Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[uriel@nasalam.org]

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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