May 11, 2007
Bee News
As you must have heard, bees are dying like flies.
Good news. There are no organic bee deaths. Sharon Labchuk, environmental activist and part time organic beekeeper tells Informationliberation:
I'm on an organic beekeeping list of about 1,000 people, mostly Americans, and no one in the organic beekeeping world, including commercial beekeepers, is reporting colony collapse on this list. The problem with the big commercial guys is that they put pesticides in their hives to fumigate for varroa mites, and they feed antibiotics to the bees. They also haul the hives by truck all over the place to make more money with pollination services, which stresses the colonies. ...Who should be surprised that the major media reports forget to tell us that the dying bees are actually hyper-bred varieties that we coax into a larger than normal body size? It sounds just like the beef industry. And, have we here a solution to the vanishing bee problem? Is it one that the CCD Working Group, or indeed, the scientific world at large, will support? Will media coverage affect government action in dealing with this issue?
Seems like the bees have been stricken by agribusiness as have the cows, and the chickens and the salmon who are pumped up and pumped into, and ultimately poisoned for commercial reasons. Guess who's on the end of the food chain guys.
Photo note: Although there are undoubtedly better bee pictures in the archives, this is the only one I can locate at the moment. Bees are always busy, as you know, so they are often out of focus.