BEE still my heart…
This article identifies, with science, the contributing cause of Honey Bee demise. This brief review attempts at identifying and reorganizing the concept as the back yard beekeeper plus a big thrill!
I have to admit that my thrill is currently motivated by thousands of honey bees, probably from a neighbor’s swarm-a big one-on my uncut Iron Weed standing 6’ or more, surrounding my home.
The lead in picture I took yesterday of a few bee’s gathering nectar shows a young but growing adult bee. The bee is still smaller than I would like to see, but seeing any bees is heartwarming. Pollen was being gathered by bumblebees a couple of weeks back and the two honey bees I saw at that time were tiny, disoriented, and surely dying. So Sad.
Let us start from the beginning. A decade back the demise of worldwide honeybee deaths was alarming. From the human perspective of pollinating Almond and Fruit trees by hauling honeybees back and forth over the roadways, thousands of miles, to an orchard; feeding them from tanker trucks with fructose boosted cornsyrups from China, promoted (my) speculative theories of unnatural bee food, stress as being treated as expendable and bee mites causing “colony collapse disorder”. No one wanted to look at the feeding system, although I focused on this factor in my previous articles.
True the intrusion of blood sucking bee mites in the hive, on the flowers and on the bee’s body was a blood-sucking factor in weakness- and still is a major consideration for hive health. However, newer techniques of bee management, medications, traps, and such have greatly reduced-but not eliminated-this on going problem.
Farming techniques have changed wherein the bee’s habitat is waning resulting in less forage for the bees and less native flower diversity. The biggest culprit, now specifically identified, is the GMO plant coupled with selective bacterial /chemical compounds that are “up-take” into the Food Plant and result in competitive plant destruction, aka: weeding. All this is ideal for the investors and farmers who must rid the soil of Weed Pests so that there are more marketable Food Plants for sale; but they, as a collective contributing group overlook mother nature interaction vs: profit. Mother nature strikes back with vengeance.
The “Rolling Stone” article is a milestone in identifying the agricultural-chemical industry attempt to feed the world, and of course gain corporate profits. But, at what cost?
Click here for the article of interest. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/what-is-killing-americas-bees-and-what-does-it-mean-for-us-20150818
The article poses several challenging new data finds. The most interesting to me is that the field of plants-weeds included, are sprayed with the chemical “X” which is a boost to the identified Food Plant, aka: Hybrid GMO Corn and kills out the undesirable competitive “weeds”. It appears that the living corn plant and the weed do not dissipate the bacterial/chemical gene spliced “do all” when they die, but that the bacterial/chemical genes splice remains in the soil, as well as the Food Plant on your table, which from Mother Nature’s view remains in the soil, forever and ever, causing future mutations to cope as well as leaving miles and miles, and more miles of wasteland in years to come. In time the interference with Mother Nature will morph into a human toxicity. At this day and time I would be concerned for pregnant women and pregnant livestock, and young children while keeping a sharp eye on the homestead. That is the duty of the eldest.
Organic growers will not be spared, as this product “X” will be in the soil. An example, no matter where you are, no matter how safe your healthy natural organic soil is today, the wind blows. Dust and product “X” will attach and come to rest. I suspect in time chickens, graze feeding livestock, and pond fish will all be affected. Most likely we will be too. Since science, politics and corporate business are SLOW to react; we may not see this prophecy for another decade; then what can be done?
Remember Doctor Rachel Carson with her controversial book in the 1960’s: Silent Spring. We are admittedly there after 50 years of hard science prophecy.
For the entrepreneur minded and the homeowner following this issue your best bet would be to build your greenhouse as dust free as possible and grow in hydroponics as opposed to soil. I would change mine over at this point but I am old and the soil inside the solar greenhouse and hoop house is relativity free of GMO and product “X”.
You can successfully raise fish, rabbits, and quail in a large solar greenhouse.
Back to honey bees. I was thinking that I could set out a plate of honey-real honey and start a “bee line” to the swarm of honeybees, but I have been remiss in building my new designer hives. I will check my buildings for a hive and this winter, perhaps, move them if I am ready. All this old time knowledge is great with young children and newbies, perhaps called “Lost Arts”, but we still have libraries and a few dedicated souls that make videos of what they did in old times. Perhaps old times will become the now times. I digress.
Best wishes for peace and prosperity in these troubling times. Live long and prosper.
May God bless you and may God Bless The United States.
Old Timer
Copyright: Back2theLand.com, 8/30/2015/ all rights reserved. Mark Steel.
