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Monday, April 19, 2010

Let's Clean Up Slovenia - Huge Success!!

Biggest cleanup action worldwide so far - about 250.000 people attended Let's Clean Slovenia in One Day! (Only 2 million people in Slovenia, so this was huge!) See more on Yahoo News!

According to the Slovenian website (with Hi! from Estonian team!), the movement is becoming global fast, cleanup actions were already successful in:
• Estonia (3. 5. 2008, 50.000 participants)
• Latvia (24. 4. 2009, 60.000 participants)
• Lithuania (24. 4. 2009, 110.000 participants)
• India - Bengaluru (16. 8. 2009, 15.000 participants)
• Portugal (20. 3. 2010, 50-100.000 participants, analyses still ongoing)
Preparations currently in:
• India - New Delhi (pilot cleanup on 23. 1. and 20. 3: 1000 participants; cleanup: 26. 9. 2010 Organizers expect half a million people to take part!)
• Romania (25. 9. 2010)
• Italy (currently registering places with trash in nature)
• Latvia (also 17. 4. 2010 - about 100.000 people!)

Brief description of the project in English on Facebook.

There's also an idea for Let's Clean Europe and Let's Clean World!!

What I really like about this action is that LOTS of people who care about Nature connected, I met many cool people (I had NO idea some were eco! :)

Now let's hope the team will successfully lobby for Zero Waste Slovenia too!! :)
Discussions and ideas have started, so... wish us luck!!! :))))

Really tired and needing some rest, brimming with more ideas too, lol!
I really wanted to go to one of the FAB parties with excellent musicians (all volunteering on stage!) in three Slovenian cities - but I just fell into the bed and slept! lol!

Learn more on Let'sDoItWorld.org !

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

To Bee or Not to Bee?


Looks quite horrible, no? Keep or toss and get new hives? Still have bees at all? I love tradition and it's a loving memory of Grandpa but...? Yes, I was shocked to see them in broad daylight! - Well, the nets could be cleaned surprisingly easily! (I'm not sure whether to clean the 'invisible' propolized edges of the 'net' more too?)


I was advised to let go of these as new ones are cheap. (?)


Yes, it looks pretty scary!

The beehive could be cleaned quite okay, there are almost invisible cracks on the sides and in edges, bees put propolis there to fix this, I mostly scraped it off! (I was advised to do that, dunno? Though it seems counterproductive? New bees will have to propolize it all again?)
I was told old stuff must be scraped off and then to use fire to sterilize the wood.


This is the scariest part: the door is VERY bad! So, not sure what to do!

Will the neighbour have time to maybe make a new door or two? (Would it be better to just get new hives as some have advised? We're a bit late to ask the neighbour to make new ones, Dad said he might during the winter! I'd love to learn to make and renovate furniture and stuff myself, it'll be a long process I guess though.)

Partly, cleaning an old beehive is pleasant - the smell of propolis is soo yummy!!
Partly, I was fretting if there was anything iffy in the dirt (Grandpa's old neighbour said the bees just vanished from neglect and there weren't any diseases, so I hope all would be right with this!)

Dad said the beehives are probably as old as he is, or more! (60+ years!) He doesn't remember any new ones being made, these were quite new when he was little!

In any case, I've learnt a bit how to approach such a project, and saw it doesn't take so long to clean. You only see the real state of wood after you've cleaned it, and doors seem to be the part to watch out for!
Hopefully next year (winter?) I'll be able to clean and possibly renovate the old spindle too (I'd done it before if I knew what to use, so that it would be as eco as possible and still protect the wood?)

So, will I still have bees or will I give up on the project for the time being? (Or, until next year?) Stay tuned!
(Suggestions and ideas welcome!) What do you think?