The Organic View

Beekeepers are very interesting people. They are a bit quirky, methodical and typically have an odd sense of humor. While there are a myriad of programs that teach beekeeping management, each beekeeper tends to have his or her own method of managing hives, often learning things the hard way, which is not necessarily a bad thing!

In CONFESSIONS OF A BAD BEEKEEPER, author, Bill Turnbull humorously writes about his experiences as a first time beekeeper and shares his successes and mishaps. If you have ever wanted to learn about beekeeping or are a beekeeper, this is one book you will truly enjoy!

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer will speak to author, Bill Turnbull about his book, CONFESSIONS OF A BAD BEEKEEPER, What Not to Do When Keeping Bees (With Apologies to My Own). Stay tuned!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: BILL TURNBULL is the longtime co-host of BBC Breakfast, Britain’s most-watched morning TV show. After freelancing in New York for five years, he joined the BBC Radio’s Today program in 1986 and moved to Breakfast Time in 1988, before becoming a correspondent for BBC News. In this time he covered a wide range of stories and reported from over thirty countries, including the United States, where he was the Washington correspondent from 1994 to 1998.

Many people love to buy new species of plants to add something new to their garden but have no idea that they could be introducing an invasive species to their landscape. One of the most common ways of introducing invasive species to your yard is by purchasing firewood. An unsuspecting homeowner can very well introduce such species as the emerald ash borer, Agrilus planipennis, which has been devastating the ash tree population of North America. This is now a major crisis in the Eastern United States and Canada, as 15-20% of the tree population is ash, genus: Fraxinus spp. (baseball bats are made from ash).

When home owners seek exotic plants and import goods from Asia or buy plants from mail order catalogs, nurseries, online plant sites, etc. such invasive species as honeysuckle, Lythrum (purple loosestrife), English ivy, burning bush, Bradford pears, etc. can quickly take over . So what options do you have in order to prevent your beautiful landscape from becoming a biological desert?

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer will speak to Horticultural expert, John Peter Thompson, who is President of the National Agricultural Research Alliance (http://www.NARA-B.org ). John Peter will talk about how to recognize and remove some of the most common invasive species.  Stay tuned!

Every four minutes an American woman enters menopause and with an ever-increasing life expectancy rate, that woman can spend as much as one third of her life going through “the change.” However, despite the inevitability and importance of menopause in a woman’s life, the discussion of this challenging transitional period is often riddled with myths, uncertainties, and trepidation. In Eat to Defeat Menopause: The Essential Nutrition Guide for a Healthy Midlife—with 130 Recipes, Karen Giblin and Mache Seibel, MD, two of the nation’s top menopause experts, break down the most important, need-to-know facts about menopause, offer tips and advice for combating its symptoms, and provide healthy and enticing recipes guaranteed to satisfy every craving (or mood swing). Combining the latest research on menopause, traditions from their Italian and Jewish families, and recipes from chefs across the United States, Giblin and Seibel show that making simple changes to one’s lifestyle can, in many cases, be just as effective as combating menopausal symptoms with the latest drugs and surgeries. Some of these simple changes can include:

Eating foods that contain phytoestrogens, such as soy and garlic, to combat hot flashes and insomnia Stabilizing mood swings by eating omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin B Cooking with avocados, chocolate, asparagus, or chile peppers to improve a decreased sex drive Reducing alcohol intake to ward off headaches, hot flashes, insomnia, and mood swings

Whether readers are personally experiencing the “change” or just want to arm themselves with information and healthful eating habits for the road ahead, Eat to Defeat Menopause provides an easy and delicious guide for achieving a healthy (and hot-flash-free) midlife. Stay tuned!

Percy Schmeiser is a canola farmer from Saskatchewan, Canada. He was the first farmer to win a law suit against Monsanto. This landmark case, which went before the Federal Court of Canada, has attracted international attention because it could help determine how much control a handful of powerful biotech companies can exert over farmers. Schmeiser believes this precedent setting agreement ensures that farmers will be entitled to reimbursement when their fields become contaminated with unwanted Roundup Ready canola or any other unwanted GMO plants.

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer talks to Percy Schmeiser about his battle with this agro-chemical giant.

Most people take for granted that the water in from their faucet is safe to drink or is it? There is a lot of controversy over just how safe our tap water is and also if our government agencies have the right to treat drinking water that is consumed by the masses. The agencies that are charged with protecting our water claim that everything is safe. However, there are many scientists who disagree.

The Case Against Fluoride by Dr. Paul Connett, Dr. James Beck, and Dr. H. Spedding Micklem, DPhil, takes a new look at the science behind water fluoridation and argues that just because the medical establishment endorses a public health measure, that doesn't mean it's safe. In the case of water fluoridation, the chemicals used to fluoridate the water that more than 180 million people drink each day are not pharmaceutical grade, but rather hazardous waste products of the phosphate fertilizer industry; it is illegal to dump them into rivers and lakes or release them into the atmosphere. And water fluoridation is a prime example of one of the worst medical practices possible-forced medication with no control over the dose or who gets it. Perhaps most shocking of all, it is not subject to any federal regulation.

Dr. Paul Connett is the Director of the Flouride Action Network (FAN), and the Executive Director of its parent body, the American Environmental Health Studies Project (AEHSP). He has spoken and given more than 2,000 presentations in 49 states and 52 countries on the issue of waste management. He holds a bachelors degree from the University of Cambridge, a Ph.D. in chemistry from Dartmouth College and is a retired professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at St. Lawrence University.

The life of a commercial beekeeper is not very glamorous and is also very difficult to manage. Typically, they will travel to different states to pollinate crops with their bees just so consumers can conveniently enjoy a cornucopia of foods all year long. Most people are unaware of the fact that it takes a lot of knowledge, physical labor, and emotional strength to get the job done. In the book, The Beekeeper’s Lament,How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America, author, Hannah Nordhaus talks about the life of commercial beekeeper, John Miller as he struggles with issues such as Colony Collapse Disorder and how he can keep his hives from diminishing altogether.

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer will talk to author, Hannah Nordhaus. Stay tuned!

Most people trust that when they send their kids to school, they are going to be safe. There is also a sense of security while in your own home. What if you were unaware of an environmental hazard that lurked within the walls? This is exactly what happened to Tamara Rubin whose kids were poisoned by the work of a painting contractor in Portland, Oregon in 2005.  They inhaled fumes while a painting contractor used an open flame torch to remove the old lead paint off of their historic home to prepare it for painting. Her son Cole, was poisoned by lead dust at a private school in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area in 2007. In 2009 her young infant son, Charlie, tested positive for low levels of lead in his blood even with no specific source of exposure.

Sadly, these children are just a few of countless others who have no idea that they have been poisoned. Thankfully, there is help and that is available! The Lead Safe America Foundation provides emergency intervention and support to families all over the country who have found out their children have been poisoned by lead in their homes. There are many causes of lead poisoning - but most of the paths of inquiry lead to two primary sources: lead from dust caused by house paint and lead from soil that has been contaminated as a result of lead used as an additive to gasoline. Their goal is to reach out to families across America to educated them about the dangers of lead poisoning, the symptoms, course of action as well as prevention.

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer will talk to the Executive Director of Lead Safe America, Tamara Rubin. Stay tuned!

They say the true gift is not in receiving but in the act of giving. When Cami Walker was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she knew the life she had known would be changed forever. A close friend of hers named Mbali Creazzo, who was an African medicine woman, suggested that she do something different. She suggested that instead of focusing on herself and focusing on the negatives in her life, to focus on the positives, offering her a very unusual prescription. She told her to give away 29 gifts in 29 days.

She told her “healing doesn’t happen in a vacuum, Cami, but through our interactions with other people.”

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer will talk to Cami Walker author of the New York Times bestseller, 29 Gifts, about her journey to wellness and how she inspired an entire wellness movement called the 29-Day Gift Giving Challenge, Changing Lives One Gift At A Time! Stay tuned!

In 2007, the United States and Canada suffered the largest pet food recall in history due to the use of Melamime which was imported from China. Melamime is an additive that was used for the purpose of increasing protein levels when added to vegetable proteins as corn, soy and wheat. Subsequently, Melamime is lethal to cats and dogs. As a result, it is estimated that 300,000 pets suffered and died in just the US and Canada according to international pet food expert Susan Thixton.

More than 4 years later, in the recently settled law suit filed after this mass murder, pet owners received only 50% of their claims. Do the laws actually protect pets or protect negligent companies from being held accountable?  What course of action do you take if your animal companion dies from commercially produced pet food? How much money will this cost you? How hard is it to retain a law firm to file suit?

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer will talk to world renowned pet food expert, Susan Thixton, Founder of Truth About Pet Food (www.truthaboutpetfood.com) about this very sensitive subject. Stay tuned!

An Italian couple has gone on a hunger strike to protest the use of all neonicotinoids as they have watched their own bees perish. They are hoping for the Italian government as well as all governments will ban the use of these devastating pesticides.

"... In 2004 we were no longer able to survive the winter as our bee colonies died; we were at the point of being forced to buy about sixty new colonies, in order to face the coming bee-season of 2005, just to replenish the hives. But in each successive year we found ourselves in an even worse situation: in the period from July to August the collapse of our bee colonies was catastrophic, as high as 80%.  We attended many meetings to try and find some new strategy, some ancient strain of bees more resistant to varroa, but nothing worked. "

In this segment of The Organic View Radio Show, host, June Stoyer will speak to beekeeping activist, Renato Bologna about his protest. Stay tuned!