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ARE BEES BEING WORKED TO DEATH?
SUSAN KUCHINSKAS, EAST BAY EXPRESS - All across America, a mysterious
disease is wiping out bee colonies. This malady causes all the bees in a
hive to seemingly vanish overnight, abandoning their brood in the
nursery, as well as their stores of honey and pollen. . .
Honeybees aren't native to North America, so indigenous plants don't
need them for pollination. If all the honeybees disappeared, we'd still
have corn and wheat. But most of the imported fruit and vegetable
species commonly thought of as quintessentially Californian -- almonds,
grapes, plums, cucumbers, cantaloupe, asparagus -- need the help of bees
to wed male pollen to female pistil. Without bees, there would be no
apples, no cherries, no tomatoes, no zucchini. Even tofu would be
scarcer -- soybeans depend partly on the honeybee for pollination. . .
Commercial beekeeping has come to resemble other kinds of factory
farming. While the bees themselves retain more freedom of movement than
almost any other living creature raised by man, a commercial bee lot is
more like a cattle feed lot than a wild meadow.
Beehives are crammed close together in rows just a few feet apart; in
the wild, a square mile supports at the most three or four hives. A wild
colony's diet is diverse, comprising pollen and nectar from myriad
plants. To compensate for the lack of forage around bee lots, bees are
typically fed high-fructose corn syrup, the same stuff that's
contributing to a human health crisis. And just like other agricultural
livestock, bees become stressed when you crowd them together. They're
more susceptible to diseases and parasites, less able to function
naturally.
It's all making some bee scientists wonder: Is the epidemic known as
Colony Collapse Disorder real, or are the bees simply being worked to
death?
http://www.alternet.org/environment/59426/
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ARE BEES BEING WORKED TO DEATH?
SUSAN KUCHINSKAS, EAST BAY EXPRESS - All across America, a mysterious
disease is wiping out bee colonies. This malady causes all the bees in a
hive to seemingly vanish overnight, abandoning their brood in the
nursery, as well as their stores of honey and pollen. . .
Honeybees aren't native to North America, so indigenous plants don't
need them for pollination. If all the honeybees disappeared, we'd still
have corn and wheat. But most of the imported fruit and vegetable
species commonly thought of as quintessentially Californian -- almonds,
grapes, plums, cucumbers, cantaloupe, asparagus -- need the help of bees
to wed male pollen to female pistil. Without bees, there would be no
apples, no cherries, no tomatoes, no zucchini. Even tofu would be
scarcer -- soybeans depend partly on the honeybee for pollination. . .
Commercial beekeeping has come to resemble other kinds of factory
farming. While the bees themselves retain more freedom of movement than
almost any other living creature raised by man, a commercial bee lot is
more like a cattle feed lot than a wild meadow.
Beehives are crammed close together in rows just a few feet apart; in
the wild, a square mile supports at the most three or four hives. A wild
colony's diet is diverse, comprising pollen and nectar from myriad
plants. To compensate for the lack of forage around bee lots, bees are
typically fed high-fructose corn syrup, the same stuff that's
contributing to a human health crisis. And just like other agricultural
livestock, bees become stressed when you crowd them together. They're
more susceptible to diseases and parasites, less able to function
naturally.
It's all making some bee scientists wonder: Is the epidemic known as
Colony Collapse Disorder real, or are the bees simply being worked to
death?
http://www.alternet.org/environment/59426/
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