Help the Bumblebee!

People in usual have a soft spot for the bumblebee - that little plump creature is forever fighting with its helter-skelter way of flying while it is humming so lovely - a symbol of a sunny day in the garden or a summer day out in the country.

When the bumblebee-queen wakes from her winter sleep, it is early spring. The bumblebee endures low temperatures better than the honeybee, but in many places the cultural landscape is a problem for the bumblebee. It has lost terrain because of corn crops, lesser and lesser windbreaks and almost no earth banks or stone fences , which means that the bumblebee has been declining during the last decades.

A garden owner is able to help the bumblebee to get started in the early spring by i.e. planting Goat willow, crocus, Christmas rose and early flowering heather, which is good food for the bumblebee in the early spring. Nest-places can be established by leaving part of a woodpile or a bundle of twigs - or maybe build a small stone fence in the garden. A nesting box for the tit with a hole of two centimeters diameter could be a fine home for the bumble bee.

Source: Natur og Miljø, Nr. 1 March 2010, article by Jan Skriver.


Bumblebee with flower dust on its back.

photo : grethe bachmann

Healthy Cleaning !

                                                                                                        

Thst's not me ! but I was impressed by this girl and her laundry . It's at a public resort in Mols Bjerge so she is used to tourists!

Well maybe  it's time to do some extra cleaning in the house after summer ? I saw this below advice in my weekly magazine. I think most of us know these advice from out mothers, don't we? But we forget them. They are so easy - besides they are good for people who suffer from allergies and they are good for the climate indoors. 

Maybe I don't need to go and buy all those cleaners, although I buy them green. I've got lemon, vinegar, baking powder, salt and maize starch in the house. That's enough - and then there'll be money for something else. Maybe chocolate or a delicious cake for the afternoon coffee - or do you prefer something more healthy? 


1) Lemon.
Use it for making chrome and brass shine. (Mix the lemon juice with a little olive oil.  This is the perfect solution for wooden surfaces. ) Lemon can also remove the calcium scale in the bathroom.

2) Vinegar
Use it to desinfect and clean your bathroom: sink,toilet, floor etc. Can salso be added to water in order to clean windows  (you don't need fine cloths to clean windows, old newspapers are fantastic). Vinegar is also fine as a fabric softener because it removes calcium in the laundry and leaves it soft and without vinegar smell.

3) Baking Powder
Effective and simple cleaner of surface. It is good if you want to remove difficult spots. It is also a fine remedy in order to absorb bad odor.

4) Salt
Mixed with lime juice it can be used to remove rust. It can also be used as a peeling on the skin.

5) Maize Starrch
Functions as a means for cleaning windows, polishing furniture and cleaning carpets.

Have fun!

Alternative Building - Living Houses

Nørre Snede

cedar

built in cedar wood

clay

blue mussels on the roof.

the round corners show the use of straw.

                                                                                                                    

In a parcelling in the southern outskirt of the town Nørre Snede in Mid Jutland is an interesting building project of sustainable houses. Living houses. Materials like straw, clay, cedar, blue mussels etc.

blue mussels on roof

In the local plan for the parcelling "Skovdalen" is  determined that the buildings must be built according to sustainable principles. The building must in material-production, establishment and daily use affect the environment as little as possible, evaluated from a comprehensive accounting.

It is not allowed to use impregnate wood, glass fiber- or rockwool products and other materials, which can affect the environment.

The heating must be CO2 neutral, like: passive solar heating, non-polluting heating with straw, wood etc. Primary heating sources must not be based on fossil fuels or electricity from the public net.

Local sustainable sanitation must be established by the help of root zone systems, sand filter, willow-cleansing systems or alike effective cleansing systems, which comply the existing environment requirements. The amounts of wastewater, which have to be cleansed, can be  minimized by the use of composting toilet and/or WC, which use grey wastewater. WC can also be established by using collected rainwater.

Several property owners can join in establishing a common solution.

The Grundejerforeningen (property owner union) establishes local sorting and collecting of waste and a possibility for local recycling.

The starting point is that pesticides, insecticides and fungicides must not be used in the area.

The present town Nørre Snede lies upon a large hillside, but the Iron Age people built their village downside the hills. 
  
From the new building area in Skovdalen you've got a view to the place where an Iron Age village was found in an excavation some years ago. The longhouses in Nørre Snede were a little smaller than the wellknown houses from the Iron Age village in Vorbasse. ( the biggest was 36 meter long)  Each longhouse stood in the middle of a square fencing together with one or two small buildings, and the farms were placed in long rows. The stables were in the west end of the house, the living section to the east, which is contrary to the usual Iron Age house There are six building stages of this village, where they have moved the village to the next place,close to the previous - and the houses are the same from ab. year 400 until the 600s.




photo: grethe bachmann

In the Summer Country...

"I can forgive you your long winter when I meet your summer", someone said recently about Denmark's  climate. I don't remember who. No matter. It's true. I forget the long dark winter days, when summer arrives with the sunny days and white nights. The windy days with rain and thunder will hit you now and then, but the next day mother sun comes back and smiles at you.

The summer country is lovely - fortunately there are still lots of places to enjoy. I know so many places by heart, especially in Jutland,  but something has changed. And it has changed radically. I saw the beginning of the change last year and the year before, but this year it is more striking. The fallow-fields are hastily disappearing; the land has been ploughed up.

I spent one day upon the island of Mors in Limfjorden in North Jutland this week. Each corner is now cultivated, almost to the edge of the lake and the river. There were some moist grazing meadows along the coast, but they are not fit for cultivating. They still lie there beautiful and flowering along the sea, peacefully grazed by cattle and horses.

When I came home from my vacation, there was some writing about this in the news. It is called the largest nature scandal in Denmark for 20 years. Denmark has lost wild nature in an up till now unseen extent. The agriculture has now with licence from the government ploughed up 1320 km2 nature rich areas from 2007 till 2010. This is almost 12 % of our whole nature area. "This is a colossal loss of biological diversity," says Carsten Rahbek, professor in makro-ecology.

It's depressing to visit the summer country knowing that there are now lesser space for plants and animals. Species of plants, butterflies and other insects disappear. They cannot find a place to live, when their habitats disappear. And they don't come back. They just die out.




But there is still some beautiful living nature in the summer country.


photo: grethe bachmann

The Bee is Wiser than they thought....

Scientists have discovered so much by the help of the fantastic computers through the last years, but they have also found out that the little busy bee can be both faster and smarter than any computer. The small-brained bees have solved a mathematic problem, which might keep modern computers working for days and days.

Two scientists from two London universities have found out that bees learn to fly the shortest possible distance between the flowers, dependent on the order, in which they have discovered the flowers. In other words; the bees have solved the classic mathematic problem "The Travelling Salesman".

The challenge about this "travelling salesman" has been formulated and solved by a clever Irish mathematician, Sir William Rowan Hamilton, and it deals with the problem of a salesman, who has to visit several cities once via the shortest possible route.

Computers can solve this by comparing the lenghts of all possible routes and then choose the shortest. The bees solve this as the first animals without any help from a computer. A scientist from The School of Biological Science explains that foraging bees solve this complex mathematical problem each day. They visit numbers of flowers each day - and since they need large energy ressources to keep on flying, they must find a route, which makes the flying trip as short as possible. And they know how........

Source: Danmarks Naturfredningsforening, "Natur og Miljø", nr. 4, 2010, News.


 photos Svinkløv:grethe bachmann

The Honey Bee is in Danger

Life has gradually become an obstacle race for insects like honey bees - they live by flying from flower to flower and return to their large family with pollen and nectar which they change into honey.

Poison, slurry and gigantic corn fields do not harmonize with the bees' need for a clean environment with lots of flowers, bushes, trees and various crops. The development of the industrial agriculture has created a visible distance between the flowers in the landscape, and the population of Danish bee-families have gone from ab. 200.000 in the years around 1950 till ab. 80.000 in these years. The work of honey bees from early spring till late autumn is of crucial importance for the diversity in the nature.

The honey bees are among the most important assistants for the fertility of the flora. Also for the hundreds of plant species which are used in farming, foresting and in the gardens are the bee- pollination of crucial importance. Crops like winter rape and clover are completely dependent on the bee-pollination. Also all plants which seed, like fruit trees, berry-bushes and other similar plants. Danmarks Jordbrugsforskning (research) has estimated that the Danish honey bee- pollination only in the agriculture and in fruit and berry-cultivation represents a value of at least 1 billion kroner. The EU-commission is more concrete in its evaluation of the good deeds of the bees when it's about money. According to EU the bees' work represents ab. three billion kroner a year. (in DK) At the same time is concluded that the value of the pollination of the bees and the following fertility is 30-50 times higher than the value of the honey-production which in Denmark is ab. 60 million kroner a year.

The industrial agriculture has meant that the fields grew larger and larger. Stone-fences, earth banks and lots of hedgerows disappeared, and the distance between the small uncultivated oases for the flowers and bees grew longer and longer.



The verges and ditch-edges were once a study in a diversity of flowers which were good for the honey bees and other pollinating insects. Today are only few plant-species in those places. The heaths are attractive for the bees, but they are now in a crisis, caused by nutrient-rich precipitation. The nitrogen gives several grass species good living conditions at the expense of the heather.

The honeybee and all other pollinating insects lost terrain when 117.000 hectare fallow fields were ploughed and cultivated in 2008 - an area the size of the island Lolland simply disappeared as a habitat for bees.

All in all - the honey bee, the bumblebee, the butterflies and other pollinating insects are in danger. Some species have already disappeared never to return. Fewer pollinating insects will effect us more than we imagine right now - also in our daily economy. Fewer vegetables, berries, fruit will empty our pockets! So it's best for all of us, if there are more uncultivated places for bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects.

Source: Natur og Miljø, Danmarks Naturfredningsforening, Nr. 1, Jan Skriver, Honningbien.

photo March 2010: stig bachmann nielsen, Naturplan Foto

Climatic Changes in Scandinavia


Flowering rape field in November 2009

After October with night frost in several places November has been on the warm side of the freezing point in Denmark. Not one of DMI's meteorological stations has measured just one case of night frost in November and the frost will not appear in the first days to come. Statistically it is unlikely that November ends without frost, this has not happened in Danish weather-history which goes back to 1873. The mildest November until now was in 2000. But today is the 27th of November and still very mild - it seems that the record is about to be beaten.

There were many fields with yellow rape-flowers last Saturday, not as bright yellow as in May of course - and there are small cautious flowers in cherry and magnolia trees.

There is a large focus on the climatic changes and their negative influence on nature. The poles and archipelagos are in risc of being flooded, but the changes are also seen in several other places, i.e. in Scandinavia. The changes do not only strike single species or habitats in the North; the influence is broad on all levels, says a new report about climatic changes in the North, worked out by Nordisk Ministerråd. Their basis were 14 various species, which are indicators and meant to show the influence of the climatic change in various ecosystems. By following these indicators it is possible to follow more general tendencies instead of an indivual development progress. The earlier beginning of the pollen season, the changed distribution of the fish populations and changes in the behaviour pattern of the birds are just a few examples of that the climatic changes have already secured a foothold.

The report is in English and can be downloaded on:

www.norden.org/en/publications/publications/2009-551

Source: DMI, Danmark; Natur og Miljø, Danmarks Naturfredning, November 2009.

photo Mols 21. November 2009: grethe bachmann

The Polar Bear is Growing Smaller

The polar bear grows grows smaller and smaller. Compared to its relatives from the beginning of the 1900s, the polar bear is 2-9 % smaller. The cause is connected to the increased pollution and the strong recduction of the ice cap caused by climatic changes. Cranes of the polar bear from various period have been compared. The discovery was made by scientists from Biologisk Institut and Danmark's Miljøundersøgelser (Environment Investigations).

Source: Natur og Miljø, Danmarks Naturfredningsforening, nr. 4, Nov. 2009.

photo ⓒ Randers Kulturcenter 2009: grethe bachmann

The Polar Bear is Growing Smaller



The polar bear grows grows smaller and smaller. Compared to its relatives from the beginning of the 1900s, the polar bear is 2-9 % smaller. The cause is connected to the increased pollution and the strong recduction of the ice cap caused by climatic changes. Cranes of the polar bear from various period have been compared. The discovery was made by scientists from Biologisk Institut and Danmark's Miljøundersøgelser (Environment Investigations).

Source: Natur og Miljø, Danmarks Naturfredningsforening, nr. 4, Nov. 2009.

photo Randers Kulturcenter 2009: grethe bachmann

Nature in Trouble - our History Disappears

The law about edges
In Frederikshavn the local authority has warned the site owners that they will keep an eye on them if they cultivate the land too close to the edge of the water streams and that there will be consequences if they do.Too much earth, sand and fertilizers end in the water if the law about edges are not kept. 80 km water stream has been controlled in Frederikshavn municipiality, and at 26 site owners was pointed out an exceeding of the demand that there has to be 2 m cultivate-free edges along the water streams.


Nature Protection law §3.
Large sections of the small nature areas in the landscape disappears, although many places are protected by the Nature Protection-law §3. Many nature-protected water holes, meadows and pastures have been covered or ploughed up and made into farm land. It is illegal to destroy nature protected areas. The farmers can be punished with a fine or at worst prison for a year. However the municipalities acknowledge that supervision is insufficient. When the small biotopes in the farm land disappear it can spoil the living conditions for both birds, animals and plants in the Danish nature.



Too late for the nature-protected land
An actual case from Ringkøbing-Skjern shows that it can be without liability to punishment to destroy protected nature areas. 21 hectare §3-protected heath and pastures were ploughed up by a farmer. The offence was so crude that the environment and technical administration of the municipality recommended the politicians to report the site owner to the police and confiscate his profit. The politicians refused this, they remained a passive spectator and settled for that the site owner had just to re-establish the area. They claimed that they had now given a signal that it is not acceptable to cultivate nature-protected land. The farmer had expenses cultivating the field, they said, and now again because he was forced to stop. But it is not as simple as that. When a farmer destroys a nature area it is not an acceptabel solution that he's just asked to re-establish, which is impossible to do. It just means that he cannot cultivate it any more. He has already destroyed the place. It takes up till 50-100 year before the natural contents are back.




Crucial for the Flora and Fauna
A farmer had destroyed an erosion-valley from Ice Age and had picked out 3 other areas with pasture, before the local authority stopped the destruction. It was confirmed that the pastures had never been under plough. The areas cover the Nature Protection law §3, which is crucial for the protection of flora and fauna in the open land and thereby the protection of the biodiversity.


Our history disappears
The dikes disappear. The site owners remove the dikes, which is illegal. The Museum Law says that it is not allowed to change the situation of the dikes, to remove or make passage without a special dispensation. 44 dikes in Horsens area have disappeared. Dikes are historic leading lines in the landscape and visible signs of a part of Danish history, which goes back to Iron Age. The dikes are also important for our nature and animal life and a connecting link between nature areas. Therefore it is very important to keep them, says the Kulturarvsstyrelse. (Cultural heritage). Areas with meadows, heaths and pastures are retreating in Denmark and in the North. Cultivation, forestation and overgrowth have since the end of the 1800s halved the area. This development has meant that Denmark has lost some of its most species-rich nature types - the socalled light- open nature types and cultural biotopes.
West of Frederikshavn is an area with several hills from Bronze age and Stone age, but not quite as many now since a farmer according to Kulturarvsstyrelsen has destroyed many of the thousand years old prehistorics in the area. So not only nature disappears but also grave hills and Denmark's history. A bulldozer can in a few hours destroy what has been here for thousands of years.


Cultivation of set-aside fields removes habitats
Recently the farmers were allowed to cultivate their set-aside fields with a saddening result for the nature. A set-aside field with a rich flora is important to the pollinating insects and butterflies. It is crucial to the insects if the distance between the flora-fields is too long. They cannot survive loosing their habitats. This year I have noticed two set-aside fields in Mid Jutland with a beautiful view over a magnificent landscape and with lots of bumble-bees and butterflies, which have now been planted with fir. The bumble-bees and the butterflies are gone, and in a few years the beautiful view has gone too.



Source: Naturbeskyttelse


photo Jutland 2007-2008: grethe bachmann