Infinite Unknown

Bee collecting pollen

(NaturalNews) There are many superfoods that boost immune function, but few do it with as much potency as bee pollen. Through its unique combination of minerals, vitamins, amino acids and enzymes, bee pollen offers one of the most revitalizing natural superfoods in the world (especially when collected from local bees who are in tune with your local environment).

We’ve put together a collection of research for you here, describing the health benefits of bee pollen. NaturalNews reminds everyone to be mindful when consuming bee products due to the very high stresses already placed on honeybees in North America and Europe. Make sure your source practices organic bee farming and does not expose honeybees to high-fructose corn syrup or other chemicals that may be harmful to bee populations.

Bee pollen and your immune system

Bee pollen has been used throughout history as a superfood to restore energy and recuperative powers to the ailing individual. Bee pollen improves allergies in many individuals, and hence may have a regulating effect on the immune system by helping to dampen unnecessary autoimmune attacks which saves immune warriors for the real cancer battle. There is no toxicity to bee pollen. Other bee products with extraordinary healing properties include royal bee jelly and propolis, which is the antibiotic compound used by bees to disinfect their hives before occupation.
- Beating Cancer with Nutrition, book with CD by Patrick Quillin, PhD,RD,CNS

While the effects are not so dramatic for everyone with arthritis, bee pollen is used by natural healthcare practitioners around the world to help alleviate arthritis symptoms. Energy Boost: Bee pollen is a popular supplement among many athletes, who report that it helps them train hard and recover quickly. Many athletes report that it helps increase stamina. Immune Support: Bee pollen is reported to help strengthen the immune system. People susceptible to reoccurring colds and respiratory tract infections may be helped.
- The Natural Physician’s Healing Therapies: Proven Medical Remedies That Medical Doctors Don’t Know About by Mark Stengler, N.D.

Bee pollen has more amino acids and vitamins than other amino-acid-containing products like beef, eggs, or cheese. Bee pollen is one of the few vegetable sources of vitamin B12 (Scheer 1992). A tablespoonful of bee pollen contains about 45 calories and is 15% lecithin (which is required for normal fat metabolism) by weight (Kamen 1991).
- PDR for Herbal Medicines, 4th Edition by Thomson Healthcare, Inc.

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Tags: Amino Acids, Bee pollen, Bees, Cancer, Enzymes, Food, Good News, Health, Immune System, Minerals, Propolis, Vitamin B, vitamin C, Vitamin D, Vitamin E, Vitamins

There are multiple reasons for the Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).

Here is another one from Germany:

Honey Bees starve to death in the middle of summer.

“The bees in Germany suffer of food deprivation in the middle of summer and would die of hunger, if they would not be kept alive with sugared water. Food scarcity in nature is dramatic,” …

German article:

Honigbienen verhungern mitten im Sommer

“Die Honigbienen in Deutschland leiden mitten im Sommer an Futtermangel und würden verhungern, wenn sie nicht vom Imker mit Zuckerwasser am Leben erhalten würden.  „Der Futtermangel in der Natur ist dramatisch“  erklärt Imkermeister Günter Friedmann, Sprecher der biodynamischen Demeter Imker und Träger des Förderpreises ökologischer Landbau. Beobachtungen an seinen eigenen Bienenvölkern und beunruhigende Meldungen von Imkerkollegen aus ganz Deutschland, veranlassen ihn, jetzt einen Alarmruf zu starten..„ Wenn nicht rasch ein Umdenken  und ein neues Handeln in der Landwirtschaft erfolgt, werden wir stumme Sommer erleben - und sehen, dass die Bienen für die Bestäubung und damit auch für die Ernten unersetzlich sind“.

“Friedmann ist seit 30 Jahren Berufsimker, aber „ mit einer solchen Situation wurde ich noch nie konfrontiert“ betont er,“ obwohl sich diese Entwicklung eigentlich seit mehreren Jahren anbahnt und auch zu den Bienenverlusten der letzten Jahre beigetragen hat“ Nach der Rapsblüte, Mitte bis Ende Mai, beginnt für die Bienen in vielen Regionen Deutschlands eine Zeit des Mangels und oft auch des Hungerns. Gerade in den Jahren, in denen es aus dem Wald keinen Honig zu gewinnen gibt, wird deutlich, dass auf den Feldern und Wiesen mittlerweile zu wenig blüht, um den Insekten ausreichend Nahrung zu bieten.”

Full article: Naturkost

A new study shows that heat can produce a potentially toxic substance in high-fructose corn syrup that can kill honeybees and may also threaten human health.

Researchers have established the conditions that foster formation of potentially dangerous levels of a toxic substance in the high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) often fed to honey bees. Their study, which appears in ACS’ bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, could also help keep the substance out of soft drinks and dozens of other human foods that contain HFCS. The substance, hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), forms mainly from heating fructose.

In the new study, Blaise LeBlanc and Gillian Eggleston and colleagues note HFCS’s ubiquitous usage as a sweetener in beverages and processed foods. Some commercial beekeepers also feed it to bees to increase reproduction and honey production. When exposed to warm temperatures, HFCS can form HMF and kill honeybees. Some researchers believe that HMF may be a factor in Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that has killed at least one-third of the honeybee population in the United States.

The scientists measured levels of HMF in HFCS products from different manufacturers over a period of 35 days at different temperatures. As temperatures rose, levels of HMF increased steadily. Levels jumped dramatically at about 120 degrees Fahrenheit. “The data are important for commercial beekeepers, for manufacturers of HFCS, and for purposes of food storage. Because HFCS is incorporated as a sweetener in many processed foods, the data from this study are important for human health as well,” the report states. It adds that studies have linked HMF to DNA damage in humans. In addition, HMF breaks down in the body to other substances potentially more harmful than HMF.

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Tags: Bees, CCD, colony collapse disorder, DNA, Environment, Food, Health, High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Science, Scientists, toxic, toxicity

Honey is the latest Chinese food import to raise safety worries in the United States, reports the San Francisco Gate. According to the report, the United States has imported the majority of its honey from China for years, despite concerns that it might be contaminated with a dangerous antibiotic.

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Tags: Antibiotics, beekeeper, Bees, Health

High temperatures this season were 3rd lowest on record

Summer is officially over in Alaska, and if you got out in the sun to enjoy both days of it you were lucky.

Those were the two July days the temperature at the offices of the National Weather Service in Anchorage hit 70 degrees or better.

Continue reading »

Tags: Alaska, Bees, Climate Change, Earth Changes, Global Warming, Salmon, U.S.

Richard Lees inspects his crop of broad beans which are not showing any signs of developing pods.

A LACK of bees may be blamed for the failure of bean crops in Selkirk gardens, writes Sally Gillespie. Although gardener Richard Lees of The Loan has not yet given up on his broad beans, he says the signs are not good.

“All the plants are fine - they couldn’t be better, the flowers are fine, but there are no beans. It’s too early to say it’s a failure yet, but I don’t like the look of it,” he told The Wee Paper this week.

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Tags: Beans, Bees, bumble bees, Food

I know this won’t come as a surprise to many of our readers, nor to the many organic beekeepers that have been commenting on our posts, but there have been several reports of organic bee colonies surviving where the ‘industrial’ bee colonies are collapsing. Here is the latest to come to my attention:

Sharon Labchuk is a longtime environmental activist and part-time organic beekeeper from Prince Edward Island…. In a widely circulated email, she wrote:

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.

Her email recommends a visit to the Bush Bees Web site, where Michael Bush felt compelled to put a message to the beekeeping world right on the top page:

Most of us beekeepers are fighting with the Varroa mites. I’m happy to say my biggest problems are things like trying to get nucs through the winter and coming up with hives that won’t hurt my back from lifting or better ways to feed the bees.

This change from fighting the mites is mostly because I’ve gone to natural sized cells. In case you weren’t aware, and I wasn’t for a long time, the foundation in common usage results in much larger bees than what you would find in a natural hive. I’ve measured sections of natural worker brood comb that are 4.6mm in diameter. What most people use for worker brood is foundation that is 5.4mm in diameter. If you translate that into three dimensions instead of one, it produces a bee that is about half as large again as is natural. By letting the bees build natural sized cells, I have virtually eliminated my Varroa and Tracheal mite problems. One cause of this is shorter capping times by one day, and shorter post-capping times by one day. This means less Varroa get into the cells, and less Varroa reproduce in the cells.

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?

These are important questions to ask. It is not an uncommonly held opinion that, although this new pattern of bee colony collapse seems to have struck from out of the blue (which suggests a triggering agent), it is likely that some biological limit in the bees has been crossed. There is no shortage of evidence that we have been fast approaching this limit for some time.

We’ve been pushing them too hard, Dr. Peter Kevan, an associate professor of environmental biology at the University of Guelph in Ontario, told the CBC. And we’re starving them out by feeding them artificially and moving them great distances. Given the stress commercial bees are under, Kevan suggests CCD might be caused by parasitic mites, or long cold winters, or long wet springs, or pesticides, or genetically modified crops. Maybe it’s all of the above… - InformationLiberation

That’s funny - that’s just what I said…

Let’s hear it for the natural/organic beekeepers out there! I hope this CCD incident will reinforce that natural systems respond far better to imitation and cooperation than reductionist arbitrary control. Work within the system, observe and learn. There’s a lot more to nature than meets the eye, or the microscope.

You Tube has removed the VIDEO

Further Reading:

• Colony Collapse Disorder - a Moment for Reflection

May 15, 2007

Source: Celsias

Tags: Beekeepers, Bees, CCD, colony collapse disorder, Genetically Modified Organisms, GMO, organic

Beekeepers are pointing the finger at a Bayer CropScience pesticide marketed under the name Poncho, but government tests aren’t conclusive

In Germany’s bucolic Baden-Württemburg region, there is a curious silence this week. All up and down the Rhine river, farm fields usually buzzing with bees are quiet. Beginning late last week, helpless beekeepers could only watch as their hives were hit by an unprecedented die-off. Many say one of Germany’s biggest chemical companies is to blame.

In some parts of the region, hundreds of bees per hive have been dying each day. “It’s an absolute bee emergency,” Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeeper’s Association, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. “Fifty to 60 percent of the bees have died on average, and some beekeepers have lost all their hives.”

The crisis hit its peak last weekend. Beekeepers from Germany’s Baden-Württemburg reported hives full of thousands of dead bees. The worst-hit region, according to state officials, was along the upper Rhine river between the towns of Rastatt and Lorrach. The Rhine valley is one of Germany’s prime agricultural regions.

Regional officials spent the week testing bees, pollen, honey and plant materials to look for the die-off’s causes. The Julius Kühn Institute in Braunschweig, a federal research institute dealing with agricultural issues, set up a special hotline for beekeepers to send in dead bees for analysis. Continue reading »

Tags: Beekeepers, Bees, CCD, colony collapse disorder, Food, Food Prices, honey, pollination

“The alarm bells are ringing, folks. We have reached the limit of the planet’s ability to absorb our pollution and environmental devastation. I sadly predict the human species if not mature enough to make the necessary forward-thinking changes, and that it will only learn from disaster. That disaster is coming. Prepare to live in a world where food becomes desperately scarce. Prepare to see the human population collapse in almost precisely the same way the honeybee populations are collapsing.”

“As go the insects, so go humans.”

(There is a ongoing discussion weather Einstein said the following or not:

“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”

If Einstein never said that, would it be less true then? - The Infinite Unknown)
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(NaturalNews) The ongoing phenomenon of mysterious honeybee deaths is starting to raise alarm in the food industry, which depends heavily on bees to pollinate many critical crops. “Honeybee health and sustainable pollination is a major issue facing American agriculture that is threatening our food supply and endangering our natural environment,” said Diana Cox-Foster of Penn State.

I tend to think that honeybees are simply “on strike.” They’re tired of being slave workers for the very humans who continue to destroy their habitat, pollute their air and water, and steal the labors of their hard work (honey, bee pollen and free pollination services).

Honeybees pollinate 130 different crops, which supply $15 billion worth of food and ingredients each year. One out of every three bites of food on your dinner plate was made possible by honeybee pollination. Continue reading »

Tags: Albert Einstein, Bees, colony collapse disorder, Disaster, Earth Changes, Food, Food Crisis, pollination, Pollution, Shortages

A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation’s commercially managed hives lost since last year.

Last year’s survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 percent.

As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it’s clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.

This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren’t enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

“For two years in a row, we’ve sustained a substantial loss,” he said. “That’s an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm.” Continue reading »

Tags: Bees, colony collapse disorder, crops, GMO, Haagen-Dazs, Pesticides, pollination

Al Gore’s widely discredited film “An Inconvenient Truth” that falsely hypes the threat of global warming has now been further discredited. ABC News has discovered that Gore used computer generated footage in his documentary that was taken from the 2004 natural disaster film “The Day After Tomorrow” to fraudulently emphasize the global warming threat. If global warming is such a dire threat to us, why would Gore need to use computer generated footage in the documentary to justify his point? The bottom line is that Gore’s film is based off of lies in order to scare the public into believing that man made carbon emissions are the cause of all of the planet’s environmental problems. Gore ignores scientific data that indicates solar activity is the real cause for planetary warming. Mars and other planets have also experienced rising temperatures the same time that warming has been reported on Earth. So unless man is on other planets emitting carbon, it is clear that solar activity is the cause for the planetary warming. Gore also ignores the fact that this past winter saw record snowfalls and record low temperatures in various parts of the world which indicate that this warming cycle might be coming to an end. Gore’s theories simply don’t add up, but that doesn’t stop him from attempting to recruit a green army of 10 million useful idiots to help him push this agenda. Instead of tackling real environmental problems like chemicals being dumped in oceans, the disappearance of the bees, genetically modified foods, the mixing of human and animal DNA and chemicals being sprayed in the air, Gore would prefer to tackle a problem that isn’t real. This makes Gore a phony environmentalist and he has positioned himself to profit greatly off of this scam. Gore is nothing more than a propagandist who is hyping this phony doomsday scenario so the global elite can justify implementing a planetary carbon tax which will be used to enslave humanity.

The following blurb is taken from ABC News.

Al Gore’s “traveling global warming show,” the award-winning documentary “An Inconvenient Truth,” includes a long flyover shot of majestic Antarctic ice shelves. But this shot was first seen in the 2004 blockbuster “The Day After Tomorrow.” Sculpted from Styrofoam and later scanned into a computer, the ice shelf “flyover” looks real.

Karen Goulekas, the special effects supervisor for “The Day After Tomorrow” said the shot is a digital image. She was glad Al Gore used it in the documentary since “It is one hell of a shot.” Both movies use the shot to convincingly portray global warming, but it is left to the audience to decide if this created image can both entertain and educate us about our changing planet.

This is blatant fraud on the part of Gore and more proof that his film is nothing more than propaganda designed to misdirect people’s legitimate environmental concerns towards something that helps their goal of a global carbon tax. It is entirely dishonest for Gore to be using computer generated video footage in a documentary that is supposed to be based off of facts. Gore is using this footage to exaggerate his phony claims. Continue reading »

Tags: Al Gore, Bees, carbon tax, Climate Change, EPA, Global Warming, GM Food, IRS