CCD

Bee Killers Monsanto & Bayer Sponsor National Pollinator Week (And 3 Ways They Are Killing Bees)

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Flashback:

– Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

(More info down below.)

bees-gmo

New York March Against Monsanto. Glynnis Jones / Shutterstock.com

– Bee Killers Sponsor National Pollinator Week (And 3 Ways They Are Killing Bees) (EcoWatch, June 12, 2014):

Concerned about the bees and the butterflies? Interested in celebrating National Pollinator Week? It’s happening next week, June 16-22.

And it’s brought to you, in part, by none other than Monsanto and Bayer.

In 2007, the U.S. Senate designated a week in June as National Pollinator Week. Every year, the Secretary of Agriculture signs a National Pollinator Week proclamation. As the public has grown increasingly concerned about the link between toxic chemicals and the die-off of bees and monarch butterflies, National Pollinator Week has evolved into the Pollinator Partnership. The Pollinator Partnership is a nonprofit that describes itself as “the largest organization in the world dedicated exclusively to the protection and promotion of pollinators and their ecosystems.”

Read moreBee Killers Monsanto & Bayer Sponsor National Pollinator Week (And 3 Ways They Are Killing Bees)

More Than A Half Million People Demand Home Depot And Lowe’s Stop Selling Bee-Killing Pesticides

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– More than a half million people demand Home Depot and Lowe’s stop selling bee-killing pesticides (Friends of the Earth, Feb 10, 2014):

Thousands participate in bee swarm actions across the country in the week of Valentine’s Day

WASHINGTON, D.C.—This week, over 27,000 people coast-to-coast are swarming Lowe’s (NYSE:LOW) and Home Depot (NYSE:HD) stores to support the bees that pollinate our flowers for Valentine’s Day. In a coalition effort called the Bee Week of Action, Friends of the Earth and allies are delivering more than half a million petition signatures and Valentines asking these retailers to “show bees some love” by taking pesticides shown to harm and kill bees — and garden plants treated with these pesticides — off their shelves.

Friends of the Earth U.S. is partnering with Beelieve, Beyond Pesticides, Beyond Toxics, Center for Food Safety, CREDO Mobilize, Friends of the Earth Canada, Northwest Center for Pesticide Alternatives, Organic Consumers Association, Pesticide Action Network, SumOfUs and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to turn out activists across the country, including larger actions in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Boston area, and Eugene, Ore.

Read moreMore Than A Half Million People Demand Home Depot And Lowe’s Stop Selling Bee-Killing Pesticides

Your Bank Savings Will Be Raided – U.S. Government Prepares For Civil War – Fascism Has Come To America – Bee Collapse = Food Collapse (Video)

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We are all terrorists now!


YouTube Added: 25.08.2013

Canada: Bees Dying By The Millions

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One of many dead hives at Schuit’s Saugeen Honey, in Elmwood.

– Bees Dying by the Millions (The Post, June 19, 2013):

ThePost (Hanover, Ontario)
By Jon Radojkovic

ELMWOOD – Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. He and many others, including the European Union, are pointing the finger at a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. used in planting corn and some other crops. The European Union just recently voted to ban these insecticides for two years, beginning December 1, 2013, to be able to study how it relates to the large bee kill they are experiencing there also.

Local grower Nathan Carey from the Neustadt, and National Farmers Union Local 344 member, says he noticed this spring the lack of bees and bumblebees on his farm. He believes that there is a strong connection between the insecticide use and the death of pollinators.

Read moreCanada: Bees Dying By The Millions

Illinois Illegally Seizes Bees Resistant To Monsanto’s Roundup; Kills Remaining Queens

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YouTube

– Illinois illegally seizes Bees Resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup; Kills remaining Queens (Global Research, May 24, 2013):

The Illinois Ag Dept.  illegally seized privately owned bees from renowned naturalist, Terrence Ingram, without providing him with a search warrant and before the court hearing on the matter, reports Prairie Advocate News.

Behind the obvious violations of his Constitutional rights is Monsanto. Ingram was researching Roundup’s effects on bees, which he’s raised for 58 years.  “They ruined 15 years of my research,” he told Prairie Advocate, by stealing most of his stock.

A certified letter from the Ag Dept.’s Apiary Inspection Supervisor, Steven D. Chard, stated:

Read moreIllinois Illegally Seizes Bees Resistant To Monsanto’s Roundup; Kills Remaining Queens

This Is What Your Grocery Store Looks Like Without Honeybees

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– This is what your grocery store looks like without honeybees (Whole Foods Market, June 14, 2013):

Whole Foods Market® partners with The Xerces Society to protect pollinator populations

One of every three bites of food comes from plants pollinated by honeybees and other pollinators, and pollinator populations are facing massive declines. At Whole Foods Market in University Heights, Rhode Island, some customers recently found out just how this may affect their lives.

To raise awareness of just how crucial pollinators are to our food system, the University Heights Whole Foods Market store removed all produce that comes from plants dependent on honeybees and other pollinators:

The before-and-after photo (above) is shocking – as are the statistics. Whole Foods Market’s produce team pulled from shelves 237 of 453 products – 52 percent of the normal product mix in the department. Among the removed products were some of the most popular produce items:

Read moreThis Is What Your Grocery Store Looks Like Without Honeybees

EU Imposes 2-Year Ban On Pesticides Believed Responsible For Mass Bee Deaths

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– EU imposes 2-year ban on pesticides believed responsible for mass bee deaths (RT, May 24, 2013):

The European Commission has adopted a two-year-long moratorium on the use of three necotinoid pesticides believed to be one of the reasons behind a 30 percent annual decrease in bee populations since 2007.

EU member-states will now have to amend their existing legislation on the use of pesticides by September 30 to comply with the ban adopted by the EC on Friday.

Read moreEU Imposes 2-Year Ban On Pesticides Believed Responsible For Mass Bee Deaths

Total Insanity: US Approves Bee Death Pesticide As EU Bans It

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What could possibly go wrong?

POLLINATION IN CHINA:

– Insanity: US Approves Bee Death Pesticide as EU Bans It (Natural Society, May 12, 2013):

Corporate politics is business as usual inside the United States, as I am once again shocked to report the EPA has sided with industry lobbyists over public health in approving a highly dangerous pesticide that the European Union recently decided to ban over fears of environmental devastation. Not only have neonicotinoid pesticides been linked repeatedly to mass bee deaths, also known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), but the continued use of such pesticides threatens other aspects of nature (and humans) as well.What’s even more amazing is that the decision not only comes after the EU publicly discussed the major dangers surrounding the use of the pesticides, but after the USDA released a report surrounding the continued honeybee deaths and the related effects — a report in which they detailed pesticides to be a contributing factor. Just the impact on the honeybees alone, and we now know that these pesticides are killing aquatic life and subsequently the birds that feed upon them, amounts to a potential $200 billion in global damages per year. We’re talking about the devastation of over 100 crops, from apples to avocados and plums.

And there’s countless scientists and a large number of environmental science groups speaking out on this. The EPA has no lack of information the subject. And sure, there are other contributing factors to bee deaths, there’s no question about that. We have an environment right now being hit with Monsanto’s Roundup even in residential areas, we have chemical rain, we have insane amounts of EMF — but it’s pretty clear that neonicotinoid pesticides are at least a major contributing factor. And beyond that, they have no place in the food supply to begin with.

The Pesticide Action Network (PAN) details the EU ban that came right before the EPA acceptance of the death-linked  pesticide:

Read moreTotal Insanity: US Approves Bee Death Pesticide As EU Bans It

Bee Deaths: EU To Ban Neonicotinoid Pesticides (BBC News)

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Honeybees are vital for pollinating crops

– Bee Deaths: EU To Ban Neonicotinoid Pesticides (BBC News, April 29, 2013):

The European Commission will restrict the use of pesticides linked to bee deaths by researchers, despite a split among EU states on the issue.

There is great concern across Europe about the collapse of bee populations.

Neonicotinoid chemicals in pesticides are believed to harm bees and the European Commission says they should be restricted to crops not attractive to bees and other pollinators.

Read moreBee Deaths: EU To Ban Neonicotinoid Pesticides (BBC News)

New Study: Pesticides Have Domino Effect On Bees

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See also:

– France Bans Syngenta Pesticide Linked To Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

– Illinois Government Secretly Destroys Beekeeper’s Bees And 15 Years Of Research Proving Monsanto’s Roundup Kills Bees

– Study: EPA-Approved GMO Insecticide Responsible For Killing Off Bees, Contaminating Entire Food Chain

– BBKA Betrayed Bee Keepers To Pesticide Lobby, Endorsed The Most Deadly Substances For Bees Existing On The Planet As ‘Bee-Friendly’ Or ‘Bee-Safe’

– EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees, Leaked Document Shows

Flashback: Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

– Pesticides have domino effect on bees (AFP, Oct 22, 2012):

Bees are vital because they account for 80 percent of plant pollination by insects. Without them, many crops would be unable to bear fruit.

PARIS — Chronic exposure to pesticides has a bigger knock-on effect on bees than conventional probes suggest, according to a new study on Oct. 21 touching on the mysterious collapse of bee colonies.

Biologists at the University of London carried out an exceptional field study into bumblebees exposed to two commonly used agricultural insecticides.

They sought to mimic what happens in a real-life setting, where different crops are sprayed with different pesticides at different dosages and times.

Read moreNew Study: Pesticides Have Domino Effect On Bees

Monsanto’s Seedy Legacy (Video)

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YouTube Added: 26.06.2012 von RTAmerica

Description:

Agricultural giant Monsanto is best known for their production of pesticides and genetically modified foods, but they have a controversial history as a chemical company with a slew of toxic cover ups. In addition to their battle against small farmers, the
newest buzz about the corporation is the speculation that their GM seeds are linked to the die off of bees. Abby Martin of RT brings us more on their seedy practices and what they are up to now.

France Bans Syngenta Pesticide Linked To Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

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See also:

– Illinois Government Secretly Destroys Beekeeper’s Bees And 15 Years Of Research Proving Monsanto’s Roundup Kills Bees

– Study: EPA-Approved GMO Insecticide Responsible For Killing Off Bees, Contaminating Entire Food Chain

– BBKA Betrayed Bee Keepers To Pesticide Lobby, Endorsed The Most Deadly Substances For Bees Existing On The Planet As ‘Bee-Friendly’ Or ‘Bee-Safe’

– EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees, Leaked Document Shows

Flashback: Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

– France bans Syngenta pesticide linked to bee decline (Farmers Weekly, June 8, 2012):

The French government has banned a pesticide linked to the decline of bees that is widely used to treat oilseed rape.

Cruiser OSR, which contains the neonicotinoid insecticide thiamethoxam, was banned for use on oilseed rape by the French Ministry of Agriculture.

Made by the Swiss agrichemical company Syngenta, Cruiser OSR is a seed treatment, which is coated onto the rape seeds.

The decision to ban Cruiser follows two studies earlier this year, in the UK and France, which found evidence that neonicotinoids contain chemicals that disorientate bees and prevent them from finding their way back to hives, causing colony collapse disorder.

Read moreFrance Bans Syngenta Pesticide Linked To Bee Colony Collapse Disorder

Illinois Government Secretly Destroys Beekeeper’s Bees And 15 Years Of Research Proving Monsanto’s Roundup Kills Bees

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Flashback: Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

– Illinois Department of Agriculture secretly destroys beekeeper’s bees and 15 years of research proving Monsanto’s Roundup kills bees (Natural News, May 20, 2012):

An Illinois beekeeper with more than a decade’s worth of expertise about how to successfully raise organic, chemical-free bees is the latest victim of flagrant government tyranny. According to the Prairie Advocate, Terrence “Terry” Ingram of Apple River, Ill., owner of Apple Creek Apiaries, recently had his bees and beehives stolen from him by the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDofA), as well as more than 15 years’ worth of research proving Monsanto’s Roundup to be the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) destroyed.

It began last summer when Ingram, who teaches children about natural beekeeping, gave a sample of his honeycomb to IDofA inspector Susan Kivikko (http://www.agr.state.il.us/programs/bees/inspectors.html) at a beekeeper’s picnic. Ingram explained that his bees would not touch the comb, and asked Kivikko if it could be tested for chemical contamination.

Read moreIllinois Government Secretly Destroys Beekeeper’s Bees And 15 Years Of Research Proving Monsanto’s Roundup Kills Bees

Healthy Beehives Thrive In Cities

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Flashback:

– Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

– Amid bee die-off, healthy hives thrive in cities (AP, July 29, 2011):

CHICAGO (AP) — Among the wildflowers and native grasses in the garden atop Chicago’s City Hall stand two beehives where more than 100,000 bees come and go in patterns more graceful, but just as busy, as the traffic on the street 11 stories below.

The bees are storing honey that will sustain them through the bitter winter and be sold in a gift shop just blocks away.

“Already this season, one hive has produced 200 pounds of surplus honey, which is really a huge amount of honey,” said beekeeper Michael Thompson after checking the hives one July morning. “The state average is 40 pounds of surplus honey per hive.”

The Chicago bees’ success could be due to the city’s abundant and mostly pesticide-free flowers. Many bee experts believe city bees have a leg up on country bees these days because of a longer nectar flow, with people planting flowers that bloom from spring to fall, and organic gardening practices. Not to mention the urban residents who are building hives at a brisk pace.

Beekeeping is thriving in cities across the nation, driven by young hobbyists and green entrepreneurs. Honey from city hives makes its way into swanky restaurant kitchens and behind the bar, where it’s mixed into cocktails or stars as an ingredient in honey wine.

Membership in beekeeping clubs is skewing younger and growing. The White House garden has beehives. The city of Chicago’s hives — nine in all, on rooftops and other government property — are just part of the boom.

“I’ve seen hives set up on balconies and in very, very small backyards,” said Russell Bates, a TV commercial director and co-founder of Backwards Beekeepers, a 3-year-old group that draws up to 100 mostly newcomers to its monthly meetings in Los Angeles.

The group is “backwards” because its members rely on natural, non-chemical beekeeping practices. All their hives are populated by local bees they’ve captured — or “rescued” as the group’s members like to say — from places they’re not wanted.

Read moreHealthy Beehives Thrive In Cities

Study Finds Cell Phones May Have Caused Mysterious Worldwide Bee Deaths

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Cellphone transmissions may be responsible for a mysterious, worldwide die off in bees that has mystified scientists.

Dr. Daniel Favre, a former biologist with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, carefully placed a mobile phone underneath a beehive and then monitored the reaction of the workers.

According to a story in The Daily Mail, the bees were able to tell when the handsets were making and receiving calls. They responded by making the high pitched squeaks that usually signal the start of swarming.

“This study shows that the presence of an active mobile phone disturbs bees — and has a dramatic effect,” Favre told the Daily Mail.

Favre believes this to be evidence of something other scientists have suggested: Signals from mobile phones are contributing to the decline of honeybees. Favre thinks more research could help confirm the link between cell signals and “colony collapse disorder” — the sudden disappearance of entire colonies over winter — which has halved the bee population, according to some estimates.

Read moreStudy Finds Cell Phones May Have Caused Mysterious Worldwide Bee Deaths

Scientists: Honeybees ‘Entomb’ Hives To Protect Themselves Against Pesticides

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Related info:

– U.N.: Decline of Honey Bees Now A Global Phenomenon

– Study: Pesticides Are ‘Killing Honeybee Population Worldwide’

– BBKA Betrayed Bee Keepers To Pesticide Lobby, Endorsed The Most Deadly Substances For Bees Existing On The Planet As ‘Bee-Friendly’ Or ‘Bee-Safe’ (!)

– Bumblebees in Freefall, Study Shows 96 Percent Decline

– EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees, Leaked Document Shows (!!!)

– Billons Of Bee Colonies Die Worldwide

– Heavy Honeybee Die-Off Continues; New Study Shows Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides

– Study: ‘High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee’

– Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) (!!!)

Yes, organic bees survive CCD, which almost proves that a pesticide (or maybe GM plants) must be responsible for CCD.

Also living on refined white sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in winter certainly can kill any advanced life-form.

By sealing up cells full of contaminated pollen, bees appear to be attempting to protect the rest of the hive


‘Entombed’ pollen is identified as having sunken, wax-covered cells amid ‘normal’, uncapped cells. Photograph: Journal of Invertebrate Pathology

Honeybees are taking emergency measures to protect their hives from pesticides, in an extraordinary example of the natural world adapting swiftly to our depredations, according to a prominent bee expert.

Scientists have found numerous examples of a new phenomenon – bees “entombing” or sealing up hive cells full of pollen to put them out of use, and protect the rest of the hive from their contents. The pollen stored in the sealed-up cells has been found to contain dramatically higher levels of pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals than the pollen stored in neighbouring cells, which is used to feed growing young bees.

Read moreScientists: Honeybees ‘Entomb’ Hives To Protect Themselves Against Pesticides

U.N.: Decline of Honey Bees Now A Global Phenomenon

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Related information:

– Study: Pesticides Are ‘Killing Honeybee Population Worldwide’

– BBKA Betrayed Bee Keepers To Pesticide Lobby, Endorsed The Most Deadly Substances For Bees Existing On The Planet As ‘Bee-Friendly’ Or ‘Bee-Safe’ (!)

– Bumblebees in Freefall, Study Shows 96 Percent Decline

– EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees, Leaked Document Shows (!)

– Billons Of Bee Colonies Die Worldwide

– Heavy Honeybee Die-Off Continues; New Study Shows Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides

– Study: ‘High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee’

– Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) (!)

Yes, organic bees survive CCD, which almost proves that a pesticide (or maybe GM plants) must be responsible for CCD.

Also living on refined white sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in winter certainly can kill any advanced life-form.


Bee colony collapse, once limited to Europe and America, is now being seen in Asia and Africa

The mysterious collapse of honey-bee colonies is becoming a global phenomenon, scientists working for the United Nations have revealed.

Declines in managed bee colonies, seen increasingly in Europe and the US in the past decade, are also now being observed in China and Japan and there are the first signs of African collapses from Egypt, according to the report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

The authors, who include some of the world’s leading honey-bee experts, issue a stark warning about the disappearance of bees, which are increasingly important as crop pollinators around the globe. Without profound changes to the way human beings manage the planet, they say, declines in pollinators needed to feed a growing global population are likely to continue.

The scientists warn that a number of factors may now be coming together to hit bee colonies around the world, ranging from declines in flowering plants and the use of damaging insecticides, to the worldwide spread of pests and air pollution.

Read moreU.N.: Decline of Honey Bees Now A Global Phenomenon

BBKA Betrayed Bee Keepers To Pesticide Lobby, Endorsed The Most Deadly Substances For Bees Existing On The Planet As ‘Bee-Friendly’ Or ‘Bee-Safe’

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Related information:

– Bumblebees in Freefall, Study Shows 96 Percent Decline

– EPA Knowingly Allowed Pesticide That Kills Honey Bees, Leaked Document Shows (!)

– Billons Of Bee Colonies Die Worldwide

– Heavy Honeybee Die-Off Continues; New Study Shows Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides

– Study: ‘High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee’

– Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) (!)

Yes, organic bees survive CCD, which almost proves that a pesticide (or maybe GM plants) must be responsible for CCD.

Also living on refined white sugar and high-fructose corn syrup in winter certainly can kill any advanced life-form.

The saga of the British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA) and its long-term pesticide endorsements is quite extraordinary. For 10 years, the BBKA has been giving its official blessing to four insecticides as “bee-friendly” or “bee-safe” – for example, the May 2001 newsletter BBKA News referred to “the BBKA’s endorsement of Fury as a bee-safe product”, while another piece in August 2005 said “the products we endorse are bee-friendly when used properly”.

Yet the active ingredients of these products, as shown above, are among the most deadly substances for bees existing on the planet.

Most rational people, with no axe to grind one way or another about bees or pesticides or anything else, would surely find this counter-intuitive as best; at worst, simply bonkers. Good old bee-safe Fury, eh, which contains cypermethrin, the second most toxic insecticide to honey bees out of 100 tested. No wonder it has produced fury among some beekeepers. What has been going on?

The more one goes into it, the more it becomes clear that there is a very comfortable relationship – the old word used to be “cosy” – between the fairly small group of senior beekeeping figures who run the BBKA as a self-perpetuating oligarchy, and the pesticide lobby, or as they would prefer to call it, the crop protection industry.

This is something which may skew judgement. One of the claims in the open letter sent to the association by independent beekeepers is that “the BBKA appears never to have issued any public statement that is critical of any pesticides or pesticide manufacturer”. That’s a sweeping statement, but it’s certainly the case, if you leaf through BBKA News, that pesticides are not viewed as a major problem.

This matters, because in the great decline of bees we have witnessed in recent years, culminating in the mysterious colony collapse disorder, a new generation of pesticides, the neonicotinoids, may be implicated, some claim. Yet some senior British beekeepers and scientists insist the matter is down to mites like varroa, or viruses like nosema, and say pesticides have nothing to do with it.

Read moreBBKA Betrayed Bee Keepers To Pesticide Lobby, Endorsed The Most Deadly Substances For Bees Existing On The Planet As ‘Bee-Friendly’ Or ‘Bee-Safe’

Billons Of Bee Colonies Die Worldwide

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Recommended reading:

– Heavy Honeybee Die-Off Continues; New Study Shows Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides

– Study: ‘High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee’

– Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

bees-billions-of-colonies-die-worldwide
Catastrophic collapse: More than three million colonies in America and billions of bees worldwide have died since 2006

The world faces a future with little meat and no cotton because of a catastrophic collapse in bee colonies, experts have warned.

Many vital crops are dependent on pollination by honeybees, but latest figures show a third failed to survive the winter in the U.S.

More than three million colonies in America and billions of bees worldwide have died since 2006.

Pesticides are believed to be a key cause of a crisis known as Colony Collapse  Disorder (CDD), damaging bee health and making them more susceptible to disease.

But scientists do not know for certain and are at a loss how to prevent the disaster. Other potential factors include bloodsucking parasites and infections.

Some experts believe bees are heading for extinction.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the U.S. fell by 34 per cent last  winter, according to a survey by the country’s Agricultural Research Service,  and some commercial beekeepers have reported losses of more than 60 per cent over a year.

Read moreBillons Of Bee Colonies Die Worldwide

US: 34% Of Bee Colonies Did Not Survive The Winter; World May Be On The Brink Of Biological Disaster

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Recommended reading:

– Heavy Honeybee Die-Off Continues; New Study Shows Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides

– Study: ‘High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee’

– Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe

honey-bee-collecting-pollen

Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.

The decline of the country’s estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.

Read moreUS: 34% Of Bee Colonies Did Not Survive The Winter; World May Be On The Brink Of Biological Disaster

Heavy Honeybee Die-Off Continues; New Study Shows Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides

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What kills the bees will kill you too. Pesticides and all the other toxic chemicals that poison the food supply have been proven to cause Alzheimer’s disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s and cancer in animals.

This is one of many reasons why I eat organic food.

Flashback: Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

New Study Shows Honeybees’ Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides.

Food and Farm Disappearing Bees
In this photo taken Monday, March 22, 2010, Workers, from left, Johan Du Preez, Susan Dupreez and Rouxle Crafford clear honey from dead bee hives at a bee farm east of Merced, Calif. The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees’ pollen and hives laden with pesticides. Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat, ordering new research on pesticides already in use.
(AP)

MERCED, Calif. – The mysterious 4-year-old crisis of disappearing honeybees is deepening. A quick federal survey indicates a heavy bee die-off this winter, while a new study shows honeybees’ pollen and hives laden with pesticides.

Two federal agencies along with regulators in California and Canada are scrambling to figure out what is behind this relatively recent threat, ordering new research on pesticides used in fields and orchards. Federal courts are even weighing in this month, ruling that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency overlooked a requirement when allowing a pesticide on the market.

And on Thursday, chemists at a scientific conference in San Francisco will tackle the issue of chemicals and dwindling bees in response to the new study.

Scientists are concerned because of the vital role bees play in our food supply. About one-third of the human diet is from plants that require pollination from honeybees, which means everything from apples to zucchini.

Read moreHeavy Honeybee Die-Off Continues; New Study Shows Pollen And Hives Laden With Pesticides

Study: ‘High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee’

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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

honeybee-908
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.

Read moreStudy: ‘High-Fructose Corn Syrup and Its Toxicity to the Honey Bee’

Organic Bees Surviving Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)

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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:

May 15, 2007

Source: Celsias

German Beehives Hit by Mass Die-Off

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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.

Read moreGerman Beehives Hit by Mass Die-Off

Colony Collapse Disorder – a Moment for Reflection?

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Our previous posts on the mysterious bee disappearances (here, here, and here) have been a very interesting exercise. We’ve had great feedback from farmers, amateur and professional beekeepers, scientists, and dozens of other interested/concerned observers. In the meantime, accumulating reports tell us that the problem is not constrained to the U.S. alone – but that, to one degree or another, empty hives are becoming common in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Poland, and now possibly the UK. Canada, so far, seems unsure if they have the problem, or not. We’ve now also had unconfirmed reports from Brazil.

Personally, I believe situations like this are an opportune moment for reflection – a time to humbly consider a few realities, and perhaps learn a few lessons. Of significance to me is the fact that scientists haven’t got this figured out as yet. It begs the question – which is easier, when dealing with the infinitely complex interactions of nature: 1) predicting specific consequences to our ‘tinkering’ before they occur, or 2) understanding how something happened after-the-fact? I would have thought the latter was the easiest – you know the old saying, “hindsight is a wonderful thing”. Looking back at the results, following the trail of clues, is a lot less challenging than postulating over what could happen. Or, to put it into a framework that might be better understood – if Sherlock Holmes, expert in crime scene deductions, were to turn his attention to predicting crimes rather than solving them, how would he have fared? Short of the kind of psychic predictive skills seen in Minority Report-type science fiction movies, I don’t expect he’d fare so well.

What am I on about, you ask? Simply this – too many people hand scientists the keys to the car, as it were, and bid them take it wherever their employer wishes. Our governments do this, and too many either encourage it, or stand by and let it happen. When the PR departments that front these scientists portray a glorious new world where man manages to, with perfect and meticulous coordination, juggle all the intricacies of the natural world in one hand, whilst cashing in on it and providing world peace and equality with the other – we believe it. Yet, how can we have so much confidence in their ability to read the future, when they are unable to decipher the past and present – a task that should be a damned sight simpler, no?

As Australians are benefiting from an export boom in bees to the U.S., and while the best recommendations from the groups that have been tasked with finding solutions to these problems are to advise which chemicals to use and which not to (PDF), I will list some of the possible causes for the present pollination crisis below (I call it a pollination crisis here, rather than a honeybee crisis, because there are other pollinators that would be lending us a hand – if we hadn’t driven them into exile):

Read moreColony Collapse Disorder – a Moment for Reflection?