City of Bees: A Children’s Guide to Bees is a 30-minute DVD that comes “highly recommended” by Video Librarian (”Editor’s Choice”) and by Educational Media Reviews Online.

“The DVD has a photo gallery of stills from the production, allows instructors to display subtitles, and offers lesson plans correlated to National Standards. A great way to supplement the science curriculum,” said the School Library Journal.

Explore the secret, complex world of honeybees from a child’s point of view. Six-year-old Oliver and his young friends join a beekeeper as he cares for his beehives over the course of a year. The children study everything from how a queen bee rules the hive, the various jobs each bee performs, how bees pollinate and how bees can fly at amazing speeds.

With colorful imagery, learning activities, and remarkable up-close video, viewers of all ages will be enchanted and informed about the remarkable world that is the City of Bees.

The City of Bees DVD is now available for $21.99 at Amazon.com, or for $24.95 if ordered directly from the North American distributor, Choices Inc.

Here is a short preview of the video:

Dick Rogers of Wildwood Labs has released this information about the results of on-going investigations into the presence of Nosema and Nosema ceranae in the Maritime Provinces:

Based on results to-date, it appears that N.ceranae is well established and makes up about 50% or more of cases in surveyed provinces of NS and PEI. More survey work is underway that will shed additional light on prevalence of the two Nosema species.

Our summer and fall Nosema spp. surveys have turned up much more Nosema than we previously assumed to be present at this time of year. Some counts as high as 30 million spores per bee. If left unmedicated, or unresponsive to medication, it is expected that these high levels could play an important role in the loss of bees over winter. Geoff Williams, Acadia University, will have results on the efficacy of medication after he completes his spring 2008 hive assessments.

For those provinces that are interested, we are still able to offer Nosema spp spore count, and N.ceranae ID services.

Meanwhile, researchers for the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association have found Nosema in every one of about 450 samples of bees collected from 25 Ontario beekeepers. More than half of the samples had the “more aggressive strain” called Nosema ceranae, according to a recent statement from the association.

See also:
Parasite found in every Ontario bee sample
CBC News, 22 November 2007
Asian parasite may be to blame for bee deaths
CBC News, 24 July 2007

The Honey Files: A Bee’s Life is an educational video and teacher’s guide set, available now through the National Honey Board.

The focus is, of course, on beekeeping and pollination in the United States, but there’s a great deal here of value to teachers and home-schooling parents in other countries as well.

This 20-minute VHS videotape and 96-page teacher’s guide will have you and your students buzzing! Designed especially for educators of grades 4 - 6, these fun, new educational materials provide information, classroom activities and reproducible worksheets about bees, honey and pollination.

Although the package is designed for grades 4 - 6, much of the material is equally appropriate for more advanced levels as well — and the information contained in the Educator’s Overview sections alone will provide teachers, parents, and older children with a solid understanding of honey bees and their role in nature and agriculture.

Just take a look at the Table of Contents for the Teacher’s Guide:

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It’s not an “old wives’ tale” after all — a spoonful of honey at bedtime really does help children to stop coughing and get a good night’s sleep. Given the recent alarms about the use of over-the-counter cold medicines for young children, this comes as welcome news to parents.

According to a study reported in this month’s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, a spoonful of honey taken 30 minutes before bedtime was as effective in easing cough and cold symptoms in small children as treatment with DM cold medicines, and significantly more effective than giving the child no treatment at all. (It was noted that honey should not be given to children under 1 year of age, because of a rare but serious risk of botulism.)

There is increasing concern about the use of over-the-counter medications to treat symptoms of upper respiratory infections (URIs) in young children. This study randomized 130 children aged 2 to 18 years with cough due to URIs to receive either dextromethorphan, buckwheat honey, or placebo before going to sleep. Honey provided the greatest relief in cough symptoms, and both children and their parents in this group slept better compared with the other groups. Buckwheat honey, but not dextromethorphan, was better than no treatment in relieving nocturnal symptoms associated with URIs.

The study, headed by Dr. Ian Paul of Pennsylvania State University’s College of Medicine, looked at cough frequency, cough severity, the bothersome nature of the cough — and the quality of sleep enjoyed by both the child and the parent.

See:
Effect of Honey on Nocturnal Cough and Sleep Quality in Children
Ian M. Paul, MD, MSc; Jessica Beiler, MPH; Amyee McMonagle, RN; Michele L. Shaffer, PhD; Laura Duda, MD; Cheston M. Berlin Jr, MD
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine
Vol. 161 No. 12, December 2007
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2007;161(12):1121

New Farm Register to Provide Stable Funding to Agriculture Organizations

Press release 07/11/30
FREDERICTON (CNB)

A new Register of Farm Businesses to help support the work done by general farm organizations in the province has been launched by Agriculture and Aquaculture Minister Ronald Ouellette.

The creation of the voluntary register is in line with the recent adoption of the Agricultural Producers Registration and Farm Organizations Funding Act. It will allow agricultural producers to pay registration fees to a Registrar of Farms who will turn them over to accredited general farm organizations for operational-funding purposes.

“General farm organizations in New Brunswick play a critical role in promoting agriculture and speaking on behalf of producers of all types,” Ouellette said. “Stable funding has been a long-standing issue for these organizations, and I am very pleased to implement a system that will give them more resources to do their important work.”

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