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Chronological Thread  
  • From: uriel@nasalam.org
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Honey, who shrunk the bee population?
  • Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 20:15:28 -0800

This article strikes me wrong. It seems to have been written by someone who knows nothing about bees, like stating that the hive will swarm without the queen. The only reason a queen would not go with the bees is if her wings had been clipped. The article also blithely dismisses the varroa infestation as something that had been dealt with. That is not true. It has devastated the industry, and most beekeepers have relied upon heavy applications of various poisons to keep the varroa at bay, when all they had to do was pay attention and learn. A few years back a brilliant beekeeper in Arizona determined that the varroa problem was caused by breeding for larger bees. When the bee size is reduced, the problem goes away. It seems that the varroa is nature's way of controlling the drone population. When the workers got as big as the drones used to be they became susceptible. When I read about that I switched all my hives over to the smaller comb, which produces smaller bees and I've never had to use any chemicals to keep them healthy. What's happening to the bees is parallel to what's happening to the land when you rely upon artificial chemicals instead of learning from nature. End of rant :}
Uriel

TradingPostPaul wrote:
1 March 2007 16:40
Species under threat: Honey, who shrunk the bee population?

Across America, millions of honey bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die, leaving beekeepers facing ruin and US agriculture under threat. And to date, no one knows why. Michael McCarthy reports

It has echoes of a murder mystery in polite society. There could hardly be a more sedate and unruffled world than beekeeping, but the beekeepers of the United States have suddenly encountered affliction, calamity and death on a massive scale. And they have not got a clue why it is happening.

Across the country, from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, honey bee colonies have started to die off, abruptly and decisively. Millions of bees are abandoning their hives and flying off to die (they cannot survive as a colony without the queen, who is always left behind).

Some beekeepers, especially those with big portable apiaries, or bee farms, which are used for large-scale pollination of fruit and vegetable crops, are facing commercial ruin - and there is a growing threat that America's agriculture may be struck a mortal blow by the loss of the pollinators. Yet scientists investigating the problem have no idea what is causing it.

entire article at
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2314202.ece



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