Posted on 12/30/2015 3:47:03 PM PST by presidio9
During these hectic weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, many of us think a lot not only about family, but about food. As we gather around tables to talk, so many of our holiday rituals centers around eating: cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving, applesauce for Chanukah latkes, honey-glazed ham for Christmas and — especially in the South — black-eyed peas and greens for good luck on New Year’s Day. Kwanzaa literally translates to “first fruits.â€
Yet many of these holiday favorites are endangered, because the bees they depend upon are dying by the millions.
You may have heard about this crisis years ago and filed it away in your mind as probably another hysterical overreaction by environmentalists.
Not so. The threat is real and present. We all know bees make honey, and are therefore critical to the honey-baked ham and baklava that many of us have recently been enjoying. What everyone may not know is that in the process of making honey, bees pollinate more than 70% of the world’s most common crops, from fruits and nuts to the alfalfa eaten by dairy cows.
All told, bees are responsible for one in three forkfuls of the foods we love , from pumpkin pie and cheesecake to collards and Brussels sprouts; from chocolate and coffee to apples and strawberries. And here in New York, bees pollinate more than $300 million worth of crops such as apples, grapes and pumpkins.
But across the world, bees are dying at unprecedented rates, and beekeepers, farmers and scientists are sounding the alarm. U.S. bee populations have reached historic lows, and we’re losing nearly a third of our bee colonies each year — a rate that more than triples what was once considered normal.
Scientists point to a complex web of factors, including climate change and habitat destruction, to explain the massive collapse of colonies here and across the world.
But a certain class of insecticides, used on three-quarters of U.S. farms each year — and on about 140 different crops, including corn, canola and soy — has emerged as a clear culprit in the dieoff.
Sharing the same chemical properties as nicotine, neonicotinoids are neurotoxins that can kill bees off directly. These chemicals can also disorient bees and make it harder for them to pollinate and get back to their hives.
We need more bees
The insecticides may actually be addictive to bees, just like nicotine in tobacco is addictive to humans. Bees have been shown to actually prefer food sources treated with these pesticides to natural alternatives like sugar water.
Numerous lab studies have shown that these pesticides are a danger to bees, and last month the journal Nature published the first study to establish a direct causal link between neonic exposure and bees’ ability to do their job as pollinators.
By one estimate, these chemicals are 6,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT, which was banned in the United States in the 1970s over concerns that the common pesticide was poisoning wildlife and the environment, and endangering human health.
Based on this mounting science indicating the danger of neonics, the European Union has already banned the three most widely used neonicotinoids.
There’s been no equivalently bold action here, as pesticide manufacturers have managed to derail regulatory efforts.
The fact that our government is failing doesn’t mean the rest of us are powerless.
Major garden retailers like Lowe’s and Home Depot are already beginning to phase out the sales of neonics and plants treated with them. Some grocers like Whole Foods are beginning to label appropriate foods “bee friendly.†And some U.S. cities and states are limiting the use of neonicotinoids.
As consumers, we can plant gardens full of native, flowering herbs and vegetables, and decline to use bee-killing pesticides. As chefs, we can use produce grown on bee-friendly farms and use our menus to educate customers.
As citizens, we can and must pressure our leaders to get far, far tougher on a chemical that is imperiling the very future of an insect that is vital to the food we eat.
‘Sharing the same chemical properties as nicotine, neonicotinoids are neurotoxins that can kill bees off directly. These chemicals can also disorient bees and make it harder for them to pollinate and get back to their hives. ‘
All lobelia wildflowers and Indian tobacco contain nicotine... were bees disoriented since tobacco became a major cash crop in the 1600s and on where every plantation it was grown on also had numerous beehives ?
TGo #4 is this item on Monarchs from your knowledge or someone’s propaganda?
I don’t think there is any major evidence that GMO’s “helped wipe out 97% of Butterflies in America’s great Monarch migration”.
There were some problems with GMO corn that produced a toxin which harmed Monarchs but this apparently was due to several factors, not just one.
Monarchs took a helluva beating in their migration places in Mexico due to heavy snows which killed them by the millions. Providing more sheltering places in Mexico and along their migration routes would help preserve the Monarchs.
I’ve also noticed a great reduction in meadows and flower fields (manmade as versus natural) that are the feeding and breeding places for butterflies and some moths, as well as bees.
I’ve been feeding butterflies for decades with the Buddleia bush (Butterfly bush) and similar butterfly-attracting flowers. Very few monarchs this year but other bushes around the neighborhood had lots of them.
However, my Bumblebees are the size of golf balls and are great pollen carriers so they are taking up some of the pollination process from Honeybees.
Also, a lot of people cut clover grass which is a main feed flower for Honey bees, and wild Alfalfa is disappearing with roadside plants cuttings and a lack of local fields growth.
If every major housing project had a small to medium flower park in it, or on its periphery, you would notice a great increase in butterflies, moths (very endangered) and Honey Bees within a few years (they need a couple years to breed enough to replace normal loses).
As for DDT, one of the greatest science hoaxes of all times. Windmills (wind power) and Solar panels are killing millions of birds and anything else that fly in their area so the greenies are actually the killers of nature’s creatures, not conservatives and the “greedy” oil/gas industry.
This Spring, plant a few good butterfly/bee attracting flowers and help preserve some of Nature’s most beautiful and amazing creatures. And as for enivronwackos, tell them to shove the harmful and very expensive biofuels up their gas tanks.
source? thank you
Monsanto has a lousy legal history regarding treatment of neighboring farmers whose corn has been wind pollinated by Monsanto seed, and then Monsanto wants them to pay Monsanto. Especially troubling for those farmers who are trying to grow certified Organic. How do you feel about the efforts of some in Congress to make it ILLEGAL for foods to be labeled non-GMO? Do you feel that the rights of some of us to choose not to buy GMO foods should be legislated this way? Frankly, unless each GMO food is tested with multi generations of test animals, there is no way to know if there will be future dangers to our grandchildren. For corn, pigs would probably be a good test animal. Problems with future fertility among other issues could be a serious danger.
Regarding the bees, there are a number of contributing factors, but pesticides are very likely to be one of them. It does not help that commercial bees are crowded together, taken for long rough drives, overworked, feed a vitamin and mineral lacking diet of sugar water, and generally given the conditions that led to the Civil War and the rise of the labor movement (have fun with that one). But seriously, you cannot expect animals to be at their best if they are not well treated and well fed.
“Do you happen to know what products contain neonicotinoids?”
Most of the Republican Party.
They decided to change their slogan this last April.
2015 a banner year for Monarchs
http://texasbutterflyranch.com/2015/09/11/2015-a-banner-year-monarch-butterfly-migration-heading-our-way/
Here you go for starters:
http://www.academia.edu/3138607/Morphological_and_Biochemical_Changes_in_Male_Rats_Fed_on_Genetically_Modified_Corn_Ajeeb_YG_
http://www.ijbs.com/v05p0706.htm#headingA11
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jat.2712/abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21338670
I agree with you.
Three ways to stop or limit this blight:
1. GMO labeling requirements
2. revoke all patents of genetic materials
3. outlaw GMO’s altogether
I’m will not doubt the probability of there being a honey bee shortage of sorts. Where we live the kept bees have doubled in 5 years.
But the point I’m trying to make is it appears the enviro whackos and a government is pushing this which automatically puts up multiple red flags which was why I mentioned the boy that cried wolf.
Some of the research I quickly did shows more than a couple sources that simply doubt there is a bee problem for the same reason I doubt it which is because the left is pushing it.
The damage that the left is doing when something real appears is to cause people to automatically disbelieve it.
As soon as I saw climate change and the ravages of DDT I stopped reading. The elimination of DDT was because of an environmental hoax and MILLIONS of people have died from malaria because of that hoax. Look it up it is documented.
It’s the varroa mites and varroa mites dud not exist in the US 30 years ago. Varroa can destroy a hive in a matter of weeks.
“The Monsanto GMO ‘seeds’ already have insecticide in them.
THAT is what is killing the bees.”
NOT true.
GMO technology is a great thing. I used to farm just before GMO technology; and had to use very toxic insecticides on the corn I raised.
The GMO technology has eliminated that risk. Any fear of safety issues with GMO crops is based on lack of knowledge.
If people want to learn more about food production overall; check out Ray Bowmans (The Food and Farm Show) podcasts on ITunes.
He has guests that talk about GMO technology often; he also has a podcast that talks about the bee issue as well.
“GMO technology is a great thing.”
For Monsanto and its bank account.
Not so much for those poisoned by it.
Monsanto’s Aspartame was “great” too.
For Monsanto and its bank account.
Not so much for those poisoned by it.
How is it the writer overlooks Festivus Dinner?
That's to be expected. The life cycle of a bee is something like 30 to 45 days.
Mrs. Eagle has a small hive in our backyard. Of course we are always finding dead bees but the queen lays about a thousand eggs a day.
We live in a highly agricultural area of Northern California (soon to be The State of Jefferson) and we have cropdusters flying overhead all the time and we see, hear and smell the pesticides being sprayed all around us and her bees are doing fine.
Still not a fan of genetically modifying food so they contain pesticides and definitely not a fan of Monsanto suing family farmers and orchard keepers out of existence because of the cross-breeding of some of their GMO crops with natural crops.
Yes, there are. Or there are bee species that were cultivated for their honey in North America. The Mayan Bee is one.
The selling point of GMOs is that the enable farmers to use less pesticide.
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