Hard News: Mediocrity Watch
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Not for all crims, though...
At first I was like "Que?", but then... Well played!
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New Zealand has a fair few native bees, I have an idea they're loners or have simple societies (like bumblebees) and so don't produce collectable honey which may be why they're not much taken notice of, but they're plenty good at polinating.
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I guess they're they ones sucking up the native flowers?
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Cicadas
I have tinnitus. I hear cicada song, quite loud, 24/7 ...
That's the description I use when describing the condition to others, anyway.
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I describe it as like cicadas you can't hear... if that makes sense. Until you listen for them.
Or like an invisible balloon that you know is red.
But maybe mine isn't that bad yet.
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I always likened it to crickets (the full-on night-time chorus).
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We have at least 32 species of native bees: all of them -as far as we know-are solitary.
They contribute significantly to native plant fertilisation along with birds and wind etc.. Some will collect kiwifruit pollen (and maybe assisting fertilisation, and a couple species that go to native broom, also go to lucerne and sweet clover. Other native bee species have been seen visiting barassica spp. & carrot flowers.Introduced honey bees arnt common here in Big O (most of the hives are in rata or kamahi-rich areas) but I have noticed a large increase in bumble bees over the last couple of years...the cicadas, sadly, sang their dying yesterday. Today, they are completely silent.
Wasps are currently rare (there are wasp years here, like rat years, and both dependent on unusual availability of food cocommitant with a drop in human control measures.) Ladybirds are uncommon at any time (but waua! Were they exceedingly common in the tobbaco fields in Motueka decades ago!) However, I think (no photographic evidence) that the little Japanese/Asian damsel fly has made it this far south-
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Good info Hilary - I note, sadly, that no West Coast consultation is planned at all. And we do have a substantial diffabled population (especially including people with mental handicaps - a hangover from the Seaview days...)
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t's a bit tough to blame Ryall who has his sights firmly fixed on better medical services when Helen Clark etc had loads of time and ideology to move on pay equity.
She did. Ryall canned it. But I feel bound to point at that Ryall has had his sights fixed on the area where there has been political mileage -- elective surgery -- rather than those that a more strategic approach might have prioritised. So I'm not sure it's "tough" to find fault with him n this case.
The special ed lobby has won some substantial victories but, as in all public services, there has to be a balance and also fairness for all kids.
I recoil a bit at the use of the word "lobby", frankly. It suggests a degree of sway that really isn't there.
Our system has long been underpinned by the the idea that every child has the right to an education. The practice doesn't match the theory; not nearly. I think it would be a matter of "fairness" if it did.
As a nation we also have to decide the best use of limited resources and dollars and that always means some groups are going to grumble.
It's been a long day and I'm really not going to go there, apart from pointing out that over the years I've contributed quite a lot to those limited resources ...
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The people affected by the canning of the pay equity investigations are the support staff in schools who are represented by NZEI. They are mainly female and are paid out of the school operations grant mainly. In our school we have around 10 working with children who have educational and behavioural needs. In my class I have 2 mildly Autistic kids and the Teacher Associate I have for the whole day is invaluable. We've chosen to do this and it eats away at our operations budget but it's necessary for these children and their teachers. The NZEI have campaigned for a while now for these people to be paid by central govt. to free up money in the school's budgets but nothing much has happened. Support staff therefore are low paid for a number of reasons including the low hours they work and their pay rate. NZEI has in the last few years endeavoured to make the occupation more professional and our school we do this by assisting them gain qualifications. We as teachers really value these people and the work they do. Unfortunately under this government I can see their situation not improving and possibly going backwards. My rael fear is that when my collective agreement runs out next year that teachers will also end up in the same boat-bulk funding, paid from the operations grant, individual contracts etc.
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We have at least 32 species of native bees: all of them -as far as we know-are solitary.
I didn't know that, actually; thought we probably had some, though, which is why I specified honeybees and bumblebees. It's remarkable how many bee species do not fall into those two categories, despite popular perception. The fact that they've been seen pollinating brassicas is very interesting - but I doubt we'd ever see them take over pollination of ouir major commercial crops, should the worst happen to our introduced populations. The necessity of honeybee and bumblebee introduction is actually an interesting example of how importing European farming to here involved importaing the European ecosystem to a very large degree.
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Kia ora Lucy - I'm going by a quite old article from the ODT?The CHCH Press? written by Pat Quinn entitled "Museum Pieces" (a lot of my library is in storage so I cant get at later, more authoriative stuff.)
You're totally right about the importation of Euro crop/eco system thing - but it is interesting that some native bees are wandering outside norms, eh? -
You're totally right about the importation of Euro crop/eco system thing - but it is interesting that some native bees are wandering outside norms, eh?
I'd be really interested to know if the varroa problem has at all affected this, or maybe even encouraged it. I might ask around the bio department and see if anyone's doing research in the area.
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Cindy: Interesting that about the 18 degrees.(My Brother-in-law is a salmon expert and says that if the river water temp is above 17 degrees the salmon won't run so go home!)
Once when in the bush at Pelorus late in the afternoon the cicadas suddenly and abruptly just stooped singing. Dead silence for about 10 minutes then slowly a few started up again. I wonder if your bit about the temperature needing to be above 18 degrees was the answer. Mmmm? -
I'd love to hear results Lucy - varroa isnt a big problem on the Coast (it hasnt surfaced yet at all) and we have other environmental factors that could be somewhat significant. Cheers. n/n Insectlover
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Ian MacKay - cicadas will stop clapping/singing/stridulating when there are, temporarily, not enough males around; when there is a perceived predator, or when either temperature or barometric pressures drop (that later applies to a lot fish also, including salmon.)
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Thanks Islander.
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Nothing I've found yet indicates that the varroa are affecting any bees except honeybees. Would be interesting to hear from an expert.
We have at least 32 species of native bees: all of them -as far as we know-are solitary.
Not quite all according to one source. But they don't actually say which 3 species are social, or why they think this.
It is curious despite the massive transplantation of European ecology how much that is native survives, and how weak the introduced species can be when not supported by the entire backdrop of European horticulture. I often wonder how much of European flora and fauna are really that native either. As in, the prevalence of certain forms of life in Europe may have a lot more to do with the number of humans than the particular geographical location.
To me, it was one of the most striking observations I made in my last trip to Germany - that there seemed to be almost nothing wild at all. No part of the place had not had humans walking all over it, tweaking it here and there, killing this, encouraging that, for thousands of years . Tens of thousands, maybe. NZ is a pretty wild place, still.
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Bees: Some of the visibility of bees could be a rise in urban beekeeping.
We got concerned about pollination of fruit trees and garden crops and decided we should do something about it. Now we have a couple of beehives on our place in Pt Chev.
The bees apparently range up to 3km, but I think they won't usually need to go that far. It's definitely made a difference locally.
There are many others with hives in other Auckland suburbs. In Pt Chev there are at least three home apiaries that I know of, and a larger apiary at the beekeepers club at Unitec.
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BenWilson - yup. The info apropos native bee social behaviour is equivocal, but I'd be happy to learn new info-
Euro imports to any 'foreign lamd' - i.e here- *have* to be supported, by physical species in appropriate regemes and an awful lot got left behind (soil flora e.g)-
I agree BenWilson: a lot of importations into the British Isles (let alone the area known now as Germany) were & are trampled species - and, goodness knows, those places have been footworn for -at least- 150,000 thousand years of hominoid/homonim/humanoid walkabout-
at best informed guess-backed-by-evidence, there have been NO humans in Aotearoa before approx. 1000BPE. We're latecomers to a rare and lovely land, and we've already destroyed a lot *
*My Kai Tahu ancestors arrived in the South in the late 1700s: those before us - fellow Polynesians- in some instances, direct-lineage relations- had been here for nearly 600 years. There is NO evidence, whatsoever, for earlier human settlement-
the native vegetation, in a lot of instances, survives almost everything: aue! not the birds or the amphibians or the insects (and I suspect, not a lot of the arachnids - one of neighbours, now dead alas, talked of 'tree spiders. really big green buggers."
I've never seen those.)
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It is always interesting to see the huge varity of spiders when accidentally or otherwise breaking open a mason bees nest.
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Ian Mackay - predators upon predators upon-
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I recoil a bit at the use of the word "lobby", frankly. It suggests a degree of sway that really isn't there.
Our system has long been underpinned by the the idea that every child has the right to an education. The practice doesn't match the theory; not nearly. I think it would be a matter of "fairness" if it did.
I sure as hell hope that it won't take a Seung-Hui Cho or a Dylan Klebold to pull the issue out from under the carpet.
And do I detect more than just a whiff of educational Darwinism with the impending NCLB-style regime? Furthermore in practice, voucher schemes and law-of-the-jungle zoning haven't led to parental choice but rather headmaster choice.
I.e., "Thanks for your interest. Unfortunately your child's application to our grammar college has been declined."
Translation: "Thanks for your interest. Unfortunately your child's application to our grammar college has been declined, because we think your child is a godless antisocial time-bomb who will threaten the safety of our students and our league table position."
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As in, the prevalence of certain forms of life in Europe may have a lot more to do with the number of humans than the particular geographical location.
Start with nearly everything humans cultivate (largely middle eastern), add in quite a few of the fruit crops...as Islander says, Britain in particular is an almost *completely* artificial environment; even the rabbits are introduced. Those cute grey squirrels you see in Hyde Park? Introduced. The major native predators? Wiped out centuries ago. Humans have really created their own ecosystem and exported it everywhere possible. And it can have long-term effects; we think of climate change as related to big industry, but you can have a not-insignificant impact with stone axes and goats, over a long enough period.
Bee-wise, I did a quick search of the literature and it looks like the main areas of research and concern are whether native bees are being out-competed on native flora by honeybees and bumblebees, and whether introduced bees are mainly responsible for spreading weeds or not. There also seems to be a lot of "er, well, if someone gets around to researching them, we'll know." As of a 2003 paper, there was no evidence in New Zealand of introduced bee parasites affecting native populations, but there was some for the other way around. The author also seemed fairly certain that transmission of parasites was likely to happen, but just hadn't been studied well enough yet.
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BenWilson:
It is curious despite the massive transplantation of European ecology how much that is native survives, and how weak the introduced species can be when not supported by the entire backdrop of European horticulture. I often wonder how much of European flora and fauna are really that native either.
Isn't it fascinating. I came across a description of Europe somewhere as "a weed-infested peninsula off Asia". Large tracts of NZ, e.g. Waikato and Canterbury, have lent themselves rather better to a eurocultural makeover than the more unforgiving Australian ecology.
The changes seem to be ongoing, too. For example, paradise ducks were barely seen a decade ago in the semi-reclaimed swamp that constitutes much of Christchurch. Now they're aggressively asserting themselves everywhere. Sparrows were common in Sydney when I lived there through much of the 70s. By the early 90s exotic mynahs seemed to have displaced them. Natives ibises and rainbow lorikeets were rarely seen, now they're extremely common. It's been claimed that a major drought in the early 80s drove them to the city and they never left.
. . . one of the most striking observations I made in my last trip to Germany - that there seemed to be almost nothing wild at all. No part of the place had not had humans walking all over it, tweaking it here and there, killing this, encouraging that, for thousands of years. Tens of thousands, maybe. NZ is a pretty wild place, still.
Thanks for that. I was surprised recently - though I guess I shouldn't have been - to discover that Austria and Hungary manage their largely 'native' and 'wild' deer populations with massive winter feeding programs in national parks.
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