The Africanized Bee Myth

...ees is just that, hysteria. I have helped move many hives here from walls, trees and kitchen vents to people who have wanted to have bees. Most likely, all of the hives I have moved have been Africanized. I have yet to encounter a feral hive that I would consider aggressive. Africanized bees should not be used as an excuse to ban beekeeping in Los Angeles or anywhere else that has Africanized bee populations. The people fanning the Africanized bee...

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Saturday Tweets: Playing Chicken, Healthy Eating and Fixing Stuff

...World https://t.co/cORNiMpRrh — Root Simple (@rootsimple) November 9, 2016 Trees Please!! These sweltering cities could be much cooler and cleaner if they planted more trees https://t.co/rFJW8jtu0U via @voxdotcom — Root Simple (@rootsimple) November 4, 2016 Top Garden Trends for 2017 | Garden Design https://t.co/gLWfCUMCWl — Root Simple (@rootsimple) November 5, 2016 Huh. Kind of intriguing: Using jellyfish to make eco-friendly tampons, diapers an...

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Camping on Halloween Night

...t significant rain in maybe 9 months or so. All night long the wind in the trees roared and boomed–it sounded like waves crashing on rocks. The rain sheeted down on my tent while the wind shook the sides. (A five year old tent which has never been tested in the rain–that’s SoCal camping for you!). It did not leak, thank the Great Pumpkin. I have to say, I have never been happier on any Halloween. At dawn I woke up to a world soggy and remade. The...

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Saturday Tweets: Goodbye 2018

..., but Milarch and his son, Jake, discovered living tissue growing from the trees’ roots…” Giant coast redwoods, cut down in the 19th century, successfully cloned. https://t.co/FHL7Nzgj6H pic.twitter.com/dsAFkVoUp2 — Geoff Manaugh (@bldgblog) December 27, 2018 The shutdown comes to Joshua Tree, where, with no federal employees to keep an eye on things, people are littering, lighting illegal fires, and “stringing Christmas lights from delicate Joshu...

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Our Hot Streets Are an Opportunity

...s 120.8º F (49.3º C). Being a crank I have two conclusions: 1. Let’s plant trees. 2. How about instead of painting streets gray we do something really radical and pull them up entirely and start cooling people rather than serving cars? According to the Los Angeles Times, “Recent research has found that when manufacturing emissions are taken into account, most cool pavements hurt the climate more than they help.” So, as is typical for our mayor Eri...

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