Eerie Saga of the Vanishing Bees
Almost everyone loves bees. And everyone needs bees. They are not merely picturesque. When bees began to disappear from the landscape - and in America and Europe they are disappearing in their billions - it is an alarm signal. Today bees are telling us something, and we need to listen.
Bees are not just disappearing in large numbers, they are vanishing. Entire colonies of honey bees have been deserting freshly made honey and newly hatched eggs, leaving behind no bodies, no signs of struggle, no evidence of the usual insect predators. Hundreds of apiarists have been coming upon scenes similar to the boat found drifting in open water, with food on the table, no signs of distress, no lifeboat missing, and no occupants.
The recent phenomenon of the missing bees has been given a name: colony collapse disorder. Because bees play a key role in the landscape, they are a critical indicator of general environmental health. As one of Australia’s leading bee experts, Doug Somerville, of the NSW Department of Primary Industry, told me on Friday: “Honey bees are the ‘canaries in the coalmine’ of the environment.”
I was alerted to the significance of colony collapse disorder by Elizabeth Kolbert, whose superb writing about global warming for The New Yorker was collected in a book, Field Notes From a Catastrophe. In a recent piece in The New Yorker, she told the story of David Hackenberg, a lumbering, beanie-wearing commercial beekeeper in Pennsylvania. Last November he become the first person to raise a public alarm about the disappearance of bees. When Hackenberg began to flip open his hives, he was confronted by something eerie.
“The more he saw, the weirder the situation looked,” Kolbert wrote. “The frames all had honey in them, indicating that there had been plenty of food. They were filled with young larvae, or brood, meaning that the bees, usually fiercely maternal, had abandoned their young. There were no signs of moths or other pests that normally invade sick colonies. And Hackenberg couldn’t find any dead bees.”
As soon as he went public, other beekeepers from around the US began reporting the same experience. None knew the cause. When scientists began dissecting bees from collapsing hives, what they found was disturbing. Kolbert writes: “Normally, if you cut open a bee its innards, viewed under a microscope, will appear white. Hackenberg’s bees were filled with black scar tissue. They seemed to be suffering not so much from any particular ailment as from just about every ailment.”
The blackened tissue of Hackenberg’s bees proved to be typical in bees collected from colony collapse disorder hives across 36 American states and Europe. The cause remains undefined, nor is there a reliable estimate of how many hives have been wiped out by the disorder. What is known is that the commercial honey industry in the US is in distress. This has begun to flow through to American agriculture, where the use of a single species introduced from Europe - the western honey bee - has become crucial to the production of apples, blueberries, cranberries, cherries, cucumbers, watermelons, pumpkins, almonds and other crops.
Hackenberg has said his business will not survive this winter if colony collapse disorder hits his honey bees again. He has kept his business alive by restocking with bees imported from Australia. This raises the obvious question: what about Australia’s bees?
“There are no cases of [colony collapse disorder] in Australia at all,” Dave Britton, an entomologist at the Australian Museum, told me. “It is a northern hemisphere phenomenon.” He added that there has been some “very creative” speculation about the causes of the colony collapses. Scientists are divided over whether colony collapse disorder is a grave threat or a transitory one. What is not in dispute is that the genetic analysis of adult bees taken from collapsing hives in America has produced alarming results. The bees tend to be infected with every known bee virus, plus new pathogens never seen before.
“What has been chucked at the American honey bee is a collection of things which, taken on their own, bees can stand up to, but collectively sends them into stress and they just give up,” Doug Somerville told me. “The difference between North America and Australia is that we rely very heavily on native flora, especially eucalyptus, for our honey production, whereas they rely extremely heavily on agricultural crops. That means their bees’ interface with chemicals is much heavier.”
It will be no surprise, then, if the underlying cause of colony collapse disorder proves to be the same environmental evil that has already caused so much damage to the American food chain - the systemic use of chemicals - which compounds the loss of biodiversity caused by factory farming.
Although colony collapse disorder is absent from Australia, local scientists and honey-growers are worried. What they fear is something else, the varroa mite, a parasite that has caused havoc to bee populations overseas, including the US, and is now spreading south from Asia. “It’s not here, but we’re pretty convinced it’s coming,” Mark Greco, of the University of Western Sydney, told me.
Greco believes this threat, plus the experience in the US, where the wild honey bee population has been replaced by the mass introduction of a single species, should be a wake-up call to Australia. “It’s high time we looked to Australian native honey bees to pollinate our crops.” The other experts I spoke to agree with him.
At least we have native bees, and honey bees feeding on native flora. In the US, where wild honey bees were once common and diverse, there is now only a single, dominant introduced species. If this population of western honey bees were to dramatically decline, there is no obvious replacement to cross-pollinate the landscape.
Copyright © 2007. The Sydney Morning Herald.
the bees know what we are reluctant often to admit, it’s time to get the hell out of Dodge.
Whatever is outside of the human experience, be it something or nothing, that mystery looks better than what there will be here soon provided the machine keeps churning up the earth, and the profiteers keep plundering and thieving.
Of course with the bee you will find some scientifically verifiable natural cause, with the human you will find deception, denial, and downright untruth.
the human being, at once the most milky and touching of profound kindnesses, and the most remorselessly vile creature roaming the earth.
I have been wondering if the likes of Monsanto isn’t involved here. After all, this is the most basic way to ensure the use of GMO’s.
I am thinking that this is NOT a natural phenomenon.
We are such irresponsible, thoughtless fools.
In one century we have managed to bring this planet to the brink of total destruction.
To think that a mere hundred years ago all the waters were pristeen and teaming with life. There were no chemicals in the environment, no nuclear power or nuclear weapons. And on and on.
Here we are, the stewards of all life on Earth and look what we’ve done. The shame we should all be feeling is overwhelmingly heartbreaking and embarrassing.
We need a world-wide moratorium on all this f’ing insanity! There should be a world-wide armistice from the human and animal killing, from the torture and pollution. All production of any chemicals not needed for survival must be halted.
Is there no leadership on this planet worthy of speaking for future generations?
We are creating crimes against humanity of monumental proportions right at this moment with the use of depleted uranium in the Middle East, poisons all over the world that are killing bees, birds and ourselves. 80% of all cancers are environmentally induced.
Is there no one on this planet to speak up to stop this insanity we are committing against all life?
Years ago I tried to read Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” and it made me so sick I had to put it down. Now this.
How can we go on living day to day, with any semblance of normalcy realizing we are killing the planet and all life on it, including ourselves?
Have we so little love for this jewel spinning throughout space and for each other?
It is not only the honey bees that are disappearing, until this spring we had numerous types of bees in our garden and orchard. This year there were almost none. There were and are now, few inscects of any kind, no moths, few butterflies, no lady bugs, no wasps or hornets and even common house flies are scarce.
It is not only the bees, it is also the birds, we normally will have up to 80 different species of birds at our feeders throughout the year. This year we have counted eleven different specie and only five total humming birds. Normally on any given day, we will have at least forty hummers at a time buzzing our three feeders.
This dramatic decline in all type of inscects and birds was also reported by six other bloggers from six widely seperated states on a string about the decline of the Monarch butterfly, which was posted here last month. What do you suppose could be the problem? It didn’t happen last year, it began this spring.
In the city where I live there seems to be a dramatic increase in swarming. Bee colonies are turning up under roofs, in attics, in walls–last summer a colony set up shop in one of our neighbor’s water meter. I think that the bees have had it with being human slaves and are seeking sanctuary elsewhere. We still have domestic honeybees visiting our garden, as well as several other species of bees, but our orange trees are producing a record number of oranges because they were visited at night by thousands of sphinx moths during flowering season. They looked like little fairies. No matter how bad we mess up, our mother the earth still tries to fix it.
I’m sorry people, but I am a commercial beekeeper and this has been blown way way way out of proportion. True, we are facing a crisis in the bee industry, but it’s due to our own mismanagement than it is to any environmental issue. We have several diseases/viruses/pests that can cause severe damage, or death of our colonies, and in our infinite wisdom we have medicated and in most cases over-medicated and have created super viruses, super diseases and super pests, and now we have very little defense against any of these things that can kill our hives. We also have some viruses starting to mutate as well that is making our medications obsolete. For sure, it is an industry on the brink of collapse and for sure if our industry collapses there will be widespread consequences which most people cannot conceive of in the food industry. As far as colony collapse, don’t let the media scare you silly…….there are some cases of this happening, that I have heard of in Europe and some in the US, but it is more likely the hive beetle, than some mysterious environmentally induced plague.
sorry for the second post, but chchicano, bees are not domesticated. We give them a place to live and manipulate them for our own gains, but they are not domesticated. Also, honeybees are not native to North America, they were introduced by the Spanish in the 17th century, so it’s ot like they are supposed to be here, and they do not live in the wild, other than swarming from beekeepers hives…..and then, they do not survive the winters, except in the south maybe. As far as the decline in insect populations, it is likely human related in that there we have virtually eliminated all their food sources, which, in most cases, are considered noxious weeds. We mow the roadside ditches where they nest and we plant specialized crops in place of natural vegitation that used to support these populations.
stawns–Not to dwell on semantics, but the European honeybee is considered a domestic animal. It meets the technical criteria for domestication–which is, any animal that has been selectively bred for a specific characteristic or characteristics. Over many centuries the honeybee was bred for docility, honey production, stability, etc. European honeybees do become feral, and in our climate zone are able to survive by hibernation. I have seen many feral European honeybee colonies living in small caves, dead trees and even under cliff overhangs while hiking in the mountains that our city was built around. I do agree with you that the elimination of flowering plants (considered weeds) is contributing to the decline of many insects. In newer subdivisions here people are planting non-native, wind-pollinated evergreens like pines and junipers.
George Nory and Coat-to-Coast (radio program late at night) have discussed the missing bee phenomenon for years now. I enjoy listening to that show because, like the internet, you get a lot of info that the MSM will not carry or carries years later. It is true that if you have a problem with UFOs, Big Foot, etc. Coast-to-Coast may not be the show for you, but if you listen to all of that for entertainment purposes, it can be down right fun. As my children taught me years ago, listen to people’s stories no matter how absurd they may sound on the face of things. Like children, there is usually something to be learned from the folks who have had weird experiences that smack of the supernatural. Secondly, since George brought the bee problem to my attention, I’ve watched for bees all of this summer in my garden (in Alabama) and I have seen ONE honey bee. It seems that the bumble bees are doing the polinating for my small garden now. I seem to have some butterflies, but not nearly as many as I remember in years past. I’m just trying to stay aware of the situation.
I live in a heavily agricultural area in a community that is, if anything, oversupplied with weeds–in the ditches, the vacant lots, the woods, and, of course, in people’s yards. The vacant lots adjacent to me are brimming with red clover, yet I’ve seen only one or two honey bees since spring. Maybe only one, since the first one may have simply moved over while I was counting.
I second chchicano in saying that I have seen wild bee colonies in our cold-winter area. Besides, wild bee colonies in cold-winter areas are widely mentioned in historical literature.
I think paradigm shifter, too, may have a point. If “disappearing” the bees benefited the developers of GM crops, I’m quite sure they’d arrange for it.
The solution to almost every problem is education. We need, mandated by law, every junior high school and/or high school in this country to teach a course in the environment, food chain and the effect, favorable and unfavorable, that mankind has. Once armed with knowledge a society can act, without proding, to rectify its own errors.
It’s been years since I’ve seen a purple martin - did you know that they eat mosquitos? Each one by the thousands!
Here in Indianapolis, like many cities across this country, we reacted in panic to the discovery of mosquito carried diseases in a small number of people by fogging the ENTIRE CITY on a weekly basis. This, of course, kills the mosquitos but that, in turn, kills the creatures which feed on them and, thus, keep them under control. The effect ripples up the food chain - always!
Dragonflies (sp?) hover over still water where the mosquito larvae are found and feast on them just as they emerge from the water. Have you ever seen a dragonfly? When was the last time?
Do you have a bird bath in your yard? Do you drain and rinse it out on a regular basis or do you just fog for the mosquitos that breed in it?
Did you know that bats are our friends? When was the last time you saw one?
On the other hand, a friend of mine was bitten, on the upper arm, a few weeks ago by a brown recluse spider. He went to get the necessary skin graft yesterday. The doctors said that, if he had waited one more day to come to the emergency room, the toxin would have reached his heart and killed him!
So, we are forced to get out the spray. However, it’s one thing to control unwanted creatures in our homes and businesses and quite another to routinely douche the entire countryside with chemicals. I think those companies which have been creating chemicals to give us a “better world” need to be held accountable for the “better world” they’ve given us.
Education? Yeah, I agree but what we have here is not the result of being ill-informed. It’s a case of willful ignorance. Education is not going to stop Big AgraPharma from applying more and more chemicals (more is always required, too. Once you start using chemicals, more is required). That and GMO corn and I’ll bet that bacteria (GMO corn has Bt spliced into it so it is present all the time, whereas use of Bt just at particular times during crop cycles was pretty harmless) combined with increasing chemicals simply suppressed the bees immune system.
And it might be overblown. I really don’t know. It could be spot on in regards to bees at big agras. Not a single organic farmer in my area has this problem. And we certainly don’t have it at our houses where right now, everything is out of control: apple branches sagging from the weight, same with plums, butternut squash has totally run over my beans and tomatoes, the cucumbers are shoving the last of the summer lettuce out of the way, and the corn is fighting with the grapevine. It’s been a food fight all summer long and no one has gotten hurt.
Not to monopolize the conversation, but I wanted to say a few things about what IndyStefan said. You can help the dragonfly population by promoting wetlands. You can help bats by having your city pass an ordinance against their extermination from attics, churches, schools, etc. (Our conservative city council passed an ordinance making killing pigeons illegal. Of course, bats carry rabies so it’s more difficult to protect them.) Finally, you can bring back the purple martins by supporting the Purple Martin Conservation Association–www.purplemartin.org. Put a martin house in your yard, public parks and in organic farmlands.
Paradigm Shifter
Funny how I was thinking something similar - or in
more of a conspiracy theory, some sort of biological
warfare experiment that got loose. But then I lost
my tinfoil hat somewhere and can’t be accountable
for what I think anymore.
Would be nice to have a better explanation of “They
seemed to be suffering not so much from any particular
ailment as from just about every ailment.”
I’m with abbybwood. Colony collapse disorder has been happening to the human colony at an ever-increasing speed. We do it to ourselves. Yes, Ma Nature works to compensate up to a point, but it looks to me that we’re at the point of no return and very much in danger of total collapse.
Here in Iowa, where the Big Ag corporations have a BIG footprint, I have not seen a single bee of any kind this spring and summer. Not one. Period. We live on seven acres in rural Iowa, surrounded by corn and soybean fields, industrialized agriculture. The bees, once a familiar sight in our flower and vegetable gardens, are gone. Vanished.
Crickets are fewer, their numbers down significantly. Grasshopper numbers are down even more so. I have not seen a single dragonfly this spring and summer. Ladybugs, which we have had in huge numbers in recent years, so much so that they had become real pests (I had used the vacuum cleaner to remove them from the walls and ceilings of our home in recent years as they infested/nested in the walls of the house and found their way inside by the dozens), are also largely absent this year. Their numbers are way way down.
Does Big Ag’s use of chemicals have something to do with this phenomenon? I don’t know enough about the science to make anything like a definitive statement or even to offer well-informed speculation. But I will say this: When I learned some years ago that Big Ag was developing and marketing crop seeds designed not to germinate, thus requiring farmers to return to the corporation to purchase new seeds each year, I responded viscerally. It occurred to me that the bastards who are promoting this kind of agriculture ought to be lined up against a wall and, well, you get the idea.
The corporate machine is an insatiable soul-less monster.
Have read all of the comments and I belileve there are many excelllent points made be almost everyone. I can only see what I can see with my own eyes, know from past history of our area, if dramatic changes in nature are occurring and also learn from what I read.
Last month, there was an article here at CD written by the Audobon Society, stating there is a (dramatic) decline in many of the bird populations and another article about the dramatic decline of butterflies. When scientists who spend their entire lives studying the birds and bees use the word__ ‘dramatic’__ it should catch our attention.
This ‘dramatic’ decreas in birds and bees and every other type of insect in our high altitude ranch in the southwest U.S., began six months ago. It is not a gradual decline, we do not use any types of pesticides, our garden is orgnic, for years we have always had fantastic crops. Our weather did not change this year, in fact we have a bit more rain in August than the past five years. It is not the weather, we water with pure well water pumped with a windmill and we also have a 1,000 gallon rain water tank. The ONLY thing that has changed, is the (dramamtic) decline in wildlife, including frogs, lizards, snakes, birds, bees and insects.___
(It began this early spring.)
I am not alone, the same type of decline is reported in many states, (not all and not every area of any state). It has been reported by the Audobon society. We don’t have commercial honey bee hives anywhere within hundreds of miles. The bees we always had until this year were wild and there were more than we actually liked to see, as they are Africanized and venturing near one of their hives can be very dangerous.
The commercial “Bee Man” in the local town removes those wild hives for a fee. He gets the money and the honey, and he has always done very well,___ dirves a new Lexus. His business dropped 90% this year, so he had to find a “real” job.
One blogger here mentioned DU and another mentioned mutations in viruses that effect bees. (Mutations and DU go hand in hand). DU, like any deadly poison, will show up in birds and bees and frogs, before we see a ‘dramatic’ effect on the human populance.
What we are seeing in that regard actually is dramatic, but DU is a ‘no-no’ subject for the press.___ Wonder why?
peoplefirst says: “Would be nice to have a better explanation of ‘They seemed to be suffering not so much from any particular ailment as from just about every ailment.’” Well, here is one explanation. All social animals, humans included, have a very advanced, redundant immune system. This serves a good purpose–all social animals are more vunerable to disease because of physical interaction necessary for survival, close quartering, etc. However, if this immune system is disrupted, in the case of bees by stress, toxins, being fed glucose, and other, as yet unknown causes, social bees become vulnerable to a whole host of diseases simultaneously. The same happens in humans: when AIDS, chemotherapy, or other factors cause an immune system breakdown, a huge number of infections simultaneously follow. Without a stong immune system, any social animal will die quickly of “not any particular ailment as from just about every ailment.”
CHCHICANO: Excellent point. DU will quickly and permanently trash immune systems in any form of life. Since the late 1960s, our military has fired thousands of tons of DU on military firing ranges in the United States.
In a single cupfull of burned DU, there are five billion specks of deadly DU, many of those specks are manometer in size, (one millionth of a meter in diameter.) There are trillions times trillions of those deadly specks of poison in our enviroment now and every single speck will continue to be deadly for billions of years. It is blowing in the wind, invisible death for all living things.
In nature, there is a ‘tipping point’ for enviromental hazards, the same as it is for global warming, it may be true for our insane use of DU, the ‘tipping point’ of no return may have been reached. We don’t know if that is the case, but why not stop using DU for anthing now?__ The only reasons,___ are money and utter stupidity.
We are currently in a moderate drought. I do a small garden, and much to my husband’s dismay, do not spray anything, which means our vegetables are often less than perfect…I’m still learning how to do good organic gardening.
I’m in Central Kentucky, and we do have some standard agriculture here, but we also have the horse farms, so perhaps we’re not as poisoned as some agricultural centers. I had trouble with my lawn mower early this spring, and between that and the drought, I just stopped mowing. My back pasture is full of weeds, and my neighbors on either side probably think I’m poor white trash, but…I had some honeybees this summer, not many, but two or three at a time, along with many bumble bees. They were feeding on my lemon balm, which I just let go wild, even the stuff that was growing where I didn’t want it, because I was so pleased to see them. I have two or three hummingbirds, which is about what I had last year. Not too many butterflies, but gobs of spiders and praying mantises. Can’t attest to the birds, because I used to feed them but stopped when my son brought home a cat who is a might hunter. Didn’t feel like luring them into a killing ground…
The grandfather of one of my son’s friends is a hobby beekeeper who lives just up the road. I don’t think he sprays his garden, but he lost all his hives this year. I’m feeling lucky.
P.S. I do see dragonflies here as well, which is weird, because I don’t really have any water except a sort of vernal ditch in the back pasture.
UtahRaven: I have no reason to doubt your thinking. We can be educated - but who decides what is to be taught?
I am sorry if I sound uncertain of the true aims of our govenment and many others around the world, but the fact is, we are at a point where we can either save the Earth or Mother Earth will abort us.
What damage have we done to this planet in the seach for material gain pains me.
I would very much like to see some more of the actual science. Contrary to neo-con dogma,there are definitely molecular biologists and virologists salivating over the opportunity to solve this puzzle; ready willing and able to do just that. This whole story is, above all else, a story about the power of science (or certainly will be).
There’s a lot of speculation about immune disorder and it’s role in this, but it’s just as likely that the cause is simple viral mutation. It could simply be the apiary equivalent of Typhoid Mary’s Influenza (which killed more people than WW1. An argument can be made that environmental factors might contribute to this phenomenon, but there’s a pathogen here– and some lucky (and brilliant) human being is going to find it…you can bet your bottom dollar.
Yes, don’t worry, the “free market” will solve all our problems…
Just repeat after me… the free…the free…the free…
the market…the market…the market….
Abbybwood;
never were truer words spoken.
Stawns;
So this is being blown way way way out of proportion, huh? Is that so? Does that mean, with your knowledge, experience, and confidence, that you would be willing to be held personally accountable (and perhaps include your family), if it turns out that this is NOT being blown way way way out of proportion?
It is no longer time for calming words (it never was) but rather high time to ring alarms and scream at the top of your lungs! My God, silence is complicity, to sleep while the ship is sinking is sloth, and he who says ‘don’t worry’ or ‘let’s not overreact’ is as guilty as the bad man.
Abbybwood is right.
whateveryousay
as someone who makes my living from honeybees I’d venture a guess that I know more than you. And yes, if the world goes to hell in a handcart, you may cite me as the reason.
chchicano….I can live with that definition of domestic, and in that sense, I guess you could say they are domesticated. I also agree that swarms could survive in warmer climes than my own (BC), but they would likely not survive all that long, as disease/pests will get them eventually, but I’m sure some do survive. If you want to help pollinating insects survive and thrive, plant pollinator gardens where you can. I can only speak for honeybees but when a stable nectar source is found, the queen increases her egg laying in order to increase population. Flowering plants that produce nectar and pollen will give them a valuable food source and increase their chance at survival.
stawns;
I’d guess you do, in fact, know a lot more than I do, about bee diseases and the bee ‘industry’. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have the capacity for a larger picture. In fact, because of your ’special interest’ in the area, maybe you have a smaller picture. I certainly cannot accuse you of that, however it is a good possibility.
As per taking personal responsibility; I wasn’t asking if i could ‘cite’ you as the reason. I asked if you would be willing for you and your family to be ‘held accountable’, which means with whatever punishments follow as the result of telling everyone to relax and not worry if the ship is sinking. In such a hypothetical situation as that -and it may prove not to be hypothetical-, are you so confident of your ‘expertise’?
stawns;
As a follow up, i imagine you are perhaps a great guy, maybe an organic BC farmer, into bio-diversity, sustainable farming, and supporting your fellow human beings or whatever good helps you ‘do your part’. Honestly. i do strongly believe, however, that the stakes are much too high (way way way too high) for us to think this is being blown “way way way” out of proportion. What is a little hysteria (if the concerns prove unnecessary) in relation to Silent Spring? And there are a lot of posts here from people who have first hand experience of a radical decline in the natural beings normally living with us.
WHATEVERYOUSAY
yes, i’m one of those people who have first hand experience of a radical decline in the natural beings normally living with us.
i used to work on a farm (in the middle east) and the first year i was there (1997)there were frogs/toads. but the year after and since they have disappeared. there were no chemicals used on that farm and everything was natural. i know that it’s a global problem of frogs disappearing so maybe that can be attributed to their delicate skin not being able to cope with the sun’s rays.
but i think KEM PATRICK is right about DU and ABBYBWOOD couldn’t have said it any better.
I am a progressive but I think that when we are at war with Islam we should all knuckle down and pull together. This bee story just distracts us from staying the course.
Soeharto;
Either your tongue is so far into your cheek I can’t see it or you are serious. Yes, you must be kidding but … just in case…
..maybe not, but I doubt I would be alone in saying that the “war with Islam” is itself A Grand Neocon Distraction, which hides and provides plunder of the earth for profit, the result of which is dying bees, dying trees, and dying seas, ultimately to include you and me.
I live in Austria, in a small village surrounded by woods, fields and pastures. Farmers in this region still practice “agriculture” not industrial farming or US “agribusiness”. The average farmer has between 10 and 50 open-range, dairy cattle and monoculture is rare. Thank goodness we have many organic producers and so far our government has prevented the invasion of GM crops.
http://www.indsp.org/Austria.php
Judging by the appearance of many different sorts of butterflies and birds the ecological balance of the landscape seems to be in pretty good shape. But of course the mad policy (courtesy of WTO) of treating food like any other commodity on the market is also threatening our small farmers and the quality of their products.
While I am writing this I can hear lots of bees and other insects buzzing outside in our garden.
We planted lots of herbs (Lavender, Thyme, Sage, Rosmary, Basil, Mint, etc.) because we love them and the bees do, too. We do not use any chemicals or synthetic fertilizers but try to keep the soil fertile with biological methods.
As far as I know Austria has not been affected by the mysterious disappearance of bees. I suspect that genetic engineering is the reason for this strange phenomenon. There has been very little testing on how transgenic DNA in pollen is affecting the health of bees and other insects but even the scarce evidence is alarming. (The DU theory is also plausible since alphaparticles in the body are causing genetic instability, a kind of unintended genetic engineering….)
For more information see:
http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/altieri.html
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/i-sisnews9-19.php
We must challenge the hype about biotechnology being scientific progress for the benefit of all. Nobody needs GM crops, they are dangerous and have been created for the sake of patent rights and licence fees. Not the plant is improved but the market power of the patent holder.
The basic concept of genetic engineering is outdated and false >>>>
http://www.psrast.org/gentechimp.htm
Give the bees (>> biodiversity) a chance…..
I, too,help steward a chemical-free garden, and have noted a pretty serious fall-off in the bee population this year. In previous years, there’s been a steady hum and traffic of bees in the lavender patches in the garden, but this year, a pretty dramatic decline in activity. So I have to wonder what’s happened also. I adore bees, have since I was a child, so it’s definitely a marked absence.
And as a bird-er, I’ve also seen a fall in the number of hummingbirds and varieties of flocks that are coming through. Something’s not quite right. I wouldn’t venture to say that it’s some corporate scheme, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that our corporate gumbo ya ya freaks are making some pretty serious mistakes in how they ladle on chemical crap when no one’s really watching.
What I wish more than anything else is that the bee issue would be a huge propaganda lie, because it sounds scary and insane. But I wanted Iraq to have a good outcome too, though it never sounded well thought out or truthful. The msm covered the vanishing bees a few times this summer I think, but I wonder if it’s going to get the attention it deserves.
Here in eastern Missouri many miles from the city, with a few acres of woods, I’m happy to say things don’t look too bad. Of course that’s from what I can see, since I’m not a farmer, scientist or naturalist. We don’t have a garden, but we do have a lot of weeds bordering the trees, and so far things seem fairly healthy. I’ve seen bees and bumble bees, many dragon flies and wasps, butterflies and moths. The other day, we saw a huge pale orange moth that I’ve never even seen before, and that was pretty cool. The birds are numerous too. Hawks are very healthy, and there are jays, crows, humming birds and woodpeckers. All the birds I grew up with seem to be here. Grasshoppers are very happy this year, they don’t seem to mind the heat. Overall, we haven’t lived here long enough to compare very well, but in listening to other stories, this particular area seems to be managing. For now.
I’d been feeling bad for not doing very much with the property so far, no gardens and too many weeds. I have health issues, but I could have tried. Now, with the continuing issues with bees and other wildlife, maybe it’s best. Now I’m happy just to see living things walking, climbing and flying around. Flower gardens are nice, and I love my stubborn marigolds that grow anywhere they find themselves, but I don’t think ornamental flowers replace the natural flora the wildlife depends on. Understanding how it all fits together is above my pay grade, so mostly I’ll just leave it all as is. Maybe grow some vegetables next year, tomatoes and useful things, and I never was into chemicals, I’m happy to say. Feeding the occasional bunny or insect with some of my garden never bothered me very much, as a casual grower. Wish more people would have felt that way, instead of loving picture-perfect grass yards with no food growing going on. Food trees are “messy” and gardens aren’t attractive. Sigh.
Please pardon the long comment, but until this morning I didn’t realize the overall picture was so much bigger than bees, to the point that folks are seeing widespread declines personally.
What’s bothering me is the picture I get when I put this together with sure-to-rise fuel costs, probable labor shortages (when they finish messing over all the immigrant workers we’ve depened on for, what, 30 years?), farmers moving to corn that won’t be feeding us, away from crops that would, droughts and crops damaged by everything from the ice last winter to the floods this spring. I saw a story about a farmer that couldn’t get his crop of onions picked. He offered $10/hour to pick his onions, and didn’t get workers. He offered $20/hour, and didn’t get the workers. He had to let the crop go, $350,000 worth of onions. And he’s just one guy with one crop.
Now with the loss of bees complicating things, I just DON’T see how the stores will be look the same next year. Either all these factors will have to level out, or there has to be consequences. But the bees aren’t getting any better, and neither is anything else. It has to mean food shortages in the near future. Doesn’t it? Is there ANY way we won’t see either massive food shortages or imported food at a much higher cost than we’ve ever paid before, at a time when our buying power is in sharp decline compared to living expenses? Any way around it? I don’t see it.
I live on the Florida Panhandle very close to the Gulf. I have seen exactly two honey bees this year and both were dying. The only other bees I’ve seen were a couple of wood bees and countless wasps. I do see dragon flies but not nearly in the numbers we usually see them. I watch the animals carefully and something is very wrong. Just last month I had a raccoon feeding in my yard at 11am. Then a baby snake at my pool, and finally a mole swimming in my pool all in a couple day span. Also, migratory birds (black birds) are flocking already, this started two weeks ago. They don’t normally start arriving until late September or October. I do have two bats that live on my property (thankfully) and they seem to be doing ok. I don’t use any chemicals on my lawn and for mosquito control I use citronella lamps or personal sprays, never fog…
I never was a fan of these solution-less articles whose purpose is to leave the reader feeling a sense of directionless unease, foreboding, etc. Let’s see some solutions, rationale, quotes from scientists.
Ultimately, it’s clear that something (or multiple things) has caused the well-tuned and highly evolved social/natural carrying capacity of bees to fail. I’ve read that this mainly affects large-scale traveling bee operations, in which they’re fed corn syrup, etc. and brought from crop-to-crop as itinerant pollinators. Also, bees have evolved a naturally potent anti-bacterial (propolis) which had made their hives among the more sterile/safe places on the planet — and yet the industry insists on cutting ANY and ALL losses, and doping them up with additional/alien antibiotics/fungals.
* So, you’ve got a species which communicates direction/distance from worker to worker, but industry puts them on the move.
* You take their honey and feed them corn syrup.
* You fill up fields with monoculture plants, many of them GMO’s sprayed with chemicals.
So why should we be surpised that an equilibrium has been broken?
I talked to a small beekeeper at a local farmer’s market who told me that he’s not really seen too many problems — and I have had plenty of bees servicing my gardens this summer, particularly my organic oregano bush for some reason.
Of course, what is most likely is that the bees are simply revolting at their exploitation by management. Beekeepers have been increasingly overworking their “workers,” shipping them hither and yon, even cross country, to boost their profits, all the while siphoning off ever more of the bees’ surplus value–the honey they make. I suspect, in true Marxiann fashion, the contractictions finally reached a point where the worker bees are revolting, just leaving the hive and going out on their own in what amounts to a “fly-out” strike.
So good for them. There’s a lesson for us all in this response to a national “speed up.”
Meanwhile, we should also note that honeybees are in fact interlopers–the insect equivalent of the immigrants that capitalists lure across the border to work for cheap wages here in the US. The honeybee was imported from Europe and has been used by agribusiness to boost production.
Meanwhile, the local workers–the native bees–were pushed to near extinction by the honeybee. Now that the honeybees are going native, perhaps the local bees–ground bees, bumblebees, wood-boring bees, etc.–will come back to take over their natural niches. that won’t help agribusiness, which needs the industrial-strength honeybee, but it will keep our forests and fields healthy.
So, here’s to the honeybee workers! We should honor their bold action, and join them ourselves.
Dave Lindorff
www.thiscantbehappening.net
Commercial Bee Keepers feed them antibiodics, spray the hives with chemicals, trick the bees with sugar to accelerate honey. and then transport them all over the place. They are overworked and weakened. I went to organic bee farms and permaculture centers, they are acting like bee sanctuaries. Organic Bees in the US are fine. Its the commercial bees that are fucked. We need to race back to organic, as if it were a state of emergency.
I hate my country
pesticides… herbicides… all heavily used by agribusiness in the US are most likely the culprits. Certainly if one is not willing to look at the overall agricultural practices in the US - where the bees disappeared first - as part of the problem then we are truly in for a really rough ride in the next 20 years.
Population explosion will be of little concern as population die off begins to occur. The propaganda in the US spewed out to the media all day long by huge agribusinesses like ADM, Monsanto and Conagra has been to convince most uneducated Americans (which means most Americans) that we cannot sustain population growth without the use of chemicals and poisons to supplement our food supplies. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Organic and natural processes are the best proven forms of agriculture despite the lies that come from USDA and FDA and agribusiness itself. The places where these things are practiced are mostly in the Southern hemisphere. Maybe we should begin to acknowledge our own lack of understanding of life before we begin acting as if we were somehow either superior to our surroundings or otherwise detached from it.
The earth actually has a limit to how many homosapiens it can sustain and we have topped that it would seem. Not to worry - the earth will correct itself as it is also a living organism with its own self correcting system of checks and balances. The correction must include a reduction in humans. Enjoy your arrogance while you can folks. The real fun is just about to begin….
I am a farmer in Nebraska. I raise alfalfa for my dairy cattle.
Used to be that when the alfalfa bloomed, the fields would be filled with zillions of bees busily collecting nectar from the purple alfalfa flowers.
My fields are blooming as a write this. I walked through a 40 acre field of alfalfa yesterday afternoon and didn’t see a single bee.
I really started noticing this about 3 years ago, about the same time that GM crops started to be extensively planted in my area.
whateveryousay….this is an article on honeybees and I am a beekeeper and while I agree that the industry is in dire straights, I am saying that it is not some environmental issue and this article and the comments here are portraying the problem as something it is not. The problem we are facing is industry generated in that we have over medicated over the last 25 years and now we are paying the price.
“So long and thanks for all the nectar”
Everyone has and is entitled to an opinion. I don’t believe the wild bees, hornets, ladybugs and hummingbirds etc, are being over-medicated. They’re just not here anymore like they should normally be.
I will wadger, next year it will be far worse. Something is terribly wrong and if it is a poison like DU, we will be very sorry we didn’t stop using it. That poison kills everything, alters DNA and attacks immune systems,___ even microbes. There is plenty of it in the air now,___ plenty!
Why is it, the bee keepers have been doing the same type of bee management for way over twenty years. Why is it the honey bees decided to a die off in a major way this spring? Why wasn’t it a rather gradual die off, at least over a two or three year time frame?
Anyway the commercial bees are not the only issue, if you live in an area where almost all of the inscets are gone, you would understand it is a big problem when nature is telling us, to stop doing something.
DAVE LINDORFF: You definitely hit the metaphysical root cause; while others accurately identify the biological breakdown factors. Just for humor… I was sitting outside with some friends, and one decided to roll a joint… he had a little box with some grass including seeds, and damn if a honey bee didn’t fly over, enter the box and take off with a seed. I kid you not! Could just be one of those mystical coincidences that ALWAYS happen to me…. but I had recently finished an esoteric children’s book using insects to depict the 12 Zodiac signs on the premise, CREATOR poured the milky way into 12 archetypal molds to “try it out” on the little ones (to see if it worked) first. I chose the BEE for Leo. Saturn, the planet of loss has been in Leo since Jul 2005, and the last time it was there was l975-l978 when another bee loss phase (not as bad) was reported. I guess the bees want their buzz, too, and being part fo this grand living mosaic, also feel the shifts spoken in the language of cosmos. My comments are meant to add to the discussion, and complement the pragmatic as well as scientific points already taken. LIFE is a circle and the varied perspetives taken as a gestalt point the way to Truth… each of us brings our KEY facet of understanding to this nexus.
I thought so,___ pot is killing them. Mom warned us.
KEM: that is NOT the conclusion my anecdote intended to warrant.
I’ll echo support of Dave Lindorff’s comments. I tried to sum this up in the Minnesota Daily a week or two ago (http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2007/08/15/72163162): “Mother Nature herself (Hurricane Katrina) and the laws of physics (I-35W bridge) are protesting more loudly than citizens themselves.”
Add bees to the list of physical/chemical/biological limits to which even almighty capitalism must succumb.
Oh,__ sorry. Never mind.
I reached a conclusion, a pretty obvious one I will admit, decades ago which I will share as I sometimes do. Art can direct Business but Business can NEVER direct Art. I suppose the same can be said for the environment, birds, and BEES!
Over medicating for 25 years. How many people actually know that the ‘pure’ honey they get is from medicated bees?
I hope Dave Lindoff is correct!
I live in SW Florida and we have a small lot planted almost exclusively with native plants. The firebush right outside my window is literally humming with bee activity. We have a huge and thriving anole population that keeps the bug population (sort of) in check.
I can’t speak to the issue of commercial citrus growers, but we have seen no decrease in the bug population in our yard.
I read there is a small area of Maine where they still have some bugs too. The birds are gone though and fishing is now lousy. Hang in there WmC, keep your figers crossed and see what happens next year.
It may have something to do with where the prevailing winds blow different types of poisons around the country?
Bees really like oregano too. I is a rather powerfull medicine. I notice of all the things available in my yard the oregano is visited more than the other plants.
There has also been a plan in effect to use bees to spread pesticides. You might find more information about this if you are interested. They put it on thier feet.