Homeowners and apartment dwellers on both sides of the Atlantic are dipping into the yummy hives of bees.

While Homesteaders on our own turf continue to battle it out over naming rights, urban nature dwellers in Britain are taking “local” and “self-sufficiency” to new heights: their rooftops. It’s a trend that’s migrating stateside, but remember you heard it here first. We’re calling it Chim Chimney Beekeeping®.

As a thank you for reading us each day, you’re free to dump the ®.

Here’s how it all started.

In 2008, the British Beekeepers Association reported that the UK bee population had plummeted by as much as a third, citing causes like parasites, insecticides, loss of flowering plants and pollution. In the United States, meanwhile, we’ve been scratching our heads at the mysterious disappearance of bees as well, a condition that we’ve dubbed Colony Collapse Disorder.

It’s a very serious problem worldwide as bees are responsible for pollinating about a third of the world’s food supply. Unless we want to subsist on wind-pollinated foods like wheat, rice, oats and acorns, we need them in our backyards.

The English, renowned for their stiff upper lips, best foot forward, and superlative gardens, have responded by cultivating thriving Chim Chimney Beekeeping communities. UK-wide, there’s an estimated 274,000 bee colonies that produce more than 6000 tons of honey each year with some 44,000 beekeepers managing them; the biggest buzz, though, is happening in London.

According to the British Beekeepers Association, the number of registered Chim Chimney Beekeepers in central London has more than doubled within the past couple of years. There are over 2,500 hives and more than 700 beekeepers. The posh are in on it (the queen’s bees are kept at Buckingham Palace) as well as the middle class, who keep bees in allotments and on rooftops. The enthusiasm for London beekeeping and the resulting honey (considered to be among the best in the world) has prompted annual festivals, international beehive design competitions, eco products, and amendments to the school curriculum.

The Chim Chimney swarm has become so avid that last year the North London Beekeepers Association had to start turning away members. The Guardian calls it the latest environmental movement; we’re calling it the new chicken coop.

Stateside, a city ordinance banning Chim Chimney Beekeeping in New York was overturned last year. Now more than 100 people are keeping hives of their own. Queens, in particular, has become the city’s honey haven having hosted the first ever inter-borough honey festival in the Rockaways last month.

Hoteliers in Boston have also taken it up. The InterContinental Boston houses about 120,000 honeybees on their rooftop apiary. And in Chicago, there are about 4,000 registered beekeepers.

From our vantage, the Chim Chimney trend is one to watch. It’s beneficial to urban dwellers as it’s a kind of Zen and the Art of Beekeeping pursuit. More importantly, it’s good for the bees. City pollinators fare better than rural ones because of the increased range of forage and relative lack of pesticides. It just might be the solution to our global bee conundrum.

Images: The Telegraph; Capital Growth

ExclusiveBreaking news of a mysterious bee death epidemic in SF.

Make a list of the foods you love. Then start crossing out the ones that are pollinated by bees, and imagine never eating them again.

I’d have to say goodbye to avocados, strawberries, squash, almonds, okra, cucumbers, broccoli, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, cantaloupe, beans, peppers, citrus, figs, fennel, and coffee. And it doesn’t stop there. Fully one-third of the foods we eat depend on bees for pollination.

Recent history: Bees are dying all over the place, “colony collapse disorder” enters the national consciousness, a leaked EPA memo points to a particular pesticide, Army researchers enter the fray. In the midst of all of this news, just as it seems scientists might be closer to identifying the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder, a new mysterious bee die-off is happening – right now – in San Francisco.

I discovered this entirely by chance when I met a fellow cookbook author named Penni Wisner at a professional gathering. The day we met, she had just learned that the beehive in her Lower Castro San Francisco backyard had collapsed, practically overnight.  As she told the story of how the process unfolded, everyone in the room was swept away by the heartbreaking mystery of the hive’s demise.

Penni’s hive was set up and administered by Robert MacKimmie, whose business, City Bees installs hives in backyards around the city. He’s there to save the bees, but also to market hyper local honey at farmers’ markets around the city. Residents get honey, a vibrant garden full of pollinators, and the distinctive joy of hosting a hive.

When Penni’s bees arrived in June, she was at first a little afraid of being stung. It didn’t take long for her to discover that the bees were gentle good company that greatly improved her quality of life. She described them as a “wonderful, sweet addition to the backyard environment.” Penni found their flight patterns “fascinating” and told us that when she was working in her garden with the bees, she felt “there was something important going on, like I was among an intelligent form of life that I didn’t understand.” Coexisting with the bees gave her a sense of contentment. And the sweet aroma of the brood became a fixture in her life. Turns out that it’s not the scent of honey, but the brood of baby bees that attracts bears.

Penni described the scent as physical, almost primal: “An elixir aroma of sweetness, and intoxication, like a tropical fruit…sexy and floral, but funky, too.”

One day in early December, she noticed an absence of brood aroma coming from the hive. That’s what first tipped her off that there might be a problem with her bees.

It seemed impossible. On November 1^st, Robert had harvested four gallons of honey; and the hive had been buzzing with contentment and life. Up through Thanksgiving, there had been plenty of activity and the hive appeared healthy and vibrant. On December 5^th, when Penni noticed dead bees outside the hive, she contacted Robert. When the two opened the hive on December 15, there were only about 150 bees out of a probable peak population of 20,000. Stunned, they simply sat down in the yard in shocked silence and grief.

After speaking to Penni, I got in touch with Robert to see if he had any ideas about the cause of the massive die-off. He told me, “it seems like a brand new syndrome because massive bee die-offs at the hive are normally explained by parasitic tracheal mite infestations, not normally a problem in this area, or more often, from a pesticide kill based on agricultural exposure. This current combination of symptoms doesn’t fit what beekeepers have experienced before. These were all strong, robust hives that completely collapsed within weeks or a month. The reported losses are citywide, so pesticide exposure doesn’t seem to be a likely culprit, especially in November.”

He’s just put the word out to other beekeepers in the city and has confirmed that at least six beekeepers have collectively experienced 10 hives with this type of collapse during recent months. Other collapses where the bees completely disappear have also become more numerous in recent years. The circumstances of these specific collapses are entirely different from what is typically seen in a Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which all of the bees disappear, leaving only a queen and a few workers.

“There are new, greater challenges to beekeeping in general, and the ability to keep bees alive has been getting worse during recent years. The past month, it’s just plain bad, though other hives have been completely unaffected,” Robert told me.

Researchers from Davis, UCSF, and San Francisco State are currently analyzing the bee DNA to try to pinpoint the cause of this new die-off, though, because the collapsed bees haven’t been continuously monitored, there can be no indicator of what influences may have changed. For now, it’s too soon to tell how widespread it is. It will probably be at least a month before information is available.

In the meantime, outside of this San Francisco crisis, the media has been abuzz (sorry!) with bee news over the past few months. In October, the New York Times reported that a probable cause of CCD was uncovered by entomologists and army researchers working together. The collaborative team used a military-developed software system to uncover a new DNA-based bee virus, which was then linked to a previously known fungus. Tests on hives that had collapsed found both the fungus and virus present in all cases.

Previously, scientists had thought that a pesticide, specifically one called clothianidin, which is manufactured by Bayer’s Crop Science division, was the likeliest cause of CCD. So this new research looked to be a surprise break-through. Nowhere in the research was Bayer’s pesticide clothianidin mentioned. Shortly after the New York Times story was published, Fortune Magazine revealed that the main scientist involved in the army study had received a funding grant from Bayer. Oops!

Even discounting that appearance of conflict of interest, the army study was hardly conclusive. The virus/fungus combo being present in all collapsed hives doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the only cause of the die off. Another substance could be weakening the bees and making them more susceptible to both. In fact, neonicotinoids, the class of pesticides to which clothianidin belongs, can have cumulative effects on insects that include immune system disruptions and neurobehavioral problems.

On the heels of this news, a leaked EPA memo emerged showing that the core scientific study upon which EPA granted Bayer the conditional registration of clothianidin was deeply flawed, and EPA knew it.

The Bayer-designed study had three major problems: It was conducted on the wrong crop, it was conducted for an insufficient amount of time, and the test fields and control fields were not properly separated. According to this article in Fast Company, the pesticide, though used on other crops, is most commonly used to pretreat corn seeds. MacKimmie told me that concerned parties view the Bayer trials as lacking credibility because instead of testing in the US with neonicotinoid tainted pollen from corn which actually impacts bees, the approved trials were in Canada and used canola.

Whatever the causes, bees are dying, our food supply is threatened, and we have the EPA knowingly approving the use of the pesticide that has been shown to harm bees. Meanwhile, a new and mysterious collapse disorder is unfolding in San Francisco.

It’s time to pay attention to the bees. They might be trying to tell us something.

This is the latest installment in Vanessa Barrington’s weekly column, The Green Plate, on the environmental, social, and political issues related to what and how we eat.

Image: Mike Baird via Flickr

But that’s the old model of city life. Crocodile Dundee wasn’t too far off the mark when he said cities must be friendly because so many people want to live together. They’re the biggest physical expressions of our social nature on this planet. They’re filled with people, every one of them an individual – and so in these eco-conscious times where everyone can step up and contribute, cities are where things happen.

Here are 10 urban trends that will shape of the cities of tomorrow.

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Keep The City Buzzing

Bees are on the wane, and we have no idea why. Entire populations are dying or disappearing as part of the baffling phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Bad news in itself, but the sting in the tale is that without bees, many of our staple crops are doomed. While scientists search for the answers, the urban backyard remedy is obvious – and here’s how it works. Bee hives only need a little land to thrive – and you’d be following in the footsteps of committed enthusiasts like Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L Jackson. Further incentive needed? One word: honey.

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Urban Growth

Escalating food prices, and all that land out back? Put the two together and turning your place into an edible garden is a no-brainer. But even if you’re squeezed into a concreted corner or you’re halfway up a towerblock, there’s still room for some horticultural creativity. Agricultural skyscrapers are on the rise (as it were) but while city-planners develop a coherently green strategy, it’s all about self-expression. Snake some vines over your balcony or up the wall. Let your potted plants grab onto windows and railings. Make your city come alive!

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Up Where The Air Is Green

But whatever is done in the vertical is being done tenfold in the horizontal. Green roofs have captured the urban imagination like no other eco-craze, and it’s not hard to see why: they’re beautiful, they have a deeply practical element, and…did we say how beautiful? Of course there are new architectural challenges that come with having tons of topsoil and greenery piled on your ceiling – and there’s the usual amount of half-hearted bandwaggoning. (Yes, Astroturf is cheating). But wouldn’t it be nice to have a little less of the “concrete”, a little more of the “jungle”? I bet the local wildlife would think so.

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Seed-Bomb It Back To The Stone Age

If you’re heartsick of seeing drab, neglected patches of municipal land blighting your neighborhood…you could be a guerrilla gardener waiting to join the green revolution. “Fighting the filth with forks and flowers”, these law-skirting folk are on a mission to bring budding life to every corner of our cities by any means possible. They sneak out at night with seeds and trowel, beautifying furiously before daylight exposes their efforts to the cops, or they plant greenery while hidden in full view. Sound like your kind of thing? Sign up here (you rebel, you).

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Cleaning The Streets: Electric Cars and Friendly Rides

It’s been on the horizon for years (far too many of them) but now the electric car is starting to make headway in the place it’s best suited for – the urban grid. Where else is it practical to build recharging stations at the kind of density that suits the electric car’s shorter range? Ah, but that’s changing too – some of the models on our 2009 roundup hold enough juice to compare favorably to their gas-powered counterparts. These admirable advances aside, do you really need your own car? If not, and if braving the public transport isn’t an option, grab a lift with someone else – because urban carpooling is here to stay.

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Commute Yourself Slim

In the convenience-drugged city of tomorrow, the only sweat you’ll break is when you’re deciding which button to push. Utopian dream? We say: urban nightmare. We spend our day in the thrall of convenience technology…and then heads straight to the nearest super-expensive gym to compensate. With modern life in full swing, who needs The Onion? Luckily there are architects who recognise the danger and, like Nintendo, are sneaking gyms into our lives without us realising. Their thinking is: why consume electricity when calories can be burnt instead? So the urban fabric gets a healthy makeover, like the much maligned stairwell. Cars are zoned out of existence and replaced with their human-powered counterparts (saving you cash in all sorts of ways). Parks and paths are expanded, and everywhere can be reached by a sidewalk. Healthy commuter, coming through. For specifics, check out the New York City Department of Design + Construction’s Active Design Guidelines.

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

One for Me, One for You…

My mum has a logistics problem. Thanks to some absurdly prolific fruit trees, her freezer is permanently half-full with surplus she has to freeze or it goes to waste. What she needs is a local fruit exchange – a social network (online and offline) that collects and distributes surplus produce for the good of the neighborhood. Take San Francisco’s version, Neighborhood Fruit, working like a foodie’s version of Freecycle – the goods are there for free, you collect them yourself, and first come is first served. If you like free food (ie. if you have a pulse) or want to reclaim your freezer, find your local fruit exchange…and if there’s none at hand, why not start one (pdf)?

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Serving the Needy (With Servings)

Gone are the days that it’s acceptable for shops to chuck unused food away at closing time (and having worked as a barista for a certain worldwide coffee chain, I’ve seen my fair share of that). While up to a third of household groceries still go into the trash, restaurants are acting rather more respectably by offering up their output to local charities and nonprofit organisations, or directly into the hands of the homeless on the street. Check out the National Restaurant Association’s food donation work, and their guide to doing it (PDF).

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

It’s Cheaper Online (or, How We Killed The High Street)

Here’s a phrase to fill a shopkeeper with dread: “No, I won’t buy it here, I’ll get it on eBay / Amazon /Craigslist”. Online retailing is gargantuan business, simply because it’s usually the way to pick up the best goods from anywhere in the globe at the best price. Is it green? With minimal packaging and low overheads, you’t think so – except it’s also the quickest method of wiping out profits for urban retailers and for killing small traders. (Even the big ones aren’t safe – take the fate of Borders UK.) However, counter that with the fact that they’re billion-dollar recycling machines that often do a lot of good.

No matter your view, the bottom line is that online retailing is on the rise – and shopping is changing forever.

• «
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9
• 10
• »

Neighbors are a Big Deal

But why spend money at all? Before money there was bartering, and thanks to the people-connecting power of the Internet, it’s firmly back in fashion (although we wouldn’t say “money is dead” – merely looking a bit peaky). If it fits through the post, it’s being swapped: books, DVDs, clothes, gadgets, plant seeds and tons more. Yet cities are where this is taking place in person, exchanging goods and services and reinforcing social bonds. Bartering binds people together.

And for the more intrepid barterer – why not trade homes with a complete stranger?

Each week here at EcoSalon, the editors choose a post from the archives that we think you’ll love. The original post can be found here.

Images: telmo32, NNECAPA, axiepics, bbjee, ubrayj02, frankh, emrank, Alex E. Proimos, eHow and paul(dex) busy @ work

Want a centuries-old beauty trick? Tie on your sunbonnets and lean in. (Yes, now I am whispering.) Honey is the secret to everything. Okay, maybe not everything, but it comes pretty darn close. It’s the multi-tasker of natural beauty. Cleopatra made milk and honey baths infamous. Poppea, wife of Rome’s Emperor Nero, used milk and honey to maintain a youthful appearance. And best of all? It is everywhere and it is relatively cheap.

From your farmer’s market to local grocer, almost everyone carries a stock of honey. Naturally, you want to try to use organic honey. But beware of green washing – while many claim their honey is organic, it is nearly impossible to discern where the bees which created it foraged. They could have easily been exposed to pesticides, fertilizers and more. Some recommend buying farmer’s market honey, where you can talk to the grower about how his or her bees were cultivated and how the honey was bottled.

So just why is honey so awesome?

It’s a fantastic moisturizer.
Honey is a natural humectant. This means it draws in and maintains moisture, making it an excellent albeit sticky solution for dry skin. Want a great homemade moisturizer? Mix two tablespoons of warm honey with two tablespoons of organic yogurt. Whisk the mixture together and apply to your face for 15 minutes. Rinse with warm water. And try not to annoy any neighboring bees in the process.

It can work as an anti-ager and acne treatment.
Honey helps slough away dead skin cells, renewing skin. It is also packed with antioxidants, which can help combat the signs of skin damage. It also has antimicrobial properties, which makes it an excellent treatment for acne. This means honey can help clear blockage in pores as well as fight bacteria causing pimples. It is much easier on the skin than many of the harsh chemical acne treatments on the market.

It can help heal scars.
As we have already reported, honey is a superstar for scar treatment. Because of its antimicrobial properties, it has been used for centuries to treat wounds. And because it is also a fantastic moisturizer, it can help skin along on the road to recovery. You can place honey on your recovering scar and cover it with a layer of gauze to help along treatment.

It’s good for your hair.
For the same reason it’s a good moisturizer for your skin, honey works great on your hair. Some use it as a deep conditioner. Mix half a cup of honey with one tablespoon of olive oil. Work into your hair and leave for 20 minutes. Rinse like you’ve never rinsed before! Your hair will be soft, silky, and hopefully not too sticky.

It gives you fresh breath.
Worried about your breath? Consider gargling with antimicrobial honey. Mix one tablespoon with a half cup of water. Some suggest throwing in a dash of cinnamon or a squeeze of lemon. Gargle away. And don’t forget to throw a little honey in your tea for sweet, fresh breath.

Image: vickyb

Nature is truly a wonder. The more we know the more we realize we don’t know.

For example, I read in a NY Times article that scientists, in collaboration with the military, may have discovered the cause of the bee population declines. The recent study shows that it has likely been the result of a fungus and virus working together in concert to the bees’ demise. Fungi and viruses in cahoots? So much for our pesticide and air pollution theories. Although, questions remain as to what makes the bees fly off in their death spiral, apparently a common trait of the bee disappearance mystery. “Insect insanity” is one of the proposed theories. Well hey, why not? What creature wouldn’t go crazy on the verge of death?

Once again, fact proves stranger than fiction. Speaking of, did you hear about the 80-foot, 75-ton whale that washed up onshore in California’s San Mateo County? The fact that the blue whale was pregnant is a tragedy. Yet, I couldn’t help but feel awe at the massive size of this ocean beast. The article mentions that the whale’s heart is probably about the size and weight of a VW Beetle. I guess research will never tell us exactly what that whale’s heart was feeling in its last throes. But I do sense the makings of a new indie pop song.

Image: wwarby

Why would a person maliciously kill bees on an urban farm? The Hayes Valley Farm in San Francisco had its bee farm attacked last week. Someone deliberately sprayed pesticide into the vent holes of their honey bee colonies. The result? Over 60 percent of the bees in the colony were killed. More than the money lost, the emotional affect is difficult. The HVF is working hard to create a better urban community only to have a local resident turn on them. It seems there’s been some misunderstanding about bees.

Many farms are focused as much on education, as growing and selling produce. If anything good can come out of this, perhaps it can help raise awareness about the importance of bees in our environment. Bees are an essential part of the ecosystem, pollinating as much as one sixth of the flowering plants in the world and over 100 agricultural crops in the U.S.

Scientists have long noticed that bee populations have been dwindling. Numerous theories abound as to why that’s the case. Be it overuse of fertilizers and pesticides, air pollution from carbon dioxide or cell phone radiation, our bees have been affected. It seems that urban beekeeping has made a significant impact on increasing bee numbers. Let’s hope that urban punks won’t destroy these efforts.

Image: wolfpix

Yellow jackets and bumble bees may be a nuisance when you’re in your backyard or the park, but the seemingly unwelcome picnic guests are one of the most crucial pollinators around. Bees aren’t just responsible for honey; they help pollinate much of our food supply and without them we’d be out of roughly 30 percent of our food crops. The ever-so-important bee population is already depleting, so even if you’re not ready to try backyard beekeeping, you should avoid trapping and killing the little buggers. Instead, try to live harmoniously with them.

Dress the Part

Brightly colored clothing might be fun for summer, but certain hues can bring bees buzzing. If you’re worried about yellow jackets don’t wear bright yellow, orange, florescent red or light blue.

Skip Swatting

Even though you may be tempted to shoo yellow jackets and bumble bees away from your backyard BBQ, the swatting action will only provoke them. You probably won’t get rid of the bees and you may end up with a bee sting instead.

Dine Smart

The foods and drinks at picnics and BBQs can attract bees. Keep all edibles and beverages covered as much as you can. If you notice a bees’ nest nearby, move your festivities or at least stand downwind so the scents of your meal won’t waft into their home. Also, be sure to toss garbage far away from your gathering. And, don’t leave standing water around.

Stay Scent Free

Bees are often attracted to fragrances from scented beauty products including lotions, hair spray and perfumes. So avoiding fragrances may make them less likely to come buzzing in the first place.

Images: gregav, Paul McGuire

If you want a glimpse of our world in centuries to come, stroll round a city. Dystopian-mongering pessimists will now be holding their heads in their hands and groaning. Can we blame them? Urban areas are too commonly associated with poverty, pollution, neglect and a brutalizing of the environment for the sake of a fast buck. Pretty? Only from high up.

But that’s the old model of city life. Crocodile Dundee wasn’t too far off the mark when he said cities must be friendly because so many people want to live together. They’re the biggest physical expressions of our social nature on this planet. They’re filled with people, every one of them an individual – and so in these eco-conscious times where everyone can step up and contribute, cities are where things happen.

Here are 10 urban trends that will shape of the cities of tomorrow.

Keep The City Buzzing

Bees are on the wane, and we have no idea why. Entire populations are dying or disappearing as part of the baffling phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder. Bad news in itself, but the sting in the tale is that without bees, many of our staple crops are doomed. While scientists search for the answers, the urban backyard remedy is obvious – and here’s how it works. Bee hives only need a little land to thrive – and you’d be following in the footsteps of committed enthusiasts like Scarlett Johansson and Samuel L Jackson. Further incentive needed? One word: honey.

Urban Growth

Escalating food prices, and all that land out back? Put the two together and turning your place into an edible garden is a no-brainer. But even if you’re squeezed into a concreted corner or you’re halfway up a towerblock, there’s still room for some horticultural creativity. Agricultural skyscrapers are on the rise (as it were) but while city-planners develop a coherently green strategy, it’s all about self-expression. Snake some vines over your balcony or up the wall. Let your potted plants grab onto windows and railings. Make your city come alive!

Up Where The Air Is Green

But whatever is done in the vertical is being done tenfold in the horizontal. Green roofs have captured the urban imagination like no other eco-craze, and it’s not hard to see why: they’re beautiful, they have a deeply practical element, and…did we say how beautiful? Of course there are new architectural challenges that come with having tons of topsoil and greenery piled on your ceiling – and there’s the usual amount of half-hearted bandwaggoning. (Yes, Astroturf is cheating). But wouldn’t it be nice to have a little less of the “concrete”, a little more of the “jungle”? I bet the local wildlife would think so.

Seed-Bomb It Back To The Stone Age

If you’re heartsick of seeing drab, neglected patches of municipal land blighting your neighborhood…you could be a guerrilla gardener waiting to join the green revolution. “Fighting the filth with forks and flowers”, these law-skirting folk are on a mission to bring budding life to every corner of our cities by any means possible. They sneak out at night with seeds and trowel, beautifying furiously before daylight exposes their efforts to the cops, or they plant greenery while hidden in full view. Sound like your kind of thing? Sign up here (you rebel, you).

Cleaning The Streets: Electric Cars and Friendly Rides

It’s been on the horizon for years (far too many of them) but now the electric car is starting to make headway in the place it’s best suited for – the urban grid. Where else is it practical to build recharging stations at the kind of density that suits the electric car’s shorter range? Ah, but that’s changing too – some of the models on our 2009 roundup hold enough juice to compare favorably to their gas-powered counterparts. These admirable advances aside, do you really need your own car? If not, and if braving the public transport isn’t an option, grab a lift with someone else – because urban carpooling is here to stay.

Commute Yourself Slim

In the convenience-drugged city of tomorrow, the only sweat you’ll break is when you’re deciding which button to push. Utopian dream? We say: urban nightmare. We spend our day in the thrall of convenience technology…and then heads straight to the nearest super-expensive gym to compensate. With modern life in full swing, who needs The Onion? Luckily there are architects who recognise the danger and, like Nintendo, are sneaking gyms into our lives without us realising. Their thinking is: why consume electricity when calories can be burnt instead? So the urban fabric gets a healthy makeover, like the much maligned stairwell. Cars are zoned out of existence and replaced with their human-powered counterparts (saving you cash in all sorts of ways). Parks and paths are expanded, and everywhere can be reached by a sidewalk. Healthy commuter, coming through. For specifics, check out the New York City Department of Design + Construction’s Active Design Guidelines.

One for Me, One for You…

My mum has a logistics problem. Thanks to some absurdly prolific fruit trees, her freezer is permanently half-full with surplus she has to freeze or it goes to waste. What she needs is a local fruit exchange – a social network (online and offline) that collects and distributes surplus produce for the good of the neighborhood. Take San Francisco’s version, Neighborhood Fruit, working like a foodie’s version of Freecycle – the goods are there for free, you collect them yourself, and first come is first served. If you like free food (ie. if you have a pulse) or want to reclaim your freezer, find your local fruit exchange…and if there’s none at hand, why not start one (pdf)?

Serving the Needy (With Servings)

Gone are the days that it’s acceptable for shops to chuck unused food away at closing time (and having worked as a barista for a certain worldwide coffee chain, I’ve seen my fair share of that). While up to a third of household groceries still go into the trash, restaurants are acting rather more respectably by offering up their output to local charities and nonprofit organisations, or directly into the hands of the homeless on the street. Check out the National Restaurant Association’s food donation work, and their guide to doing it (PDF).

It’s Cheaper Online (or, How We Killed The High Street)

Here’s a phrase to fill a shopkeeper with dread: “No, I won’t buy it here, I’ll get it on eBay / Amazon /Craigslist”. Online retailing is gargantuan business, simply because it’s usually the way to pick up the best goods from anywhere in the globe at the best price. Is it green? With minimal packaging and low overheads, you’t think so – except it’s also the quickest method of wiping out profits for urban retailers and for killing small traders. (Even the big ones aren’t safe – take the fate of Borders UK.) However, counter that with the fact that they’re billion-dollar recycling machines that often do a lot of good.

No matter your view, the bottom line is that online retailing is on the rise – and shopping is changing forever.

Neighbors are a Big Deal

But why spend money at all? Before money there was bartering, and thanks to the people-connecting power of the Internet, it’s firmly back in fashion (although we wouldn’t say “money is dead” – merely looking a bit peaky). If it fits through the post, it’s being swapped: books, DVDs, clothes, gadgets, plant seeds and tons more. Yet cities are where this is taking place in person, exchanging goods and services and reinforcing social bonds. Bartering binds people together.

And for the more intrepid barterer – why not trade homes with a complete stranger?

Images: telmo32, NNECAPA, axiepics, bbjee, ubrayj02, frankh, emrank, Alex E. Proimos, eHow and paul(dex) busy @ work

One-third of our world’s growing fields rely on the European honeybee, the type of bee kept by beekeepers in western countries. But according to a study conducted to solve the mysteries of CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) honeybees are dying of infections that are difficult to identify and cure.

Research highlighted in Scientific American finds there are many possible contributing factors but no single culprit in the deaths of colonies. Bees suffering from CCD appear to be infested with multiple pathogens (including a newly discovered virus) and solving the problem may require “taking better care of the environment and making long-term changes to our beekeeping and agricultural practices.”

As I’ve described in past posts on CCD, many of the varieties of super foods and fruits and vegetables we consume -  apples, blueberries, broccoli and almonds – are greatly at risk as they require bees to flourish. The study reports that even before the onslaught of CCD, farmers watched their honeybee populations diminish because of a number of ailments.

While colonies have always collapsed, the drop in 2006 was major. The population was estimated at around 2.4 after the disorder took out colonies in large numbers, reducing the overall population to half of what it was in 1949. The losses got worse in 2007 and 2008. So much attention has been focused on this issue that there even is a website devoted entirely to CCD news, opinions and research.

SciAm says the concern now is not the extinction of our friend the honeybee but rather the disappearance of the skilled bee keeper.

“If beekeepers’ skills and know-how become a rarity as a result, then even if CCD is eventually overcome, nearly 100 of our crops could be left without pollinators and large-scale production of certain crops could become impossible,” states the report. It says we would still have starchy staples like corn, wheat, potatoes and rice, but much of the important and nutritious food we consume today we become “the food of kings.”

Here are a few major points from this important research:

• Millions of beehives worldwide have emptied out as honeybees mysteriously disappear, putting at risk nearly 100 crops that require pollination.
• Research is pointing to a complex disease in which combinations of factors, including farming practices, make bees vulnerable to viruses.
• Taking extra care with hive hygiene seems to aid prevention. And research into antiviral drugs could lead to pharmaceutical solutions.

Image: Kuribo

One of my favourite winter fruits is the clementine – it’s small and sweet, easy to peel, packs a punch with the vitamin C and it typically doesn’t have any pesky seeds.

Wait a minute! The only reason it doesn’t have seeds is because the orchard keeper has kept bees from pollinating the fruit. A seedless clementine – or any other variety of mandarin citrus such as a tangerine – attracts such a premium that growers in California want legislation to force beekeepers to move away or reduce hive density. The beekeepers would prefer the farmers netted their orchards instead. Neither side seems willing to budge.

The other reason bees are a pain for clementine growers is that they like to be able to spray their crops for pests and they’re not allowed to if there are bees nearby. As an environmentalist, I’m not so keen on pesticides and don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

The only reason that growers want seedless fruit is because consumers prefer it but if seeded varieties were the norm, then I believe consumer attitudes would soon adjust.

I like seedless clementines as much as the next person, but I’ll put up with the seeds if it keeps the bees happy, and not just because I like honey. Bees are an essential part of our eco-system and most agriculture (with the exception of clementines, bees are unambiguously welcomed by most farmers). Without bees we would lose a huge variety of wildlife and an estimated one third of our food crops.

If ornery clementine growers were the only problem bees had to contend with it wouldn’t really matter. Yet the fact is that the humble honey bee is under severe threat on both sides of the Atlantic and we could have less than a decade to save them. So they need all the help they can get and if that means seeds in my clementines then so be it.

If you are in California, you could consider writing to your local lawmakers and outlining your concerns – it’s the California Department of Food and Agriculture that is making the decision. Also see 5 ways to help stop Colony Collapse Disorder to take further action.