Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Agriculture/Beekeeping task force

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[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. Also, I note that yours is a comparatively new project. You may be interested in the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide, which has a lot of information regarding project organization from several of the most successful WikiProjects. Please feel free to add your project in the relevant sections, or, if you aren't sure of yourself, tell me where you want it put and I will insert it. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 16:50, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just a general plea to editors...

Since you are just starting out, now would be the best time to establish the policy that a wikiproject should have standards, and that one such standard for this wikiproject will be that content be placed in the article for which it is most appropriate. If, for example (and this is obviously not a hypothetical example) a new reference appears in print discussing the Italian bee (Apis mellifera ligustica), then the primary place for this content should be the Italian bee article, and only included in the Apis mellifera article if it is pertinent to all subspecies of mellifera (or if the subspecies is unknown), and only included in the honey bee article if it is pertinent to all species of Apis. It does not serve anyone's interest if an article has large amounts of content that properly belong in a different, more specific, article. If anything, a beekeeper should be especially careful about making such distinctions, because a beekeeper cannot handle and care for all subspecies in exactly the same way. You do not want to apply information about one subspecies to a different one, because that runs risks. Likewise, I'd urge you to stress the need for recent, peer-reviewed citations to support content. Beekeeping has a long, rich history, but with such a history comes lots of outdated beliefs and folklore, which needs to be labeled as such rather than presented as fact. There are many peer-reviewed publications on bees and beekeeping, a good number of them available online, and such resources should be the preferred source, and cited whenever they are used. Good luck, Dyanega 23:49, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Organizing the relationships between bee-related articles

I have never been comfortable with the amorphous relationships between our bee-related pages. Some topics seem misplaced, others simply inappropriate. I would like to ask that we take some time to sketch out roughly what content we would consider ideal on the major pages in Category:WikiProject Beekeeping articles. I'm not sure that I'm really qualified to make the first pass at that plan but I've opened a placeholder page at /structure. Corrections, changes and expansions would be appreciated. Rossami (talk) 01:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Beekeeping

I see that one of the group's goals is to get beekeeping to WP:GA status. I know nothing about beekeeping, but I see that apiculture on FR is a featured article. Though I don't think it would make the cut as an WP:FA here (or as a new one on FR), I'm positive it's GA level. Can anyone here do better? (Glance at it even if you don't read French -- the diagrams will give you an idea of its quality) If so, I'm not going to translate it. If not, I'll definitely consider it. (Please respond on my talk page) --Zantastik talk 22:18, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi - having seen that article a few times, I agree that it's probably not up to our FA standard, but yes, I think it goes to GA (in parts, at least). I've already done some of it - namely "The art of Beekeeping" (or similar), and I'll be happy to help with it. We can, if you want collaboration, set up a translation dept at Wikipedia:WikiProject Beekeeping/Translation. Thanks, Martinp23 22:32, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wildlife Barnstar

There is currently a barnstar proposal at Wikipedia:Barnstar and award proposals/New Proposals#Wildlife Barnstar for a barnstar which would be available for use for this project. Please feel free to visit the page and make any comments you see fit. Badbilltucker 15:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Qualifications?

I'm interested in the project, but my experience is mostly limited to honey varietals and fermentation. Not sure if there's a place for me here or if I should just stick to contributing piecemeal. -MalkavianX 20:11, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

That's the great thing about Wikipedia. Everyone gets to add their 'two cents,' and if it is disorganized at first, someone will come in and organize it all. The point is to put the information all together at the begining. -Kristan Wifler

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 16:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bees and drunkeness

I heard in a documentary that some bees become notorious drunks and are kept out of the hives by "bee bouncers" until they sober up. When the bees are repeat offenders, the bee bouncers might punish them by chewing their legs off. Comments?--Filll 16:55, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alert

Something is causing bees to actually and literally disappear. Cause is unknown. This has been on all of the news services. 205.240.146.224 05:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

This could mean WAR over food, as bees pollinate crops. 205.240.146.224 05:58, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Something in the papers in the UK a week or so ago about hornets - more research needed probably. Martinp23 10:22, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bees and inebriation

Please take a look at my rough draft at User talk:Filll/beedrunk and give me your opinion.--Filll 21:28, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

With the help of User:Dyanega, I have now revised User talk:Filll/beedrunk and I am pondering publishing it on WP as Bees and intoxication or some such title. Comments?--Filll 23:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
For what it is worth, and I do NOT have the cite to hand but think it is from the Gayre/Papazian book, if the water content in honey rises above 15% the honey will spontaneously ferment from airborne yeast and kill the hive. --Bill W. Smith, Jr. (talk/contribs) 20:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
At 15%, it certainly will not ferment. According to most judging standards, honey should be between 16.0 and 18.6% moisture after extraction. Fermentation doesn't begin until about 20-22%. That will not occur to honey in a healthy hive. For one thing, once the bees have dried the nectar down to the right level, they cap it off with wax to protect it. About the only way you can get honey with a moisture in the range to ferment is to either pull it early (before the bees are done drying it) or leave it exposed (because honey is strongly hydrophylic and will pull moisture from the air). Neither of those situations will kill the hive unless the beekeeper attempts to feed it back to them and does so at a time when there is little or no other forage. Rossami (talk) 23:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Interesting. I have to admit, beekeeping sounds very intriguing to me, the more I learn about it. --Filll 23:30, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Honey fact tag and explanation at Talk:Honey

Perhaps someone at this wikiproject can take a look at the fact tag I added and weigh in on the talkpage. Thanks!--Isotope23 19:22, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What is Wood Honey?

Hi

I was told that Wood Honey was materially different from floral honey. Wood honey is from the nectar-like substance excreted by lice on the trees (or so I was told, and this is my poor translation from Dutch). Is like sugar ants farming aphids? Could someone confirm this?

Cheers Robin

RobinAllenson 09:07, 21 July 2007 (UTC)RobinAllenson some woodie stemed plants also trees secrete a sweet substance /ie maple sugar.I have bees and see them collect this and it is refered to as honey dew I am Sukeljuma an illinois bee keeper hope this helps you —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.206.23.4 (talk) 15:38, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Robin, yes you are referring to Honeydew (German: Waldhoenig). Aphids suck out sap from plants (e.g. lime trees) and exude a sticky substance, which bees collect. It's thought to be the original 'Manna from heaven'. Dublinblue (Simon in Dublin) (talk) 23:56, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Weird template mess up?

I tried to flag Thelytoky for cleanup and it added a template instead about user disputes. Chibimagic (talk) 02:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC) chibimagic

[edit] Proposed merger with WikiProject Agriculture

For the purposes of centralized discussion, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Agriculture#Proposed merger with WikiProject Beekeeping. Thank you. John Carter (talk) 16:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] André Kertész

Just curious why André Kertész is an article being watched by the Beekeeping task force. I skimmed the article. It says he was a photographer. Was he a beekeeper as well? Thanks,AJseagull1 (talk) 21:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

He's in the Category:Beekeepers, which was the reason for that article being tagged. The article says he became a beekeeper in the early 1920's, but left the field shortly thereafter. If the rest of you think he don't belong, feel free to remove the category and/or banner. John Carter (talk) 21:19, 21 April 2008 (UTC)