What if the Bees Die?

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What if the Bees Die?

All of Them

by Robert Hunziker / August 26th, 2014

Bees are some of the busiest, most industrious creatures on planet Earth. Basically, they mind their own business whilst performing pollination chores that ultimately provide humankind with every third bite of food. Yes, they’re absolutely critical to the world’s food chain all the way up to your mouth, every third bite.

“Pollen truly is the ‘gold dust of nature’. It is the culmination of the life force of plants,” The Importance of Bees, CC Pollen Co.

But, horror of horrors, bees are dying off like never before. For example, Michigan and Indiana lost 60% of their bee populations this past winter, and it is worse than that; it is a nationwide problem, and even more disquieting, it is a worldwide problem.

Recent scientific research has zeroed-in on the culprits, which are neonicotinoids or “neonics,” which are pesticides manufactured by (readers may have already guessed this) Monsanto and Bayer. However, the two manufacturers claim the pesticides are totally benign. Yes, they honestly say this.

Somebody is wrong.

One answer comes from the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides (“TFSP”). This is the first ever study of all the available science on the issue with scientists contributing from around the world. The four-year study was directed at how and why so many bees, butterflies and other insects, including good ole earthworms, are disappearing so rapidly.

According to Ole Hendrickson, a member of the task force, “Instead of wiping out the top of the food chain, killing hawks and eagles as DDT did, neonics are wiping out the bottom of the food chain.”¹

In fact, the problem is worse, much worse, more so than even imaginable, because, according to Jean-Marc Bonmatin of the National Centre for Scientific Research (Fr): “Neonics are 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT,” Ibid. Five thousand times anything is enormous, hugely overwhelming, and preposterously off the charts.

What do Bees Pollinate?

You name it, almost every fruit, nut, vegetable, and field crop, and honey fits in the mix.

In short, loss of bees is equivalent to one giant step towards mass starvation.

The Task Force on Systemic Pesticides

According to the Task Force on Systemic Pesticides, Press Release, New Four-Year Scientific Analysis: Systemic Pesticides Pose Global Threat to Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, June 24, 2014: “Concern about the impact of systemic pesticides on a variety of beneficial species has been growing for the last 20 years, but the science has not been considered conclusive until now.”

Yes, the science is now “conclusive,” and it concludes: “There is clear evidence of harm sufficient to trigger regulatory action.”

Further defining the scope of this worldwide problem, neonics are a nerve poison (Poison? Yes, it’s a nerve poison!) Its effects range from “instant and lethal to chronic.” Purportedly, neonics protect food production, but the evidence is clear that it does the opposite by threatening the very infrastructure, which enables food production. This is equivalent to people taking statins, which, in turn, perversely, elevate cholesterol levels.

Neonics is not a small, isolated market. Neonics have become the pesticide of choice with a worldwide market share of 40%, which begs the question: How can so many farmers be so wrong, using neonics? And, furthermore, is the question as simple as that?

Counterpoint by Bayer

According to Bayer’s web site: “The use of neonicotinoid insecticides in agriculture has been considered by many as having revolutionized the farmer’s ability to control damaging pests in a more environmental-friendly way.”

Fortunately, and smartly, as for Bayer, their internal PR statement says, “ Blah, blah, blah…considered by many….” Namely, considered “by many” is about as ambiguous, incomplete, and uncertain as one can possibly express in words, but it means more than one, and the dictionary says it means, “constituting or forming a large number.” H-m-m, on second thought, that really sounds convincing, but maybe not. Anyway, their referenced study is inconclusive. But, who constitutes “many.”

However, and nevertheless, Bayer substantiates its positive view of neonics via a 15-year study. ²

Bayer should be somewhat embarrassed, as the study’s conclusion is filled with cautionary statements about more studies required and inconclusiveness, not conclusiveness. And, that is how scientists are supposed to report findings, unless the findings are 100% conclusive. Then, it’s conclusive. So, kudos to Blacquiere, et al on that score; however, and most importantly, the report is remiss of evidence to support Bayer’s self-serving blanket statement that neonics “… control damaging pests in a more environmental-friendly way.”

As such, one can only conclude that, since bees are dropping by the millions, possibly by the billions, originating from some source not part of nature, and since the TFSP study is “conclusive,” conclusively stating that neonics harm, if not kill, bees, then neonics should be banned or heavily regulated, at the least. Of course, banning removes the “at the least” consideration.

A Workable Alternative to Bee Pollination

Similar to bees, people can pollinate plants and trees. This actually, really, truly happened in China, as reported on NPR (National Public Radio) by Robert Krulwich, “How Important Is A Bee?” December 6, 2013.

Here’s the scoop: The bee population disappeared from an apple-growing region of Central China named Maoxian County. Previously, the bees showed up every spring for as long as anybody could remember until one spring in 1997, no bees. Without bees the apple farmers were literally up a creek without a paddle.

Solution: Pollinate the apple trees by hand.

The farmers hired enough workers, using brushes made from chopsticks and chicken feathers, and going from blossom to blossom, replicating the bees, human workers spread the pollen. Remarkably, apple harvests were 30% to 40% greater than with the bees because the horde of human pollinators meticulously pollinated every blossom. Bees, however, are a little sloppy and occasionally miss some blossoms.

Moral of the story: Unemployment may be high in the U.S., but with immigration concerns and border patrols working overtime to eliminate border crossings, where will farmers find the people (many farmers already report shortages of field workers, who are typically migrant workers) willing to do this menial work of pollination and can farmers afford to pay the workers?

The bees do it for free!!!

P.S. One positive, but extremely sad, side benefit to the possibility of an impending loss of all bees, the unemployment rate will drop to zero, but food costs will skyrocket, not a benefit. Otherwise, unless hundreds of thousands maybe even millions, of people go to the fields to pollinate, they’ll be no more fruit, nuts, vegetables, field crops, and honey.

Postscript:

I am attracted to bees because I like honey— it is really delicious. Their product is something we cannot produce, very beautiful, isn’t it? I exploit them too much, I think. Even these insects have certain responsibilities; they work together very nicely. They have no constitution, they have no law, no police, nothing, but they work together effectively. This is because of nature… I think we are behind those small insects.”

— The Dalai Lama

1. 1. Stephen Leahy, “How ‘the New DDT’ Wreaks Havoc on the Bottom of the Food Chain”, Motherboard, June 24, 2014. [↩]
2. Tjeerd Blacquiere, et al, Neonicotinoids in Bees: A Review of Concentrations, Side-Effects and Risk Assessment, Ecotoxicology, January 28, 2012. [↩]

Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide, like Z magazine, European Project on Ocean Acidification, Ecosocialism Canada, Climate Himalaya, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Comite Valmy, and UK Progressive. He has been interviewed about climate change on Pacifica Radio, KPFK, FM90.7, Indymedia On Air and World View Show/UK. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

This article was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2014 at 8:15pm and is filed under GMO, Pesticides.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2014/08/what-if-the-bees-die/

As the bees go, so goes the world?

by Andy Russell, originally published by Autonomy Acres.com  | AUG 27, 2014

While the title of this essay may be tinted with a bit of doom and gloom, it is not as ominous as it sounds, and it is a fairly accurate description of the events and stories that follow.  For anyone who has followed this blog over the last five years may have noticed, I have gone through periods of consistent, productive writing, balanced out with dry periods of nothing but writers’ block growing up through the cracks of my mindscape.  While these droughts have been few for the most part, this last one has been pretty epic in scale!  The last time I sat down to write was back in February of this year when I continued with an ongoing series of essays about DIY homebrewing.

Winter!!!

Since this last winter (the one filled with all of the Polar Vortexes) many things have happened here at the Dead End Alley Farm, and much of it would have made great copy for essays and DIY how - to’s here on the blog. I am not going to touch on everything, but I guess it is time for us to catch up on current events and happenings around the homestead and the world at large.

As I sit here in the afternoon shade with a cold beer in the outside office (a picnic table and some benches, and a hacked together arbor covered in wild grapes and honeysuckle) I am listening to one of the hens cluck away in pride or fear or some other emotion that only a chicken can know.  I can see bumble bees feeding on white clover and catnip, an overcast sky, and my old dog Harvey lying in the grass watching the world go by.

There are parts of our yard that are overgrown with weeds that should have been ripped from the ground long ago, and some of our apple trees (especially the big old one in back) are beginning to shed apples like drops of rain.  There is garlic hanging from the roof joists of my back deck and the tomato plants are overloaded with luscious fruit this year.

I have three hives of bees this season.  My pride and joy are the Carniolans that overwintered and have proven to be exceptional bees.  They are 3 deep with 2 honey supers (which translates to a very healthy colony that is making a lot of honey), a naturally mated queen (who may be the same one from last year, not real sure if they have swarmed or not this season) leads this tribe, and they are poised to enter this upcoming winter appearing very strong and healthy with adequate food supplies.

Installing the Buckfast bees out at our country beeyard.

This spring I also purchased 2 packages of hybrid Buckfast bees that came up from Georgia.  Sadly one perished within the first week (dead queen), but the other one has shown to be a vigorous (if not a bit pissy) hive of bees.  At last check they were finishing up drawing out comb and making honey in 3 deep boxes which should be enough stores for winter. And throughout the early part of the year these Buckfast bees provided frames of brood and eggs to help strengthen my Carniolans, and have also helped out to create a third colony.

At the end of June I came across a local company, 4 Seasons Apiaries, that specializes in locally bred queens and nucs.  This is a huge deal for us in Minnesota, not only for the fact that it is hard to find northern bred queens anywhere, but because it was only 20 minutes from my house as the car drives.  I ended up purchasing a really dark queen for $28 and put together a split that was made up of two frames each of the Buckfasts and the Carniolans.  The jury is still out on how this hive is doing though.  The queen is laying eggs, there is brood (both capped and otherwise), and they are actually making quite a bit of honey, but their overall numbers seem low to me.  They will most likely be subsidized with honey from the Carniolans this winter in hopes that they will have enough food to survive the cold, dark days of the upper midwest winter.

While I cross my fingers in hopes that all 3 of my colonies will pull through and survive this upcoming winter, observation and common sense tell me that the likelihood of all 3 surviving is slim at best.  Current numbers from this last winters survival rate was anywhere from about 30-50%.  These are horseshit numbers when compared to 20-30 years ago when a beekeeper could expect close to 90% survival rate in their apiaries.

My backyard is a refuge for endangered species...

So the same story continues for the bees.  While the numbers of reported cases of colony collapse disorder have evened out (and possibly plateaued), bee losses continue throughout many parts of the world, but seem especially high here in America.  Why this is such a surprise to people baffles me.  Our modern - mono crop - anthropocentric ways of inhabiting this planet are not compatible with a diverse, living, natural world.  This story is no longer just about the bees, but also of the monarch butterfly, the oceans, the remaining old growth forests of the world, and even people.

Habitat destruction, climate change, slavery, edible-food-like-products engineered to grow with poison, industrial pollution, and profit - from - disease are all symptoms of the overarching cancer that is this modern day capitalist society. It has grown up around us over the last 300 years, the whole time was spent in a petrochemical party binge, and now that we are drying out we are starting to feel the hangover!

It is as simple as this - when the bees lose, we lose, and that is the road we are going down.  The world that we live in, regardless of your flavor of religion, or politics, or indifference is still ruled by cold hard facts established through observation and the scientific method.  The world is changing, mainly its’ climate, but also the make-up of its varied populations.  Every day the Earth loses another creature, another plant.  The last of manifest destiny is completing itself as the few remaining “wild” people are driven from their forest homes, and the blood of ethnic genocide still waters the tree of “Liberty” for those of us in the privileged world .

Here is my flooded basement!

This spring my family experienced climate change first hand.  For some naive reason I thought we were insulated from climate change here in Minnesota, but was I wrong!  Starting towards the end of May and going through towards the end of June, we received upwards of 15 inches of rain for the month, with a lot of this rain coming in bursts of multiple inches in short periods of time.  At some point a sewer line about a block and a half away from my home could no longer keep up with the amount of stormwater entering the system and literally collapsed in on itself.  This blockage led to my whole neighborhoods’ sanitary sewers backing up and we had upwards of 14 inches of sewage water in our basements!

Lets just say it was a real shitty and smelly problem to clean up.  To add to the mess, the city that I live in is not claiming any real responsibility for the sewer collapsing.  They are saying that the amount of rain that we received is to blame (because no one could have predicted that we would ever get that much rain in such a small space of time), and it is not their problem that the sewer wasn’t designed to handle that much water.  This situation is a good illustration of the intersecting problems of failing infrastructure and its ability to deal with the symptoms of climate change.

Not only is it bad enough that our infrastructure is falling apart and failing throughout the country, climate change will only hasten the collapse of these systems that we take for granted.  As there is less and less money to spend on domestic infrastructure projects and basic preventative maintenance, and the ever increasing threats of unstable weather conditions loom closer on all of our horizons, our roads and sewers and all the other systems that make modern lifestyles possible will be challenged and frequently overcome by a force far greater than themselves.

What is the quick take away from this conversation?  That as we face the future of a world that struggles to adapt to a changing climate with far fewer cheap resources on hand to work with, we can no longer rely on the long term support of our governments to solve these problems or to even help clean up the messes that ensue.  Just think back to hurricanes Katrina or Sandy (or any number of other climate disasters that happen regularly around the world) and you have all the evidence that you need to show government ineptitude when a climate-crisis strikes.

Most of the collapse will be slow and unnoticeable except for those places directly affected by whatever natural disaster decides to strike next.  But with each changing season, and every new climate change induced disaster, bit by bit the comfort and convenience that we are used to will begin to erode away. As long as we keep spending our resources, whether that be gold or oil, in a way that denies climate change and resource depletion, we will find ourselves in a world that is an empty shell of the one we now know.

If I were a religious man I may start praying extra hard right now, but thankfully I let science rather than superstition guide my life.  Critical observation and the ability to make rational decisions based on the facts is important.  Not just for a nation or a civilization, but also on the personal and family level.  I think if there is anything I have learned, is that when we can look at problems on multiple levels, do the research that is needed to educate ourselves on these problems, and then make decisions based on these observations to correct the problem, we can do a lot just in our own lives to change the course of events, and add a bit of resiliency and human spirit back into our everyday lives.

Nature reclaiming what is rightfully hers!!

As briefly mentioned here in other posts, a year and a half ago I quit a long time job of mine in favor of one that affords me far more free time.  The trade off has been huge, and sometimes quite challenging.  This has been my second summer off, and my first full season as a partially self employed, full time stay at home dad.  It has probably been the most eye opening, and sometimes hardest role I have ever had to play.

Being use to the role as the main breadwinner in my family for so long and then giving up that economic control is not easy, but a lesson that I urge you to all try at some point in your life.  After these last few months of being at home with the kids, I have a far greater appreciation and respect for the work that my wife (as well as all you other moms out there!) has done over the last 8 years.  Child rearing is the hardest thing I have ever participated in, but I am glad that I have had the chance to dive in full time.

For me the hardest part has been balancing time between time actively spent with the kids, chores, and coordinating our CSA.  The CSA we run is small.  2 full shares, and 2, ½ shares, but it gave me a nice chunk of cash in the spring and early summer for things like groceries (I can’t grow cheese cake!) and gas money.  That cash is gone now, so my new endeavor is working on a business plan that expands out from the CSA in other directions to increase my summer cash flow for a few more months.

Eventually I hope to start making a bit of money by raising bees to sell, starting a small plant nursery, and I am also exploring some options for teaching classes.  Using outlets like the public library system, community education, and space at my local co-op, I am hoping to put together a selection of classes that will include introductions to beekeeping and Permaculture, and also a tree grafting workshop each spring.  I am in the early phases of research and planning, but I hope to teach my first official tree grafting class this upcoming spring (contact me if you are interested in hosting a class).

I guess when I really sit down and think about it, my ultimate long term goal is to not have to ever work a full time job again, unless it is for myself.  I am not scared of hard work, but it comes back to the fact that I am no longer alright selling my time to some asshole when I am fully capable of doing something(s) I am passionate about and generate an income for myself at the same time.

You can't stop nature!

Is this selfish?  Maybe, but I am okay with that as well.  I have begun to realize more than ever most people are just clueless drones.  Who after years of taking orders, and numbing themselves with TV, processed food, and fanatical beliefs in fairy tales can no longer truly take care of themselves or make desicions that impact their destiny.  As it stands, with humans being prisoners to their own creations and all,  I do not have a lot of hope for humanity right now.

If you follow David Holmgren’s work Future Scenarios, we are most likely entering into the Brown Tech future.  A world where we will continue draining the Earth of its fossil fuels, destroying the last of the wild lands, converting more and more  of that land to desertscapes of monocrops, and the further erosion of our shared cultural heritage, modern Homo Sapiens have perfected the art of extinction.

It is a bleak future.  One that leaves less and less room for those of us who seek freedom and justice.  It is a world that has been reduced to cultural poverty by traditions and tragedies alike.  It is a world where all life on Earth has been reduced to interchangeable and disposable parts in the pursuit of Progress.  It is a world filled with death and injustice, but it is also falling apart.

Whether humans can survive this collapse of our own making is yet to be determined.  It will be hard, but even the strongest rock is defeated by water and wind in the end.  It is in these cracks and fissures that we can seek our refuge.  The spots forgotten about and overlooked.  The areas where literal and figurative weeds grow.  The edges.  The TAZs where humanity still flourish.

Go on hikes.  Hunt mushrooms.  Raise bees.  Raise Kids.  Bake bread.  Love.  Hate.  Grow some carrots.  Chop some wood.  Pull some weeds.  Laugh.  Hug a puppy.  Cry.  Resist!  Grow.  Take a nap.  Rise up!  Read a book.  Lend a hand.   Take notes.  Have fun.  Fish.  Visit a friend.  Hug your mom.  Plant trees.  Be human….

Freedom!!

Teaser Photo credit: Wikipedia/Bjorn Appel/Honeybee-cooling cropped/CC BY-SA 3.0

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Tags:  

Brown Tech future

colony collapse

community resilience

environmental destruction

personal resilience

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-08-27/as-the-bees-go-so-goes-the-world