sooner or later comes to the same conclusion: we must make soil. Chemical fertilizers, pesticides and ploughing destroy the fertility of the soil; organic farming maintains its fertility but cannot replace lost soil. The most fertile agricultural regions were once hardwood forests, especially oak forest. We now know why and how to hasten nature's work.
HOW IT STARTED
The ramial chipped wood (RCW) story began in the mid-seventies when Mr Edgar Guay, former Land and Forest Deputy Minister in Quebec began searching for new products that could be derived from the huge piles of branches wasted after logging operations. The first field experiments with deciduous tree trimings were made during the summer of 1978. A research team nucleus was formed with Mr Lionel Lachance and Mr Alban Lapointe joining Mr Guay. In 1982, M. Gilles Lemieux, a now retired professor from the Faculty of Forestry at Laval University, joined the team to provide answers on the mechanisms involved.
The name and description of «ramial wood» was given in 1986 (Lemieux) under the French name of «bois raméal». Since the method put forward by Guay, Lachance & Lapointe (1981) was based on chipping, this «new material» was then called «Bois Raméal Fragmenté or BRF» in French, «Ramial Chipped Woodor RCW» in English (1992), «Fragmentiertes Zweigholz or FZH» in German (1992), «Aparas de Ramos Fragmentados or ARF» (1993) in Portugese«Ramoscelli Frammentati or RF» in Italian (1993) «Madera Rameal Fragmentada or MRF» in Spanish (1994): "Ramial wood" refers to twigs having less than 7 cm in diameter. They contain soluble or little-polymerized lignin, the base for soil aggregates and highly reactive humus. These small-size branches are not used as firewood, even in the poorest tropical countries.
Although fungi are most important for humus formation and cycling, the humic system performs best when fungi are associated with the fungivore soil mesofauna. This process, linked to virus, algae and protozoa, makes nutrients available when needed by plants.
In organic agriculture it is generaly believed that a soil treated for years with massive doses of chemical fertilizers and pesticides can be restored in three years with compost and a return to traditional practices. This belief does not take into account that the diversity of the molecules and the complexity of the soil ecosystem of the world's agricultural land has been claimed from the forest.
THE PRODUCTION OF A STABLE HUMUS
There are humic subtances that have a short life (compost and manure) and
others that have a long life (more than 1000 years). These substances play an important role in the balance of the soil. The Asian steppes, the South-American pampas and the North-American prairies, being covered with herbaceous plants, have a short-life humus. The soil claimed from hardwood forest has a long-life humus.
In soils farmed intensively with synthetic fertilizers exclusively, a modified bacterial and mostly fungal biology ends up consuming the long-life humus of forest origin. By using farm manure or compost in which the only source of lignin is straw, we cannot hope that humus having a long life will form massively and stabilize the soil on a long term. This type of organic amendment brings the soil to a condition similar to the North-American prairie soils which derived its lignin from Graminaceae over thousands of years and which have not long resisted to intensive farming. These soils are now subject to massive erosion. Only the addition of ramial chipped wood can be viewed as a mean to return the soil to its former forest origin condition and restitute, in three years, a long-life humus content.
HUMIFICATION RATHER THAN MINERALIZATION
Misunderstanding of the natural forest ecosystems, especially the forest soil, is so deep that all silvicultural practices use agriculture as a model and research has been directed mostly to managed agricultural systems. In agriculture, as well as forestry, the entire focus has been placed on mineralization, with little work done on, or interest shown for, humification which regulates mineralization and fertility. The lignin of Angiosperms is central to humification and biological controls of fertility. It has a deep impact on most mesic soils through the multilevel life they bear.
HOW A FOREST ECOSYSTEM WORKS
A close look at a forest ecosystem shows a fast transformation of plant tissues into nutrients by soil microorganisms. Nutrients are bound to the organo-mineral complex and are made available as needed for plant growth. In temperate forests, under a deciduous tree canopy, this organo-mineral humic complex is stable within an internal biological cycle. It becomes fragile under tropical conditions. It has several roles and therefore must be closely examined.
The basic mechanisms lie in the role played by «white rots» which use enzymatic systems to produce both fulvic and humic acids from lignin, the base for aggregate formation (Leisola & Garcia 1989). The best results are achieved with deciduous trees due the chemical structure of their lignin. Evergreens perform poorly, due to the transformation of their lignin by «brown rots» which produce polyphenols and aliphatic compounds (Swift [1991], Larochelle [1993]).
RESULTS OF WORLD-WIDE EXPERIMENTS
Twenty years of experiments with RCW in both forestry and agriculture in Québec, Africa, Europe and the Carribeans have provided:
· Better soil conservation due to the water retention capacity of humus content (up to 20 times its weight) and the capacity of water accumulation and management by soil organisms;
· An increase in pH from 0.4 to 1.2 or, under tropical conditions, in alkaline soils, a decrease in the range of 2.0.;
· A yield increase up to 1000% for tomatoes in Sénégal, and 300% on strawberries in Québec;
· A 400% increase in dry matter for corn in both Côte d'Ivoire (Africa) and the Dominican Republic (Carribeans);
· A noticeable increase in frost and drought resistance;
· More developed and highly-mycorrhized root systems;
· Fewer and less diversified weeds;
· A decrease or complete elimination of pests (under tropical conditions, a complete control of root nematodes, the worst and most costly pest in vegetable garden growing);
· Enhanced flavor in fruit production;
· Higher dry matter, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium content in potato tubers;
· A soil turning from pale to deep brown in the same season;
· Selective natural germination of tree seeds;
· A thick moder turning into a soft mull under a sugar maple canopy.
SPECIES OF TREES TO USE
Some species are quickly digested (in few months) by the soil, others take a few years even if they seem to have vanished. Coniferous trees, in cold and temperate climates, generate a blockage mechanism of soil pedogenesis. Their lignin, once into the soil, evolves in producing a great amount of polyphenolic inhibitors. This type of lignin is also found in many tropical tree species but high soil temperatures break the inhibitor effect to some extent. In cold and temperate climates, ramial wood from coniferous species must be avoided or restricted to 20% of the overall content. Coniferous trees are characterized by an asymetrical lignin (guaiacyl).
Coniferous trees store nutrients in the trunk and eliminate competition by making the soil unsuitable to competitors. Deciduous trees store some nutrients in the soil and enhance diversity. This strategy allows deciduous trees to replace coniferous wherever climate conditions permit. Deciduous forests are much more stable and long-lasting, whereas coniferous forests follow cataclysm cycles. When all the nutrients are blocked, coniferous trees send olfactory messages to pests that come and destroy the stand, then fire takes over and cleans all, and nutrients are freed.
Species to be used can be quickly determined on an ecological basis. Trees that grow in association with the most superior plants are to be favoured. Rich stands of red oak, sugar maple, beech, yellow birch, linden and ash give much better results than poor-quality stands such as red maple or trembling aspen. A mixture of species is suitable and will give an amendment with positive effects in the short as well as in the long term.
PARTS OF THE TREE TO USE
The C/N ratio for ramial wood ranges from 30/1 to 170/1 while for stemwood the C/N ratio ranges from 400/1 to 750/1. Branches under 7 cm in diameter, without their leaves, are the best choice for shredding. In the North-American species, essential plant nutrients (N, P, K, Ca, Mg) increase when branch diameter decreases. These concentrations reach a minimum in branches over 7 cm in diameter, so branches having less than 7 cm in diameter contain 75% fertilizing nutrients. The bigger the branches the less digestible they become. If sawdust, issued from tree trunks, is mixed with the soil, nitrogen will starve unless the sawdust is composted with farm manure. The trunk of the tree supports the branches which are the real biological center for wood production. The trunk is «dead» and does not allow lignin to be used by enzymes from microflora and fauna to integrate into the soil. For the forest, the «dead» trunk is «garbage», attacked from the outside, and transformed in CO2 with very little benefit to the soil.
For a first treatment, the ramial wood should be without green leaves because green leaves contain chemical elements easily accessible to bacteria. These bacteria can prevail over «white rot» (Basidiomycetes). When leaves are dead, these chemical elements, tied to brown pigments, will be released through the soil mesofauna activity in perfect harmony with the «white rot» activity. It must be noted that persons following these rules have obtained good results.
TOOLS
Chipping or crushing ramial wood is nessaryto permit massive entry of soil microorganisms without facing the bark barrier. Moreover, chipping increases the surface of the material which accelerates soil digestion. In tropical countries, big pieces, grossly chipped with a machete, will be rapidly digested by the soil.
For a good chipping the cut must be made at an angle of 57° and the rotation of the blade 12000 RPM for one knife, 6000 RPM for two knives and so on. It is better to shred the branches lengthwise than cut them perpendicularly. A second-hand forage harvester could do a good job on farms. A chipping or crushing apparatus can be custom-made or chipping devices collectively-owned. Many types of chipping devices can be found on the market, some can be activated by a farm tractor.
Mechanized chipping is costly in both labor and money. Fifteen hours are needed to produce enough RCW for one hectare requiring 1503 meters. This quantity is needed to enhance the quality of the soil and the crops for the following five years under temperate conditions. A RCW soil amendment should be perceived as an investment redeemed over a period of 10 to 15 years.
METHODS
The basic methods called «Sylvagraire» for agriculture and «Sylvasol» for forestry are better known. They give the best low-cost results. RCW must not be composted nor ploughed under but spread in a thin layer, a thickness of one inch being the optimum. The
upgrading mechanisms best perform when RCW is mixed with the first 5 cm of the topsoil. The fundamental mechanism relies on massive entry of soil microorganisms into the twigs. Therefore chipping or crushing them is essential.
STORAGE
If it is not spread immediatly after chipping, RCW can be windrowed. If the pile is too high or too dense, it can induce anaerobic conditions which are very harmful after a few weeks.
After three months of storage, RCW is seen more as compost and can make an excellent organic amendment but its chemical constituents and its impact on the biology of the sol is different from freshly-made RCW.
WHEN TO USE RCW
Under cold and temperate conditions, the autumn period sems to be the best time to use RCW. Added to the soil, this material, rich in carbon and poor in nitrogen, may favor nitrogen immobilization by the microorgnisms during the first few months. When using RCW, this type of effects can be seen during two months, after which trophic chains are active and the amount of available nutrients is increasing with time.
Soils treated with RCW in the spring can show sign of nitrogen hunger during the growing season but this will not be harmful to the production and will not cause necrosis to the foliage. THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN IF RCW IS TO BE APPLIED ON THE FOLLOWING YEARS. If RCW is used as a mulch instead of being disked in, there is no nitrogen hunger but the integration to cultivated soil will be much slower. The autumn period favors the spreading of Basidiomycetes. They remain active at temperatures below freezing whereas bacteria die and massively encyst during the cold season.
FOREST LITTER ADDITION
Studies have proven that Basidiomycetes are often absent from cultivated soil and trophic chains are reduced to a minimum. The several organisms (fungi and symbiotic bacteria, microarthropods, insects...), found in forest soils and essential to the RCW transformation, are not found in cultivated fields. They must be reintroduced with the first application otherwise RCW may not behave correctly (towards a coaly colour). Migration of some of these organisms in the soil is sometimes very slow (a few centimeters per year) and a natural recolonization might take considerable time. To reintroduce forest soil fungi requires an addition of 10-20 grams of the forest litter per square meter. This litter can be taken from an old deciduous climax forest stand or something close to it, at a depth of 5 cm beneath the dead leaves. The dark brown leafmould should be harvested just prior to the spreading in order to avoid drying.
QUANTITY TO USE
RCW must not be composted nor ploughed under but spread in a layer not thicker than 1 5/8 inch, at the rate of 150 to 200 m3/ha. The upgrading mechanisms perform best when RCW is mixed with the first 5 cm of the topsoil. This treatment is good for three years in temperate conditions and it has to be repeated by adding from 10 to 20 m3 on the fourth year and years after.
INCORPORATION TO THE SOIL
In cultivated fields, it is very important to disk RCW in the first 5 cm of topsoil. The reasons for this surface incorportion are of a physical and a biological order. In the forest, RCW integration requires the interrelationship of many organisms. When conditions are not convenient (which is rare in the forest where a microclimate exists under the canopy), the organisms will migrate deep in the forest litter to be protected. In cultivated fields, these migrations do not to happen because these organisms are vulnerable to dry spells. This explains why spreading RCW in the forest does not require mixing with the topsoil.
To favor the multiplication of Basidiomycetes, wood humidity must vary from 30% to 120%, the optimum being between 60% and 100%. Basidiomycetes are aerobic fungi located in the first 5 cm of soil and in close contact with RCW in a moist environment.
RCW vs COMPOST
RCW is a pedogenetic amendment able to optimize or generate a true soil. This technique must not be mistaken with composting where basic material comes from diverse organic sources.
The compost is used to feed the life of the soil and bring nutrients to the plants, while RCW can rebuild and maintain the soil structure, long-term fertility and soil stability. The composting process results in the loss of organic materials, but the enzymatic combustion favors the destruction of polyphenols and pathogenic organisms. With RCW technology, the organic material goes directly into the soil structure and reach the trophic chains without any loss.
Mixed with the soil RCW is sufficient because all the necessary elements are in it. In soils treated with RCW there is no deficiencies. As stated above, the C/N ratio of RCW varies from 50/1 to 170/1 for twigs less than 7 cm in diameter. The farmer should not worry about the C/N ratio once biological action works.
NO PLOUGHING
By ploughing and disking the soil, the life cycles are destructured and, consequently, the soil improvements with organic amendment are less than expected.
In a field treated with RCW ploughing should be delayed for three years in
order to prevent deep burrying and provide aerobic conditions favourable to RCW evolution and Basidiomycetes enzymatic activities.
The RCW material will remain the same after years under anaerobic conditions in deep soil. One benefit of ploughing is to allow water savings by breaking pore continuity whereas a soil treated with RCW will retain enough moisture to prevent dryness. Ploughing, by increasing the roughness of the soil, could limit washing and erosion; but RCW, as a humic amendment and a bioactivator, will improve the soil structure and regulate activity through polyphenolic chemistry. This structural stability is the most efficient tool for regenerating soils.
RCW AND WORM POPULATIONS
RCW treatments will favor the increase of earthworm populations. In Quebec, up to two tons of earthworms per hectare can be found in a natural sugar maple stand. These worms work without harming the root systems.
RCW AS MULCH
RCW can be used as mulch or, better, on the soil surface. In this way, RCW is slow to evolve and does not play the same role. It serves as a mechanical barrier to drying and as a shield against UV rays which are lethal for the life beneath. It is an ecological niche for forest insects and other biotas while preventing weed sprouting and agressivity. It is possible that the long-term effect will be similar to that of surface disking. Certain farmers prefer the mulching method because it does not interfere with the life of the soil.
THE MOST CONVENIENT SOILS
Soils constantly wet and cold should be avoided. The anaerobic conditions do not allow RCW to be involved into a fertile pedogenetic process. The sandy-silt soils containing a sufficient amount of clay will benefit best with RCW application. In such soils, the pedogenetic process is active and efficient. The clay particles favor exchange complexe and the stocking of nutrients.
RECOMMENDED FARMING PRACTICES
For an agronomist, the RCW technology is a very useful farming practice. A good way to proceed with very low productive soil is to disk in the RCW material in the fall and, the following spring , sow a cereal-hay mixture, i.e. a legume (white clover or alfalfa) that can trap nitrogen. The first crop is cereal and the following two years hay crop is harvested. Later potatoe crops can be grown easily.
CONCLUSIONS
Branches and brushes were always seen without value for centuries and as trash in the modern forest economy that has developed during the last century. A first assessment
of small branch production shows a mere 100 million tons per annum for Québec alone and probably billions of tons throughout the world. Small-diameter branches can be transformed into a «soil food». Feeding soil microfauna and microflora is more likely to bring mid- and long-term benefits to both agricultural and forest ecosystems in redeeming costs and increasing benefits. RCWs represent the only large-scale upgrading technology. It involves a large number of shrub and tree species resulting in variable responses, all positive with regard to enhancement of the humic system. RCWs bring the benefits of the forest soil to the agricultural soil at the lowest possible cost [Lemieux, 1993].
Agricultural land was «extracted» from the forest. The forest can now help degraded soils by keeping them alive and microbiologically diversified. Ramial chipped wood is a good tool available to all societies, even the poorest, to reverse soil degradation and desertification. As we are now aware of the major role of RCWs upon the formation of a highly reactive humus system, our attitude toward the forest will have to change. Instead of depleting our natural forests as we now do to grow commodity trees, we must grow «forest ecosystems» and treat them like perennial gardens. From an enemy, the forest must become a friend. From a resource to be exploited for immediate profit, it must become the source of infinite wealth.
RCWs must be carefully looked at in both the southern and the northern hemispheres. More than 75% of nutrients are stored in twigs. Twigs are the center of life, stemwood being the result of the whole crown activity. Twigs, once chipped and brought in close contact with the soil, momentarily replace the rootlets that are constantly transformed into short-lived aggregates by the soil microorganisms. These aggregates are the managers of soil nutrients and energy for the ecosystem's own sake. They enable biological actors to play their vital role, from virus to mammals, using available energy and nutrients. It is of prime importance to understand and visualize the whole picture and the role played by each actor in this wonderful evolution of nature's work from which we now benefit after so many millions of years.
Time has come for large-scale worldwide organizations to deal with planetary problems. RCWs are the key to understanding the biological basics of our terrestrial ecosystems. There is no doubt concerning the value of RCWs and their positive impact in pedogenesis, which is a universal process. This universal biological material will have a direct effect in the short term as well as in the long term on soil, crops, economy and on both human and animal societies. It will be seen as one of the most important biotechnological contributions of this century [Lemieux (1993)].
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Seck, M.A. (1993) «Essais de fertilisation organique avec les bois raméaux fragmentés de filao (Casuarina equisetifolia) dans les cuvettes maraîchères des Niayes (Sénégal) in Les actes du quatrième colloque international sur les bois raméaux fragmentés» édité par le Groupe de Coordination sur les Bois Raméaux, Département des Sciences forestières, Université Laval, Québec (Canada) ISBN 2-550-28792-4 FQ94-3014, p. 36-41.
Swift, M.J. (1976) «Species diversity and structure of microbial communities» in J.M. Anderson & A. MacFaden editors Decomposition processes Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford, p. 185-222.
Toutain, F. (1993) «Biodégradation et humification des résidus végétaux dans le sol: évolution des bois raméaux (étude préliminaire)» in «Les actes du quatrième colloque international sur les bois raméaux fragmentés» édité par le Groupe de Coordination sur les Bois Raméaux, Département des Sciences forestières, Université Laval, Québec (Canada) ISBN 2-550-28792-4 FQ94-3014, p. 103-110.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ISBN 2-921728-32-X (english)
Dépôt légal: Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec. Mars 1998
1 Agro-ecologist, Château Richer, Québec G0A 1N0
2 Faculty of Forestry, Laval University. Québec City G1K 7P4
3 Agronomist. Sainte-Foy, Québec
What do you know about Afghan Pipelines
Are our Armed Forces
protecting our Energy Sources
and
why are the Taliban Objecting so violently.
Map of Gas and Oil Pipelines crossing Afghanistan
I don't Believe a word of it!
Global Warming - Climate Change
Look closely at this picture of IceAge Clothing
In the Ice Age Furs were worn and later in Tudor times, Men wore Padded clothes
Warm clothes are worn when it's cold
So in the past it was far colder than it is now
So What sort of Car was driven in the IceAge and did Walter Raleigh rashly leave his Set top box on Standby? - I don't think so!
But since the Iceage and Elizabethan times the world has become warmer.
Climate change is a natural cycle and occurs over thousands of years.
We are exhorted at every turn to reduce our carbon footprint [daft expression]
Surely, someone should admit, that the only reason we have to cut down on energy - is because, the sources of energy are getting scarce.
Have you heard of Bagram Airbase - Certainly - but..... has any one ever mentioned Bagram Gas Terminal
I doubt it !
The Afghan War is to control of the pipeline -Thats it! Thats all it is!
The Western armies are dying to keep us warm.
More People die on UK and US roads every day than are killed by the enemy.
but I suppose Fanatical Talibanistas high on Poppy Juice are far more sexy than the banal truth.
I wonder who trained all those illiterate tribesmen to create deadly booby traps with semtex and mobile phone technology?
Tradition
We had it lucky
At least the Romans had the good sense to go back to the warm South leaving this dismal island to
- The Fury of the Norsemen coming from the North
- The Angles, Jutes and Saxons from the East
- The Iron clad Normans coming from the South
- The famished Irish from out of the West
Perhaps this historic, mixed population still has no definableal identity save the stiff upper lip and plucky legends of Spitfires
The English have no national dress and only folk music being music hall escapes
Our so-called history merely centres around Sovereigns and warlords - the common folk are invisibly mute
Oh yes we have traditions - they say
Just look closely at the outrageous ostrich feathers worn by parading military, and so-called dignitaries
All that lavish, media friendly ceremonial being dreamt up by Victorian romantics .
Those 19th century Harvest Festival Hymns written looking backwards to a nonexistant golden age as the countryside mechanised.
Why do the subtropical Hordes gathering on opposite shores even want to come to a wet and windy island off the coast of Northern Europe
Someone should tell them that Julius Caesar called the place Ultima Thule - the end of the world
Radio Luxembourg beamed Allied propaganda into Europe So Third World Radio should propagate the message - that travelling across the planet to the clouds of Britain is plain crazy Why not tell all those esperate migrants - a few home truths
All our factories and banks went to Shanghai and Hong Kong in China.
All the Coal mines are shut
Agriculture is under Contract to a few highly mechanised Corporations
What will the large families of Foreign born workers do to earn a living
The country is bankrupt -
Just watch as the streets paved with gold fill with garbage -
Perhaps our children will tell tall tales of when every one was working
When there were buses and trains
When the binmen came
When the street used to have lights
Perhaps its just Karma
When our lads and lasses join the Services to travel to distant lands meet different people and
Trashed their country
Maybe just maybe the boot is now on the other foot
as
their Invasion has now Over
and so
The Enemy is inside our borders - fully intent on keeping their kith and kin firmly OUT
and in the meantime outbreeding the aborigines!
SeaChange
It is so strange.
About this time last year I went flotilla cruising around the Ionian Sea in Greece
Something I had never done before - I had travelled all over the world and now at the age of 66 I had become a sailor!
Since then I have sailed the Canary Islands and along the Channel to Helford River and back to Hamble.
someone said, "I didn't know you were a sailor", and I replied "Neither did I"
This time I am off cruising the Saronic islands [south of Athens] for 2 weeks on a floating home aka a Beneteau 361
Where did this urge come from?
Are we all we seem to be - or are there other hidden forces in our lives - Karma or something.
Where did this urge come from?
Are we all we seem to be - or are there other hidden forces in our lives - Karma or something.
House of Frauds
Say it quietly
Westminster is a total fraud.
Perhaps our eyes have been diverted from the Real Fraud that it is actually only a very arrogant, third world, local council run by "honourable" members.
This quaint Old Boy Network has ceded 75% of its power to Uber Corrupt Brussels.
The whole place is quite irrevelant.
In fact, all those naughty boys and girls, should be housed in those soon-to-be-Ex Olympic Hostels - after that, chemically enhanced, two week athletic meeting, is over.
Failing that, they should all be sent home in disgrace.
The only honest man to enter Parliament was Guy Fawkes.
Border Guard
Those Britons formerly known as the Gurkas could provide a ring of steel around these islands to prevent the Southern Hordes landing on our shores
But wouldnt it be a better idea to divert these
adventurous ,seaborne, entrepreneurs
into the Armed Services before they are given Residency.
The French Foreign Legion have been doing this for decades!
"Under the terms of the French Foreign Legion, anyone, regardless of creed, colour, race, religion, after completing a 5year 'contract' has, as of right, the right to French citizenship, if so desired, but ABOVE ALL, the right to reside in France. A highly esteemed piece of legislation laid down in 1831 & stiil maintained to this day!"
The French Foreign Legion have been doing this for decades!
So perhaps the Illegals want the softer option over here.
CHIMERA
A long time ago, I met a very rural, African Pastor, attending a Religious Convention, where all the delegates lived, ate, worshipped and sang together.
He was beside himself with joy, for the place was full of men of many
different tribes, all united in their Christian Faith.
Normally, men of a different tribe were at best, hostile even murderous.
In these politically fraught days, it must only be whispered, that the Arab and European slavers bought their cargo from African chiefs, who had merely rounded up their hated neighbours.
So now that Mugabe has dealt with the bossy white tribe and practically starved the Matabele to death, the Mashona of Zimbabwe, have the place to themselves.
This is only an updated version of the vicious, internicine warfare haunting Africa ever since a small family escaped to the Yemen by wading the shallow seas of Eritrea
But there is more...
There is a persistent rumour that a deadly pathogen was carefully engineered from the Green Monkey Virus.
This organism is so new that its development can be traced through its code names
~ HTLV-III, LAV and ARV which is so easily spread through contact with any body fluid. Blood,Toil,Tears and Sweat
- to name but a few !
This Human Immunodeficiency virus has killed more than 25 million, one third of whom lived in South,Central Africa.
There are 18 million children with no family left.
This Global Slump means that these children will not get fed.
Soon Africa, with all its riches, will be quite empty.
Is it not strange, that a new pathogen, suddenly appearing in Brazil, is a strange combination of pig,bird and human influenza viruses.
Who has been playing Biological Lego and is it a devilish plot to Depopulate the Earth!
This Global Slump means that these children will not get fed.
Soon Africa, with all its riches, will be quite empty.
Is it not strange, that a new pathogen, suddenly appearing in Brazil, is a strange combination of pig,bird and human influenza viruses.
Who has been playing Biological Lego and is it a devilish plot to Depopulate the Earth!
I am so paranoid that even my
marmalade is shredded!
marmalade is shredded!
Separated by language
Its odd how words can alter perceptions.
No Briton would call a puppy, a bitches son [I am being careful not to use insulting language here] for this American expression causes no reaction on these islands other than a faint puzzlement whereas a son of a gun might just refer to the results of a shotgun wedding.
The Words themselves carry no baggage and so all the FrogsKrautsDagos and Les Sales Boches are just words applied to neighbours from hell.
I have noticed, however, that a life time of American humour, now creates a situation that to insult someone by calling them a silly ass just causes confusion in the same way that bum refers no longer to the arse
So how does a silly ass land on his butt, for in proper English, an Ass carried Jesus and a butt was an arrow target.
So in the sentence - The tramp fell off his ass and landed on his arse hurting his bum - now reads The Bum fell off his Donkey and landed on his butt.
Is Assbergers Syndrome merely the act of eating donkey meat in a bun?
Telly Tubby!
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Palaentologist, Theologian and Catholic Mystic imagined that mankind would cover the Earth with a new layer of Mind, which he called the Noosphere, that would integrate the mind of the planet creating a Planetary Consciousness.
So imagine,if you will, the Googleization of the brain.
We understand, that signals are recieved from our eyes,ears and sense organs.
Now, if Google could be added to the host of incoming data, one would instantly know the answer, to any question that crossed the mind.
In fact, Googles the world over, would know it too!
So now, as broadcast Internet has escaped the trall of ancient glass and copper cables the Noosphere is no longer a cloud of unknowing but a Goosphere of Knowing and is sentient by way of its human component.
Will Nanotechnology also conspire to reduce us to a blob of Goo or perhaps Scripture is wrong and the Mark of the Beast is not on the forehead but an Aerial on top of the head
Cock of the North - Creative Revenge!
Time was, after a long and bitter strike, that the miners marched back through Sutton Manor colliery gates "with heads held high"
Today, on top of the St.Helens pit's highest, slag heap, stands a beautiful, pure white, 60 foot head of a sleeping 9 year old girl.
Maggie Thatcher, closed the pit and sent the miners home to an early bath but now not only is the head held very high, but are there hidden meanings not just of heads but of Old King Coal - the Sleeping Giant.
Possibly the pure white of the sculpture sends a powerful message of clean coal.
However, the actual shape of the image, may very well be the Finest and most Vulgar insult to Maggie ever devised!
Ex Terra Lucem - indeed!
Bright Idea
This weeks bright idea!
Lets build a nuclear power station on top of the largest oilwell in the world!
Lets build a nuclear power station on top of the largest oilwell in the world!
Madcap
I once took a night school French course. As a teacher I was amazed by weird performance of my tutor.
If there was such a thing as enthusiasm she had invented it.
Like a clockwork mouse she wound herself up on chocolate and let herself run for an hour or
so.
At the time I thought she had just seen too much Blue Peter but last week I saw Mr Smith the Science teacher on TV and sat through a manic presentation by a Scout Master at Church Parade.
To be astonished by energetic enthusiasm for the totally mundane only serves to show how old I have become.
My wife and I went out for a meal one evening last week and on the next table the baby kept dropping its toys on the floor. Nothing odd there,except one resembled a TV remote and I was dumbstruck (gobsmacked) when said infant's pudgy thumbs worked the buttons, producing bells,squeaks and whistles.
So it seems that IT begins in the cradle. Infants learn the keyboard long before they can read or write. Ten second editing makes for fast and furious visual media. It takes a supreme effort to spot the change of shots, for there are so, so many.
Today's children do not have the long view so accept these ultra rapid cuts as normal. So to make any impression on jaded minds, everything in their lives, must be played out as a
furious, high voltage, experience.
The days of quiet explanation and calm thought are over it seems. Education has to be a farce paced melodrama.Is it any wonder that Morris Dancers are almost extinct.
Bandwaggon
Have you noticed the background racket on TV
Whenever they stop talking, the drumkit starts up.
At least it is slightly better than the galloping major themes, that they used to play during newsreels and sports reports.
Radio is even worse. The ex-journalists that operate the medium would originally have used dreadful puns as bylines to their articles - now, however, they use "musical" tunes with some slight reference to the feature in their title
Blank Looks
I started sailing last summer and now my holiday plans centre around boats of all types but mainly large yachts.Coming fresh to this sphere of endeavour, I notice that yachties live in a closed world of boats,sails,weather and usually, bars with safe anchorages.
Yachties only go on land to shop and take on water - they live afloat
At one time I was so,so keen on riding horses - riding far and wide but as the costs of
horsepower became uneconomic I began riding in Spain and Malta. This is another world of bits, bridles, breeds and saddles.So when I had the temerity, to compare the lively motion of a yacht under sail to that of the springy action of a pure bred, Arab stallion I was met with pitying looks of sheer blank incomprehension.
Bee-keeping is my passion. Bees sting and so hives are always concealed out of sight of General Public and his cohorts. So most people do not appreciate that bee-keeping societies even exist
Talking to people about Bees, Horses and Sail boats triggers in me the rolling eyes that, certain of my female relatives, inflict on me when they explain the exciting scenes of their favourite soap opera.Someone asked me if I had seen "Coronation Street" I said"once - the first episode!"
However, when the various sciences touch where Biology meets Nuclear Engineering,for example - new ideas begin to form.
So perhaps when the Ancients said Seahorses ride the waves maybe they had a valid point.
Quelque cm de neige - ha! ha!
It is now the law to carry a warning triangle to alert road users.
Gritter lorries are struggling to find enough grit and salt
Snow chains are on sale in every autoshop on the Continent
So why not save vast amounts of grit and salt and human grief by making
easily available in the UK
Even if they are hung in the garage for 18 years they are always there just like the triangle and CarJack for emergencies
The Thames Barrier is scheduled to be used only once every 20 years so it seems that snow chains are, at least, in good company
Bad Manners
Nothing changes it seems.
Bull and Bearbaiting,cockfighting and the severed heads of dusky foreign foes portrayed on Pub signs give us some idea of how cruel life used to be.
Hanging,drawing and quartering was a most popular public entertainment.
A dozen assorted egomaniacs locked and suffering in the Big Bother House is an updated
Bedlam Lunatic Asylum.
Public broadcasting which began very politely with black tie, good manners has debased itself by allowing the atrocious manners of our forebears.
Surely it is not polite to degrade someones grandchildren or to poke fun at a hairstyle
or to compare a politician to Popeye
Summer Holiday - no more!
Aggressive Spanish Tax is currently emptying the marinas of Spain [to the tune of £3 grand annual mooring fee each].
Sailingholidays.com have pulled out of Croatia - Too expensive
It had to happen, très posh yachts blight the lives of the poor.
Perhaps the drunken, puking invasion is finally over and Mediterranean fishermen can go fishing instead of being servants to zombies.
Pond Life
What happens to the cars when the showroom goes bust?
Neither new cars nor used ones sell.
Scrap has no value, even leaded church roofs are safe now.
What do thieves do when their houses are cram full of unfenceable house contents, that no one will buy, or do clever thieves take their old fifty foot plasma tv on a job, to swop it for the latest electronic offering?
Do car thieves use stolen cars like the Dutch use their free bikes and like James Bond used crocodiles to hop across a pond?
Forget Mickey Mouse
Barack Obama's mother was half Irish, hence the O' I suppose, declared that the world has changed - a new era
However, as I see it, our world has changed indeed, but not by us!
Everything around us, was dreamed up at least 100 years ago. Cars, for example, merely updated with no real advance for a century. Except for one area!
The electronic data processor .aka. the computer. During WW2, computers were teams of women, with maths degrees, processing data with slide rules* andlog tables*.
The experts of the time said that only 3 would be needed for the Military,Government and Business. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs changed that and now every one has a personal computer so simple to use that infants use them.
Clever accounting software swept away untold hosts of "bean counters". Ten years ago Tim B.Lee wrote the killer application combining the suites of accounting programs into a global unit.
Remember Mickey Mouse, this current Sorcerer's apprentice opened the floodgates of hairtriggered interactive commerce. So when the Almighty Dollar sneezed the Global Economy died of the Plague.
The global Computer network acts and reacts, decisively, at the speed of light Humanity held hostage by this inhuman monster. When the computer is "down" all work ceases!
Consign the words recession,depression, slump and meltdown to the dictionary of history. We should have noticed the brief appeareance of the AntiChrist* when World Grand [Chess]master was soundly beaten by Big Blue* and promptly retired.
So As the PC shrank from Roomsize to tower to laptop to handheld and monitor,keyboard and mouse go to landfill. Access to the "Controller" is through necklace and earstud using human electrical field as a power source What have we become have we become and has scripture been fulfilled REV 13,16 and 18,11 especially when we are microchipped at birth giving a slight bump on our forehead!
Note *Google - perhaps?
Duck Down
Why is it that two nations living on opposite shores of the North Sea can be so different.
The Dutch build to keep the sea out and create some of the most productive farmland in the world while the English on the contrary, merely allow the waves to wash away the countryside while murmuring their mantra HABITAT HABITAT and condemning entire generations of humanity to hypothermia.
Not our overtaxed habitation, mark you, but that of our feathered friends.
So say no to wind turbines and tidal barrages. Say no to clean power and shiver and cough and scan the beaches for well insulated feathered dinosaur descendants - them not us!
Remember Eiderdown! - duck à l'orange and four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. That was before the world lost its senses.
Lets repatriate the hungry pussy cats of Cairo to the estuarine bird roosts so that the poor wingèd creatures are no longer shredded by windmills and the lugworms of the world can sleep easy in their burrows and perhaps the son of man can lay his head on a warm pillow for once, to the sound of grateful purring.Scruffy!
This is a well known TV presenter -
my mother wanted to send him a present.
There must be a fashion in being scruffy. Even the Lord Mayor of London needs the immediate services of a good barber
In the early days of TV all the "announcers" wore formal dress
I now notice the pendulum swinging back.
The shirt and tie have reappeared as the Television industry smartens up its act.
The hedgebackwards hairstyle just seems to be old fashioned now
So perhaps we will see the formal suit again as the world reconfigures after the excess of the n0ughties
Bright Future
George Bush once said that Technology would save the planet
Maybe he was right - Maybe....
I read the news today Oh Boy!
I have carefully? put together this excellent video to reveal my true colours Beware 'tis gruesome!
Reading for those long winter evenings
Feeling a bit lazy but this article saves me a lot of typing
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=vn20081012083703515C643309
You will need the back button to escape from the literature however
Avert your eyes - this is Nasty
Ok - all eyes are on collapsed banks
The UK Government have loaded the system with half a trillion pounds ! How many noughts is that I wonder?
While attention is diverted like this, no one is looking at the other Horse men of the Apocalypse
There is a 13 Trillion plastic debt to face up to
and has every one forgotten the vanishing pool of oil
and has the desert reclaimed Las Vegas yet as the water dries up?
Cursed!
There is the ancient chinese curse:
May you live in interesting times!
Well we certainly are:
- Banks with no money
- House buyers with no money
- Streets with no cars
- Cars with no fuel
- Planes in mothballs
- No work
Crisis - what crisis - baaaa!
Birds 1 Humans Nil
Quillan is a small town nestled in a quiet valley in the northern foothills of the Pyrenees. EDF, The power company negotiated the siting of wind turbines on the surrounding hills.
There arose the inevitable Nimby Howl.
However the surrounding villages, [without power], agreed it would be an Excellent Idea.
The hoteliers in the town were aghast at the thought of their tourist trap being sprung.
In the Canary islands the windmills are a tourist attraction.
In the long cold winters of England, where the poor choose between food or fuel - power or porridge, the rich green clad members of the "we love birds" clubs, demolish their hopes with the turbine blades can alter the birds habitat argument.
In former more sensible days such green clad aristos would ride the tumbril complete with binoculars " let them eat Kaka!
Civilisations sledge
Suddenly, the lemming sheep, have finally realised that civilization's sledge is hurtling ever faster downwards.
At the bottom of this mad career, will be a strange world alien, to most alive today!
The only ones capable of remembering such a parallel world, have all just died of of old age.
These people will, at least, had had the skills to begin to cope with the fate, now nearly upon us!
Sure, all their knowledge has been preserved in books,films and now the Internet but when the power fades, the films blister and the books crumble into dust, what then?
We no longer write to each other: Emails are routinely binned, leaving little or no record, of this generation.
In the attics of Stately homes, old families have boxes of letters written by their ancestors.
In a few years time, we will know more about them than we do of our own
The Romans left inscriptions, the Egyptians left wonderful pictures,
but the only evidence of our passing might well be just the unknown
faces of Mount Rushmore!
Then Philistines are upon us!
Am I wrong in thinking, that the Monstrous Angel of the North should be exported and sawn up on an Indian beach
Look closely at the Iron Men on Formby beach [near Liverpool]
They are lifesize castings are artlessly and shoddily made.
The mad chap who bought the Unmade bed should be treated gently and firmly locked up.
Where has Beauty gone?
Ultima Thule
The British are an easy going lot. When the Danes invaded, the ancient tribes just headed west and became the Welsh.
The hordes from Eastern lands, keep landing on these islands, so the Aborigines pack and move out - heading mostly sunwards. to Spain and the Mediterranean Islands.
Now any hope of return is fading. as the cheap flights have now ended.
All over the World, are pockets of Ancient (mostly) Britons. Having left their island home they have become the stangers in strange lands.
So in time, the Britons will cease to exist as a nation - only their DNA will be left!
Salvation!
Well that's all right then!
The Price you pay at the pump has gone DOWN - a few pennies!
What luxury! We can now afford to run the car again - the crisis is over!
What rubbish! The price is still astronomical and somewhere galaxical profits are being made but the sheep merely scent a bargain instead of a fleecing!
Civilization Sledge
Suddenly, the lemming sheep, have finally realised that civilization's sledge is hurtling ever faster downwards.
At the bottom of this mad career, will be a strange world alien, to most alive today!
The only ones capable of remembering such a parallel world, have all just died of of old age.
These people would, at least, had had the skills to begin to cope with the fate, now nearly upon us!
Sure, all their knowledge has been preserved in books,films and now the Internet but when the power fades, the films blister and the books crumble into dust, what then ?
We no longer write to each other: Emails are routinely binned, leaving little or no record, of this generation.
In the attics of Stately homes, old families have boxes of letters written by their ancestors.
In a few years time, we will know more about them than we do of our own
The Romans left inscriptions, the Egyptians left wonderful pictures,
but the only evidence of our passing might well be just the unknown
faces of Mount Rushmore!
Fishy smell?
The Price of rice doubled recently so I bought a big bag - then a Freeze Dried Food Company emailed me.
I wondered about buying in a year's supply of Emergency Rations until I began to ponder on the situation when this food would be finally all eaten!
For a long time I have considered living on a boat and fishing - that is, until this last month when I returned from two weeks sailing around the islands of the Ionian Sea, just offshore of the Greek Mainland!
We lived on board a sleek Beneteau 361,
drifting each evening into an inviting Taverna. There were wonderful
menus of all the meats - but the fish might well have just been exotic jewelry. Their prices were more astronomic than gastronomic!
Wandering around the small fishing harbours, my suspicions were aroused by the "fishy smell".
Everywhere, fishing boats lay loaded with nets - bone dry nets! and everywhere a total absence of any fishy smell.
They had done their job of emptying the Mediterranean of all the edible fish so their brightly painted, quaint craft were now only for Disneyesque display.
Therefore, the price of a fish supper included its airfare - presumably?
The islands had many goats living off the scrub but neither goat nor rabbit or black bread were on any menu.
To the Faraway islands of the Greek archipelago
an armada of rich, fat, pale, blue eyed strangers has landed for whom
subsistence food is unknown and the produce of the wood fired oven is
restricted to Pizza, an Italian import, even rejected by Sophia Loren, who when she hit the big time, wanted fillet steak!
Alter Egoist - Bin Hiding!
It occured to me the other day, that instead of growing Santa whiskers, perhaps it might be a better idea to shave them all off and run for President!It would be a cunning trick to merely change the letter but not the name.
Revolution - What revolution
When the cost of filling up the car is by far the greatest payment of the week, surely, it is now time to see all those electric and hybrid dual fuel cars appearing in the showrooms but so far nothing!
Even the Revolutionary French who set their food on fire at any opportunity just fork out for fuel and drive away muttering merde! con du guele! and so on..
My countrymen have read the advert on the back of every bus, left their car at home and bought a go-anywhere weekly, season ticket for half the price of a filling station fillup!
Revolutions are so tiring!
...
Only a memory!
When I filled my heating oil tank the driver said that the price would never go down again
My nephew - a coalman told me that there would be no more coal exports from China, indeed they are now importing coal themselves
Today the papers say that the gas bill would rise £1000.
The petrol station across the road closed last weekend and demolished today
That means that no more petrol will ever be sold there again. Usually ex-filling stations morph into hand car wash or car sales yards.
So I am extremely curious to discover the use that the site will be put to.
No more houses are being built, no cars are being sold and with the ultra-light traffic its more likely that the car varlets will just throw in the sponge..
Where have all the motors gone?
When I was at Junior school we were taught the Green Cross Code. However, in those days, we had to wait at the roadside for some traffic to practice on
Today it is very much the same.
Once the commuters have gone to work, the roads are empty until the evening rush hour.
As the fuel price surges upward it will only be a matter of time. until the free bus pass contract is withdrawn
3 men in a boat and me
This is the best of times
We have never had it so good - ever
I have just returned from sailing around the Ionian Sea in a plastic boat [actually a Beneteau 361] with 3 Old men who by all accounts should be now under the planet in wooden boxes.
We four Ancient Mariners sailed around a clear blue sea with excellent soul music on the multimedia player looking forward to a fillet steak at the end of each day - "Every Day Another Bay "
When one thinks of our history, when was it possible for ancients, such as we could even dream of such endeavours?
It is highly likely that it will never be able to happen again.
Are We there yet?
I am confused now
Every day the prophecies reveal themselves.
- The Cost of food
- The Price of energy
- The Empty filling stations
Is this the time to begin the stockpile of dry goods?
Leave it too long and there will be none left and we will starve
Start too early to be left with [dried]egg on your face and a pile of out of date dry goods
How long will the transition from this life take and will the stock pile be adequate to keep us alive when all around are slumped in a Katrina coma.
Here on the islands of Britain there is no where to run. Everywhere is occupied at the moment.
When the shops are empty and the State begins to regiment the people - then what
Lower the drawbridge
Raise the portcullis
If only it were so easy
Tata! - Goodbye!
Suddenly the image of the slide seems wrong now.
This week OPEC has been asked to ramp up the production of OIL so business can continue as usual.
So the image that occurs to me is not a headlong descent into the Stone Age where we perish from survivalism inexperience.
No! Its the one where the crash test dummy hurtles into a brick wall.
The Indian car maker Tata [prescient name - it's Welsh for Goodbye] is about to sell the NANO [latin for dwarf] .
It is the cheapest car in the world at just over £1000.
Imagine the delight of millions of Indians who can now get their first car.
Imagine the traffic.
Imagine the smell and the clouds of poisonous exhausts in the tropical heat.
But it doesn't take much imagination to contemplate the thirst for petrol. Millions of Indians queuing at the filling station.
Just over the border are 2 billion Chinese who have been busy making clothes and household goods for us for years - they too will no doubt aspire to a little runabout.
Imagine Billions at the filling station.
So business as usual please - we are wanting a piece of the action.
P.S By 2025, the world will be cursed with 7,958,550,889 more of us! Save some for me!
Slip Sliding Away!
We are on the slide.
Enjoy the ride- four years from now
everyone will be screaming.
We who live in the West look at the world news in a detached fashion.
Food Riots in 37 countries means little to us as our shops are full of food.
Or are they?
When the motorways are blocked by hundreds of motorbikes and snail truck convoys
and the docks are blockaded by fuel starved fishermen and the Asian Supermarkets are rationing bags of rice.
It is obvious that something is happening.
The China Olympics will be the last one ever.
The London Olympic Games of 2012 will be Virtual as no one anywhere will be able to leave home.
I wonder if such trivia will have any impact any longer as everyone will be wondering where their next meal is coming from or maybe avoiding becoming someone else's!
It's a Wrap!
My forefathers lived in warm and cosy houses like this one.
The walls were several feet thick, sometimes made of earth and covered with a thick layer of thatch.
Today's houses could be retro fitted with new exterior walls and a foot of insulation inserted in between.
The loft space could conceivably be filled with insulation too.
If you look at the clothing of the time, we can see that the cloth they used was very thick and often padded.
There is a lot of talk these days about installing solar arrays to power our homes.
The fact that electricity costs are "rocketing" seems to make these devices appear to be worthwhile.
Do not be fooled!
Someone is wanting to make a fat profit at your expense.
Central heating and electric light are very recent additions to our homes. We have lived for millennia without either.
With a well insulated house the only heating ever needed is the cooker!
There is so much rubbish on the TV now that is is becoming a chore to watch it. The more channels you have, the worse it gets.
To go to bed at sunset seems the far better option. All the useless garbage advertised will fall on deaf ears as everyone will be asleep
Retiring at sunset means that breakfast is at day break.
This might be a problem for countries in the higher latitudes where Happy Hour is not a feature as it might cause a six month hangover!
The walls were several feet thick, sometimes made of earth and covered with a thick layer of thatch.
Today's houses could be retro fitted with new exterior walls and a foot of insulation inserted in between.
The loft space could conceivably be filled with insulation too.
If you look at the clothing of the time, we can see that the cloth they used was very thick and often padded.
There is a lot of talk these days about installing solar arrays to power our homes.
The fact that electricity costs are "rocketing" seems to make these devices appear to be worthwhile.
Do not be fooled!
Someone is wanting to make a fat profit at your expense.
Central heating and electric light are very recent additions to our homes. We have lived for millennia without either.
With a well insulated house the only heating ever needed is the cooker!
There is so much rubbish on the TV now that is is becoming a chore to watch it. The more channels you have, the worse it gets.
To go to bed at sunset seems the far better option. All the useless garbage advertised will fall on deaf ears as everyone will be asleep
Retiring at sunset means that breakfast is at day break.
This might be a problem for countries in the higher latitudes where Happy Hour is not a feature as it might cause a six month hangover!
Its getting serious!
I sense a movement in the way people are thinking
I live near a large council estate and the cars are vanishing as the buses fill up.
Yesterday, I accidentally got off at the wrong stop, so I took a short cut through the estate and found to my surprise, two NEW gypsy caravans
This is quite new - although hors-e-culture is widespread around these hyar parts the horses and ponies are merely used for jumping over artificial barriers in the idle pursuit of fun.
The difference now is that some horsey folk are returning the the ancient art of horsedrawn transport.
The comparison between that and "motoring" is that to get to the Appleby Horse Fair you need a week to get there and another week to get back whereas in the car this journey can be done in a morning and back in the afternoon.
Another difference is the horse is grass powered and the car is fat wallet powered.
Pensioned off - Goodbye!
We seem to be under attack on several fronts
- The World is supposedly getting hotter
- The Sea level is rising
- There are far too many people - 6 billion souls
- Government is penniless - £13 trillion plastic debt
- Food is being used for fuel - food riots
- Drying Oil Wells
In the UK the large workforce is now retiring.
All their savings are effectively removed from the Economy
All the European natrions are not replacing their population and so the new work force is now far smaller than before.
The Pensions of the Elderly are paid for by the young - but they hardly exist.
Graduates are saddled with huge debt before they begin work
So there is no money!
- Goodbye Free Prescriptions
- Goodbye Health Service
- Goodbye Free Bus Pass
- Goodbye Binmen
- Goodbye Policemen
Expect to exist in a sick, filthy, lawless, hot, wet, poor world.
Lemming-like Inertia
In the long term Nuclear electricity will provide the motive power for the railways and the coal mines but the easy conversion of oil to plastic,fertilizer and fuel has ended :now!
There will have to be radical change.
All food will have to be local and taken to market preferably by tram or electric vans like the milkmen used to use, before supermarkets stole their livelihood. 
Personal transport is already uneconomic and cars remain unused in the streets and garages.
I have always wanted a Range Rover and now they are dirt cheap to buy [but impossible to run].
So take your overseas holidays now for soon they will only be remembered.
The Lemming-like Inertia of carrying on as usual will not stop the slide over the energy cliff.
We must take immediate decisive steps as we plan to stay alive as entire cities starve and riot to the death .
It has already begun in Mexico,The Philippines, Cairo - at least those are the reported ones.
Without the oil to supplement the lifeless dust, formerly known as fertile soil, nothing will grow!
Crops grown with less and less expensive fertilizer will produce pitiful harvests.
Billions have grown up expecting bumper harvests each year.
Billions will go hungry.
Billions will die.
No one - any where - will take the rap for that, now will they?
Asleep at the helm
The Double Horns of the Zulu Battle Formation trapped the enemy in a overwhelming, pincer-like movement.
As the World warms up once again,causing the Vegetation and Animals to adapt rather more rapidly than in the recent past.
As the Oil fields that have fed and powered this Civilization for at least the last century begin their final decline.
We too are caught in a similar double headed trap.
We concentrate on the frontal attack neglecting the oncoming wings of the enemy.
We are in a situation without precedent.
Other civilizations, although huge for their time ,were just isolated features of the Ancient world, but Western Civilization has commandeered the entire world.
The Devastating plagues of the past, have been engineered into oblivion, by the wonderful Health and Hygienic Solutions of this Age.
Massive crops have been easily produced, and so the populations of this world, have been blessed with life.
With the dependable flow of Oil based energy, catastrophes have been overcome.
Reconstruction following total war have proceeded reliably and Destitute Economies have prospered and flourished.
However !
£13 trillion plastic debt needs to be paid for so we are facing a slowdown.
The warming earth has triggered devastating drought in the rice growing areas.
The wheat price is triple that of Oil Seed Rape as more Biofuel is being grown.
China the workshop of the world is cashing in on the hard work of its factories.
The Chinese workforce has begun to eat Corn fed meat instead of Tofu.
The world is changing so rapidly that the future is hard to fathom.
Will the Hydrogen/Oxygen membrane work reliably in the world's cars or will they be potential hydrogen bombs?
Can we feed the food animals on vat grown yeasts instead of cereals.
It appears that the leaders of the world are asleep at the helm.
They are perhaps caught between the need to stay unflappably calm in the teeth of the oncoming disaster and the necessity to formulate strategies to deal with unspeakable horror.
If they are, indeed working out ways to control our descent into the madness of anarchy, a world without any of the accepted frameworks of this life.
We are more than trapped, we are marooned high and dry on a desert island of concrete surrounded by sterile dust where not even weeds will now grow. The countryside that did once provide us with wild food has gone. Even the fields are the wrong colour.
We are utterly Dependant on Oil products to feed the planet.
Yet, foolish rules impede our escape!
Plants that produce viable seeds have been banned and have to be exchanged like narcotics.
What madness is this?
Horse manure is termed industrial waste and cannot be sold. [At least its still there].
Fishing is illegal without paying the fishing licence tax.
Somehow,Robin Hood killing the Kings Deer seems rather tame. The Merrie Men of Sherwood did not have to share their lunch with 6 billion hungry souls.
As the World warms up once again,causing the Vegetation and Animals to adapt rather more rapidly than in the recent past.
As the Oil fields that have fed and powered this Civilization for at least the last century begin their final decline.
We too are caught in a similar double headed trap.
We concentrate on the frontal attack neglecting the oncoming wings of the enemy.
We are in a situation without precedent.
Other civilizations, although huge for their time ,were just isolated features of the Ancient world, but Western Civilization has commandeered the entire world.
The Devastating plagues of the past, have been engineered into oblivion, by the wonderful Health and Hygienic Solutions of this Age.
Massive crops have been easily produced, and so the populations of this world, have been blessed with life.
With the dependable flow of Oil based energy, catastrophes have been overcome.
Reconstruction following total war have proceeded reliably and Destitute Economies have prospered and flourished.
However !
£13 trillion plastic debt needs to be paid for so we are facing a slowdown.The warming earth has triggered devastating drought in the rice growing areas.
The wheat price is triple that of Oil Seed Rape as more Biofuel is being grown.
China the workshop of the world is cashing in on the hard work of its factories.
The Chinese workforce has begun to eat Corn fed meat instead of Tofu.
The world is changing so rapidly that the future is hard to fathom.
Will the Hydrogen/Oxygen membrane work reliably in the world's cars or will they be potential hydrogen bombs?
Can we feed the food animals on vat grown yeasts instead of cereals.
It appears that the leaders of the world are asleep at the helm.
They are perhaps caught between the need to stay unflappably calm in the teeth of the oncoming disaster and the necessity to formulate strategies to deal with unspeakable horror.
If they are, indeed working out ways to control our descent into the madness of anarchy, a world without any of the accepted frameworks of this life.
We are more than trapped, we are marooned high and dry on a desert island of concrete surrounded by sterile dust where not even weeds will now grow. The countryside that did once provide us with wild food has gone. Even the fields are the wrong colour.
We are utterly Dependant on Oil products to feed the planet.
Yet, foolish rules impede our escape!
Plants that produce viable seeds have been banned and have to be exchanged like narcotics.
What madness is this?
Horse manure is termed industrial waste and cannot be sold. [At least its still there].
Fishing is illegal without paying the fishing licence tax.
Somehow,Robin Hood killing the Kings Deer seems rather tame. The Merrie Men of Sherwood did not have to share their lunch with 6 billion hungry souls.
Media Silence !
Have you noticed the weather getting warmer - I haven't in fact I am colder than ever and buying far more fuel than ever.
Its just plain cold!
Oh! the Planet is overheating - so we must cut down our emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce our carbon footprint!
What Tosh!
I do agree that the traffic stinks.
Cleaner exhausts would make a welcome difference to the air. Media Silence!
Coal burning power stations - their chimneys should be cleaned - again Media Silence!
How much work is being done to reuse the flue gases?
All that carbon should be put back into the boiler - don't you think?
What ever happened to Combined Heat and Power - Media Blackout!
Is there vital work being done investigating Sheep Farts?
Australia has lots of burping and farting sheep sending methane into the atmosphere.
To be fair the Yanks have prairies full of beef doing the same.
But again what became of Acid Rain and the Hole in the Ozone layer - Media Silence!
OK so if you believe the Carbonari or more accurately the Carbonista Front - Carbon Bad ~ Uranium Good!
So Bright Idea of the Century - put all those radioactive gloves and overalls into a dreaded plastic bag and drop them into the Borneo Subduction Zone where the tectonic plates will take them down the escalator of magma to return from whence they came!
Great Idea !
In Africa, I came across the [very American] Mittleider method of growing food.
A deep wooden frame filled with a mixture of sand, sawdust and fertilizer produced wonderful harvests of fresh, wholesome food. Gee !
Perhaps we should leave Mother Nature in our Pagan Past and step forward into a Bright New Future?
Using the Mittleider method we can grow food on carparks, playgrounds, industrial wastelands, former motorways and so on... Wonderful!
Just imagine, food from a concrete jungle.
Growing food in a sterile sand/sawdust /fertilizer medium banishes weeds and diseases at a stroke!
Perhaps even our farmland could be chemically sterilized and well fertilized and perhaps really good, disease free, fertilizer efficient, weedkiller proof food can be grown there... Great!.... Err... Hmm... but what happens when the oil dries up and the fertilizer costs more than the harvest? 
No Escape!
My brother used to be enthralled by the superb design of a bridge on the [new] Preston bypass.
It was built in two halves, meeting in the centre to rest on a large roller.
Wonderfully simple but from this distant perspective possibly suspicious.
About the same time, on TV, Tracy Island, the home of International Rescue, whenever the Tracy brothersfired up the Thunderbirds, the hidden cave door swung open and two palm trees flattened. [Wallace and Grommit only had the pond flip over].
At the height of the Cold War the Preston bypass morphed into the M6 and the Motorway network.
These superhighways were really designed for jet fighters [there was little traffic in those far off days]. So could that little cantilevered bridge also be swung open in times of trouble - Who Knows?
The excellent Israeli motorways allow a General Mobilisation in 20 minutes!
DJINN
I have used personal computers from their beginning and programmed the web from the start.
I have spent half my life, showing people how they work and built my own machines, as soon as the components became available.
I now see a sea change in all this: nothing will ever be the same again.
Mobile phones destroyed the corded phones [ Video killed the Radio Star ]
Power tools have trained people to put their kit on charge - other wise nothing works
Mobile phone networks now let you check your email on a mountain top, in the middle of a lake, or deep in the jungle.
Hotspots are history! Soon the world will have those superb satellite phones - as seen on TV [news].
However with such elegant Skynet coverage, everyone will be in the crosshairs of clever track and trace kit used by our Lords and Masters.
Gone are the days when your IP address fingered you every one will emit a satnav signal.
The Japanese use this technokit to see where their kids are.
Lurking in the badlands certain Ultra rich princes of the Desert know this only too well and have swopped their Maserati for an Arab Stallion or at least a fast getaway donkey.
The Rothschild cousins used pigeons to make a preemptive strike on the London Stock Exchange before
the "pony express" could bring the news of the victory at Waterloo [a battle censored in French School books].
The US Army Hawks quartering the desert skies for carrier pigeons will go home hungry - these birds are too high tech in these days of terror. The Djinn [genie] of the Mysterious East live in a parallel world to humans.
Only true believers know about them, and they are invisible to The Infidel Armies of the West.
Likewise Mr Laden's son stays below the radar of the modern world by living out of time and using communication techniques of the distant. and very foreign, past
Good Bad & Ugly - News
Long,long ago when I lived in Rhodesia I became very aware of the news.
With the Rhodesian war at its height we listened closely to Radio South Africa,Radio Zambia and the World Service of the BBC.
It was most confusing hearing three quite different versions of the same story.
So what was the truth?
Today it is quite different.
All the news seems to be taken from the same source but a story is either on all networks or not reported at all.
Western Hemisphere news has to be spectacular [the IRA certainly realised this].
News broadcasting appears to be a form of theatre with lovely,glittering celebrities and other beautiful people with a gigantic proportion of the "news" covering the choreographic qualities of various ball games.
the real news cannot get a foothold on this glossy presentation.
Recently when "Torch Rage" reached Olympian proportions in London, Paris and San Francisco and the death of a Princess was re-hearsed once again.The general strike in Egypt caused by the cost of food and the Nationwide Truckers Fuel price strike in USA did not feature at all.
Even the Internet had only a brief mention of these two ugly facts
Evidentially, Bankrupting Truckers and starving Egyptians is not news, when glamour and sequins is.
The News is not censored - the news is managed just as the European, Olympic, Torch Riots will never be seen on TV China.
I cannot see any diffference.
East and West are both presenting the sideshow and not the genuine message.
I was asked the other day how I voted and honestly I was unable to answer, as all the prominent politicians of all colours, sidestep every question.
They are supposed to be in charge of our land but are they really - Who Knows?
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