Bees in Peril. Costco Connection - July 2017

The Costco Connection - July 2017 - Page 34-35:

Bees in Peril: Working together to find a solution

What to do when the canary (bees) stops singing (buzzing)?

This is a great (short) overview of where we stand on bee front, written by Stephanie Ponder. (You gotta wonder if that's a pseudonym!:0)

This should worry people everywhere for soooo many reasons. The economic impact of a massive, or total loss of bees, is obvious. But bees are simply an indicator of our unhealthy impacts. It's like amphibians (frogs). Frogs live in both the water and the land, so a little pollution in one or both, can totally wipe them out.... giving a strong indicator of what destruction a lot of pollution will do.

Colony collapse disorder (CCD) is not so much the problem anymore. The big killer now is the vorroa mite.

We still having a die-off of 40% of the bees each year, continuing to make a huge challenge for the beekeepers to maintain and replenish. This is hard to wrap the mind around. Imagine, that 40% of your cattle crop died each year. Beekeepers are going through some major gymnastics to try to replenish the hive(s) each year.

The 4Ps are pests (vorroa mite), pathogens, pesticides and poor nutrition.

Massive monoculture like almonds are providing poor nutrition (and no diversity). The article compares the mono-crop of flowers to a human diet of 100% steak. Farmers are introducing (or not killing) flowers and wild-flowers among the mono-crop. This also suggests that the monocrop itself is not so healthy.

SustainZine has prior blogs related to CCD and healthy Bees. Think of bees as the Canary in the Coal Mine. When the canary dies, its a pretty strong hint that all is no longer well in the mine; when the bees die en mass, all is not well on the land.

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