Anyone think Himalayan Balsam is a good idea?

[PaleoPerson]

Man not part of nature ? Whose definition are you using (surely not the "And man shall have dominion over all"?) quote from the bible!
Sybiotic was an obvious typo, your reference to it doesn't display a good example of netiquette .

A man pulps wood and manufactures paper (artificial)
A wasp pulps wood and manufactures paper (natural)

A man preserves fruit by manufacturing a heavy sugar syrup (artificial)
A bee concentrates sugar into honey (natural)

A man cultivates crops (artificial)
An ant prunes and manipulates fungi to increase fruiting heads (natural).

I could go on all day .
Even the bower bird creates a bower decorated with "Pretty" objects to impress a potential mate !.
Like it or lump it , things are and will continue to be moved around the planet, if the situation suits ,then over growth will happen ,in the fullness of time a balance will be struck.
The world has been in a state of flux since its inception , it relies on change in order to survive.
I'm afraid "the weakest go to the wall" applies today as indeed it always did.

John Wilkinson

Hooray, someone who has a grasp on whats going on around them (although I may have an issue when it comes to separating us from wasps, ants and bees, but that will take a few beers to get THAT discussion going).

Most people enjoy surviing in a sterile environment that has little or no variation. The ONLY constant that this planet has to offer is CHANGE.

For good or bad, we have to live with it at all levels, the changes can be detrimental, benefical, minute, catastrophic, accidental, intentional etc etc. This is what we have to live with. Welcome to Planet earth.

Apologies for being curt, I see a lot of the earths history in my other hobby (palaeontology), and believe me, we ain't seen nothing yet!

 

[Geoff]

Man not part of nature ? Whose definition are you using (surely not the "And man shall have dominion over all"?) quote from the bible!
Sybiotic was an obvious typo, your reference to it doesn't display a good example of netiquette .

John Wilkinson

I suspected it was a typo. However as the word symbiotic does not apply to the example you gave i gave you the benefit of the doubt. You then seem to state that man is part of nature then go on to give examples of modern man's activities that are artificial. I am sure you can find examples of man as part of nature if you can find tribes that still operate within the local ecosystems. But does man stop being part of nature when he starts changing the environment permanently ie. settled agriculture? Its a grey area.
The channel 4 prog was done by somebody who misrepresented the evidence for climate change. Its not a plot by politicians or anyone else. What annoys me is that the politicians ignored the evidence until it was probably too late. You did get climate change naturally during the Ice Age as CO2 levels rose and then fell. However what we are experiencing now is very rapid. Global warming was known about over 30 years ago but those with vested interests chose to ignore it. My specialisms were climate, soils and ecosytems. I find it sad that it has taken this long for it to get into the public domain.

 

[JCBrum]

gw is ot.

 

[Marvin]

gw is ot.

What?

 

[Hombre]

Global warming is over the top? Just guessing at the context.

 

[JCBrum]

Nearly right, global warming is off-topic. We should be considering H Balsam. sorry.

 

[topographic]

At least balsam can be easily killed off - if you strim it twice in a season and prevent it from setting seed, that's it, it is dead. Knotweed on the other hand is very hard to kill.

Problem is that it has spread into places difficult to access and is growing on a scale that makes strimming unlikely to curtail its spread.

With regard to Darwin and the best suited surviving...it is man who has introduced such species and it threatens the diversity of our ecology. What constitutes indigenous is a difficult question but with regard to balsam and knotweed these are no brainers.

 

[SJH]

This is how I sum it up

Himalayan Balsam is an introduced exotic species
Varroa is an introduced exotic species

Himalayan Balsam is harmful to plant species not evolved to compete or coexist
Himalayan Balsam is beneficial to bees in the short term, until it overruns other beneficial plant species.

Varroa is not beneficial to bees (A.m)

Varroa evolved with Apis cerana. If you want to be Darwinian / evo-devo, Apis mellifera do not have the required genes for survival and so are being "selected out". Either humans intervene or the bees evolve resistance or they die out.

 

[Chris B]

The answer is easy....

If Hugh F-W or Jamie Oliver invents a salad that includes balsam flowers in the ingredients and goes on prime time telly to push it, then the problem will disappear. Didn't Hugh do something similar with the American crayfish?

Or better still, David Cameron confessing he used to smoke Himalayan Balsam in his student days?

On a serious note, I've got bees working the stuff like mad, but no significant honey appearing in the hives. It's not even evident in vacated brood frames really. Is it just me?

 

[Finman]

.
You cannot do nothing. Enjoy it.

 

[wbchive]

Finman, do you have it in Finland?

Steve

 

[victor meldrew]

HB flowers until the first frosts, wasps survive until about the same time (brood rearing for wasps is now over) Wasps work balsam like mad , when they're on the balsam they're leaving my hives alone ,which has got to be an added bonus !

John Wilkinson