The Malaysian Insider :: Features
The Malaysian Insider :: Features |
| Blue and green honey makes French beekeepers see red Posted: 04 Oct 2012 04:59 AM PDT  File photo shows a beekeeper holding a beehive frame at a farm. Beekeepers around the town of Ribeauville in the region of Alsace, France have seen bees returning to their hives carrying unidentified colourful substances that have turned their honey unnatural shades. – Reuters pic Since August, beekeepers around the town of Ribeauville in the region of Alsace have seen bees returning to their hives carrying unidentified colourful substances that have turned their honey unnatural shades. Mystified, the beekeepers embarked on an investigation and discovered that a biogas plant 4 km (2.5 miles) away has been processing waste from a Mars plant producing M&M's, bite-sized candies in bright red, blue, green, yellow and brown shells. Asked about the issue, Mars had no immediate comment. The unsellable honey is a new headache for around a dozen affected beekeepers already dealing with high bee mortality rates and dwindling honey supplies following a harsh winter, said Alain Frieh, president of the apiculturists' union. Agrivalor, the company operating the biogas plant, said it had tried to address the problem after being notified of it by the beekeepers. "We discovered the problem at the same time they did. We quickly put in place a procedure to stop it," Philippe Meinrad, co-manager of Agrivalor, said. He said the company had cleaned its containers and incoming waste would now be stored in a covered hall. Mars operates a chocolate factory near Strasbourg, around 100 km (62 miles) away from the affected apiaries. Bee numbers have been rapidly declining around the world in the last few years and the French government has banned a widely used pesticide, Cruiser OSR, that one study has linked to high mortality rates. France is one of the largest producers of honey within the European Union, producing some 18,330 tonnes annually, according to a recent audit conducted for national farm agency FranceAgriMer. Ribeauville, situated on a scenic wine route southwest of Strasbourg, is best known for its vineyards. But living aside winemakers are about 2,400 beekeepers in Alsace who tend some 35,000 colonies and produce about 1,000 tonnes of honey per year, according to the region's chamber of agriculture. As for the M&M's-infused honey, union head Frieh said it might taste like honey, but there the comparison stopped. "For me, it's not honey. It's not sellable." – Reuters |
| Holiday weddings stressful for the Chinese Posted: 03 Oct 2012 11:55 PM PDT  The large number of weddings that take place during the holidays requiring the purchasing of gifts, added to other holiday expenses are proving to be a strain for some Chinese this year. — AFP-Relaxnews pic Ruan Yuan, who has five weddings to attend during China's eight-day Golden Week holiday period, told the daily that half of her monthly salary would be spent on buying wedding gifts, resulting in a drastic cut in her vacation budget. China's festive Golden Week, held from September 30 to October 7 this year, is a popular season to hold wedding celebrations as the Chinese believe that holding wedding banquets during the holidays will bring them more luck. However the financial burden of buying gifts for weddings, added to other expenses related to the longer holidays, is proving problematic for many. In the 1950s, the Chinese would often celebrate wedding banquets with simple gifts, including chicken eggs, mirrors or a simple meal. However this changed in the early 1980s when people started to give cash gifts at weddings, according to Professor Tan Fang at South China Normal University. After the 1990s, material gifts became unpopular as wedding presents and were almost completely replaced by cash. These days in China, attending a wedding means forking out between 200 to 500 yuan (RM95-RM250) in cash as gifts, depending on the city the banquet is held in. According to a household finance survey conducted by the Survey and Research Center for China Household Finance, the average annual expenditure on gifts for weddings and other special occasions in 2010 was 2,642 yuan for each urban household and 2,228 yuan for rural households. The annual per capita disposable income of urban residents was 19,109 yuan in 2010, while that of rural residents was 5,919 yuan. — AFP-Relaxnews |
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