The Barefoot Beekeeper was the title of my first book, published in 2007. Since then, I have written several more books, aimed at people who want to keep bees in a simple, reasonably natural way, without investing a lot of money and free from the synthetic chemical treadmill.
This podcast is irregular, variable in content and hopefully somewhat useful and interesting to beekeepers of all flavours.
You can find my website at www.biobees.com and you will find me on Facebook and rarely on Twitter.
I was looking around the Salago shop in Totnes a couple of days ago
and discovered that they were selling real bugs - including
spiders, scorpions, beetles, butterflies and crabs - embedded in
plastic as keyrings and other trinkets.
The only marking on the packaging was a web site - http://egcuk.com - which indicates that
the bugs are farmed (and possibly also gathered from the wild) in
China (although an address in Guatemala is also
mentioned).
This seems to me to be another sad example of the trivialization of
life, which I feel must be confronted. Farming insects for food is
one thing - not that you will catch me having a cicada sandwich -
but keyrings?
If you see this kind of thing on sale anywhere, please talk to the
manager and let's get it stopped. A polite approach is probably the
best - put your point of view and allow them to respond. If a
number of people do this over a few days, I think they will get the
message!
About the Podcast
Barefoot beekeeping is more about the bees than the honey. Phil Chandler, author of The Barefoot Beekeeper, talks about his low-tech, low-cost approach to beekeeping and interviews people whose work and research impacts the world of bees.