North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Thomas Olenio" <tolenio@sentex.net>]

Hi Don,

 

What is the moral to your bee story?  Nature will find a way.

 

I know nothing about bee keeping, but wonder about man made nectar and pollen that is fed to bees as a supplement.

 

From our own human biology we know that highly processed foods are not good for us and shorten life spans and foster disease.  We also know that the homo-sapiens were built around the concept of hunter/gathers, and food demanded exercise.  When food became easily available without exercise obesity and other health issues arose.

 

I would even theorize that the brain endorphins released during exercise are nothing but the human equivalent of Pavlov’s bell, being rung in anticipation of food.  And that queue stimulates the mind with pleasure and prepares the gut for better protein absorption.

 

That makes perfect sense; run down the animal, then eat the animal.  The body produces endorphins in anticipation of eating the protein, and the body is queued for better use of that protein.

 

Keep in mind that homo-sapiens are only 600,000 years old and then only in the last 1,500 to 2,000 years has man become severely urbanized.

 

Now doctors are telling us that overweight people may be eating simply to satisfy psychological pleasure centers.  Makes perfect sense.  Modern man is learning to bypass the exercise and go directly to the food establishing a new endorphin/food relationship, which has the byproduct of obesity and disease.  We were not built for the new pattern or the new highly processed foods.

 

So could we be doing the exact same thing to bees with artificial or highly processed foods, and placing them at their doorstep reducing the foraging (exercise)?

 

Just a thought.

 

Later,

Tom