The USDA Food Safety Discovery Zone Takes on the Fighting Irish

The USDA Food Safety Discovery Zone travels to Notre Dame, Indiana, September 3-4, 2010, to meet the “Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.”

The University of Notre Dame is one of the largest, most historical, and most recognized names in college football. The team plays its home games on the University of Notre Dame’s campus at Notre Dame Stadium. The stadium has a capacity of 80,795 fans. What an outreach opportunity for the Discovery Zone! Read more »

U.S. Florida Grapefruit Won’t Get Squeezed by the OECD Scheme

A Florida grapefruit by any other name would surely taste as sweet. Recently, agencies across the U.S. Government worked with representatives of the Florida grapefruit industry to protect the grapefruit industry while underscoring the value of U.S. engagement in international organizations. A proposed entry of an Inspection Manual by the European-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development Scheme on Agricultural Quality (OECD Scheme) initially threatened specific U.S. grapefruit exports to the European Union (EU), which buys one of every two exported grapefruits in the world. Read more »

The People’s Garden First Honey Harvest: Part 2

This story has three parts. Read Part 1 here. Stay tuned for Part 3 later.

The hive is basically a stack of wooden boxes. Within each box a series of frames rest vertically. Each frame is about an inch thick and has built-in cells. The cells are where the bees place the nectar they’ve taken from flowers while foraging. As the water evaporates from the nectar, it becomes thicker, turning into honey. When the bees cap the full cells with wax, the frames are ready for us to harvest. (The bees flying in and out of the rooftop hive use an entrance in the side of the bottom-most box, so we’re able to remove frames from the top without stopping the work of the hive.)

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