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FRANKEN-BEE!!!

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March 27, 2024, 12:55:24 pm Mark says: Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked  When Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida began a speech marking the 100th day of the war in Gaza, one confounding yet eye-opening proclamation escaped the headlines. Listing the motives for the Palestinian militant group's Oct. 7 massacre in Israel, he accused Jews of "bringing red cows" to the Holy Land.
December 31, 2022, 10:08:58 am NilsFor1611 says: blessings
August 08, 2018, 02:38:10 am suzytr says: Hello, any good churches in the Sacto, CA area, also looking in Reno NV, thanks in advance and God Bless you Smiley
January 29, 2018, 01:21:57 am Christian40 says: It will be interesting to see what happens this year Israel being 70 years as a modern nation may 14 2018
October 17, 2017, 01:25:20 am Christian40 says: It is good to type Mark is here again!  Smiley
October 16, 2017, 03:28:18 am Christian40 says: anyone else thinking that time is accelerating now? it seems im doing days in shorter time now is time being affected in some way?
September 24, 2017, 10:45:16 pm Psalm 51:17 says: The specific rule pertaining to the national anthem is found on pages A62-63 of the league rulebook. It states: “The National Anthem must be played prior to every NFL game, and all players must be on the sideline for the National Anthem. “During the National Anthem, players on the field and bench area should stand at attention, face the flag, hold helmets in their left hand, and refrain from talking. The home team should ensure that the American flag is in good condition. It should be pointed out to players and coaches that we continue to be judged by the public in this area of respect for the flag and our country. Failure to be on the field by the start of the National Anthem may result in discipline, such as fines, suspensions, and/or the forfeiture of draft choice(s) for violations of the above, including first offenses.”
September 20, 2017, 04:32:32 am Christian40 says: "The most popular Hepatitis B vaccine is nothing short of a witch’s brew including aluminum, formaldehyde, yeast, amino acids, and soy. Aluminum is a known neurotoxin that destroys cellular metabolism and function. Hundreds of studies link to the ravaging effects of aluminum. The other proteins and formaldehyde serve to activate the immune system and open up the blood-brain barrier. This is NOT a good thing."
http://www.naturalnews.com/2017-08-11-new-fda-approved-hepatitis-b-vaccine-found-to-increase-heart-attack-risk-by-700.html
September 19, 2017, 03:59:21 am Christian40 says: bbc international did a video about there street preaching they are good witnesses
September 14, 2017, 08:06:04 am Psalm 51:17 says: bro Mark Hunter on YT has some good, edifying stuff too.
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Author Topic: FRANKEN-BEE!!!  (Read 15649 times)
Christian40
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« on: March 10, 2011, 09:32:59 pm »

“If honey bees become extinct, human society will follow in four years.” Albert Einstein.

He was speaking about the symbiotic relationship of all life on the planet all part of a huge interconnected ecosystem, each element playing a role dependent on many other elements, working in concert as a symphony. Should any part of the global body suffer, the whole body suffers.

Many people would be surprised to know that ninety percent of the feral (wild) bee population in the United States has died out. Recent studies in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have shown that bee diversity is down eighty percent in the sites researched, and that bee species are declining or have become extinct in Britain.

The studies also revealed that the numbers of wildflowers that depend on pollination have dropped by seventy percent. Which came first, the decline in wildflowers or the decline in pollinators, has yet to be determined. If bees continue to die off so will the crops they support and that would cause major economic disruption and possibly famine. But we are more focused on oil because its immediate profits are staggering. Indeed so obsessed are we with oil that the press isn`t even inquiring into the possibility of disguising price gouging behind a scarcity scare.

How much time and space have the media devoted to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill?

Compare that to how much time and space they have devoted to the worldwide collapse of honey bee communities. They treat the story as they might a feature about archaeology when in fact it is a life-and-death matter.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster offers up a villain, BP. It`s about the appearance of something, in this case oil, not the disappearance of something. We pay bills for oil, but our deeper dependence on honey bees is not as apparent.

The gulf spill threatens widespread unemployment, the destruction of fisheries and wetlands, and other disasters. But the loss of the honey bee threatens worldwide famine. Which is the bigger story? How to account for this disconnect? Beekeepers pay the press no advertising money, but oil companies do. Money shapes the news. This in itself is a much bigger story than the breaking news, but don`t expect the press to cover it, and do expect the press to cover it up.

BP is responsible for the gulf catastrophe, but the cultures of all the developed countries of the world are responsible for the collapse of honey bee communities.

Albert Einstein appears to have been right, but Jesus Christ foretold this long ago. 90% of the feral wild bees have died out, and it isn’t surprising - that is if you’re a Christian and Believer of Jesus Christ. Famine is one of the signs Christ give us as a symbol of his return.

"And great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven." (Luke 21:11).

"And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." (Luke 21:28).

From:
http://ivarfjeld.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/if-honey-bees-become-extinct-human-society-will-follow-in-four-years-albert-einstein/
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« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2012, 11:31:35 am »

Whistleblower: MONSANTO wants to kill the bees to make way for its “super bee”

http://bbs.chinadaily.com.cn/thread-729706-1-1.html

Relevant: Monsanto buys company researching death of bees:
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9Q1M0UO0.htm

And for those who said crops aren’t pollinated by bees? You’re wrong. Alfalfa is http://blog.targethealth.com/?p=58

And if you think Monsanto isn’t dominating our government? Read some cables released by wikileaks all about our officials asking for talking points from them, our ambassadords urging trade wars on their behalf:
http://themomu.wordpress.com/2011/04/02/wikileaks-cables-show-u-s-threatening-retaliation-if-europe-wont-accept-monsanto-corn/

Are they evil enough to do this? Read up about Monsanto:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/05/monsanto200805?currentPage=1

***

http://maryamhenein.tumblr.com/post/16471484566/the-buzz-behind-the-monsanto-beeolgics-acquisition

There was quite a stir amongst beekeepers and anti-gmo activists this past October when chemical and seed giant Monsanto purchased Beeologics , a small company best known for its  “groundbreaking research” vis a vis the application of RNAi technology on honeybees, a mechanism meant to block gene expression.

This was Monsanto’s first acquisition of a pest control biotech company. Yet surprisingly the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Since its inception in 2007, Beeologics has been developing Remebee,® an anti-viral treatment for use in honeybees affected with Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV), a bee-specific virus, which originated from Australia and found and named in Israel in 2002.

Which brings us back to Monsanto, arguably the most detested chemical company on the face of the planet.

Why were they drawn to Beeologics? Was it because the competition (Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science) had also expressed interest? Or was it because they’d identified some low-hanging fruit to add to their portfolio of proprietary life forms? Perhaps Monsanto, which boasts a revenue of more than $10.5 billion per year, plans on buying anything and everything to do with gene manipulation?

Considering that the honey bee has been sequenced, how long before we bear witness to a genetically modified bee? I’ve been saying this since 2008 for the record!

… Introducing pesticide-resistant SUPER BEE Patent # 2457842149…

I mean, if seeds are any indication, Apis Melifera may also soon belong to Monsanto. Kill the bees with GM and pesticides, offer a band aid solution by creating a bee that is resistant to all the crap peddled on the market and then persuade/force beekeepers to buy Monsanto bees or else. It’s wicked genius.

But I am sure Monsanto and many others would call all of this paranoid phooey.

Take one well known scientist/beekeeper’s take on the subject.

“Honeybees aren’t an organism that anyone, who understands anything about their molecular biology, would advise as a subject for genetic modification,” he recently told colleagues on the online Bee List.  “Do you really think that Monsanto envisions that there would be any substantive return on investment on a patented bee? It would need to be propagated by instrumental insemination, so there would be a very limited market. This discussion is beginning to sound like the Twilight Zone.”

———–

“Beeologics has been developing Remebee,® an anti-viral treatment for use in honeybees affected with Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV), a bee-specific virus, which originated from Australia and found and named in Israel in 2002.”

um..originated in australia..wtf?

an israeli bee virus..now why i am i suspicious?…sheesh..

the super bee with a monsanto logo on its back might be heading to your hive soon..

http://seeker401.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/whistleblower-monsanto-wants-to-kill-the-bees-to-make-way-for-its-super-bee/
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« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2012, 11:32:06 am »

The Buzz Behind the Monsanto/Beeolgics Acquisition

There was quite a stir amongst beekeepers and anti-gmo activists this past October 2011 when chemical and seed giant Monsanto purchased Beeologics , a small company best known for its  “groundbreaking research” vis a vis the application of RNAi technology on honeybees, a mechanism meant to block gene expression.

This was Monsanto’s first acquisition of a pest control biotech company. Yet surprisingly the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Since its inception in 2007, Beeologics has been developing Remebee,® an anti-viral treatment for use in honeybees affected with Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV), a bee-specific virus, which originated from Australia and found and named in Israel in 2002.

I first heard about Beelogics, which is headquartered both in both Florida and Israel, in April 2008 when President and CEO Eyal Ben-Chanoch reached out to Vanishing of the Bees via email after viewing our trailer and spotting some familiar faces.

Eyal explained that Beeologics was assembling scientists, beekeepers and business people “to create the missing corporate support” in an industry that traditionally has only been supported by a few hardware manufacturers. Sure there were hives, tools, bee suits and the like being offered but very little had been invested in technology and medicine for the bees — until Beeologics came along that is.

To put things in context, many scientists were all abuzz about IAPV at the time. Many firmly believed that it was a primer for Colony Collapse Disorder. Remembee, meanwhile, was regarded as a first line of defense to control the virus and its effect on bee mortality. 

We inoculate humans, why not insects?

Eyal assured me that Remembee wasn’t another “snake oil” product but rather a treatment developed by ‘real’ scientists at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They were testing the product with the help of the University of Florida, Penn State, the USDA/ARS and some of the largest beekeepers in the country including David Hackenberg, CCD’s poster child and the main character in our film.

While CCD is a complex issue no-doubt, I told Eyal that our findings pointed to another cause: newfangled chemicals called systemic pesticides. Instead of being applied to leaves, they are enrobed on seeds and/or entrenched in the soil, allowing for the poison to literally become part of the plant.

Consequently, honeybees bring the systemics back to the hive in the form of pollen and nectar and store it in their honeycomb. When future generations dip into their reserves, they ingest toxins that target their central nervous system, affect their navigational capabilities and impair their memory. More importantly, the chemicals compromise their immune system – the number one key to fighting any kind of insult to the body, including a virus like IAPV.

As a scientist Eyal didn’t quite agree with our conclusions. 

“While I am also concerned with the world we are going to leave to our children, those who are using so-called facts that are based on pseudo or incomplete scientific work are as dangerous as the chemical companies who don’t release the data they have,” he concluded.

Which brings us back to Monsanto, arguably the most detested chemical company on the face of the planet.

Why were they drawn to Beeologics? Was it because the competition (Syngenta and Bayer Crop Science) had also expressed interest? Or was it because they’d identified some low-hanging fruit to add to their portfolio of proprietary life forms? Perhaps Monsanto, which boasts a revenue of more than $10.5 billion per year, plans on buying anything and everything to do with gene manipulation?

Considering that the honey bee has been sequenced, how long before we bear witness to a genetically modified bee? I’ve been saying this since 2008 for the record!

… Introducing pesticide-resistant SUPER BEE Patent # 2457842149…

If seeds are any indication, Apis Melifera may also soon belong to Monsanto. Kill the bees with GM and pesticides, offer a band aid solution by creating a bee that is resistant to all the crap peddled on the market and then persuade/force beekeepers to buy Monsanto bees or else. It’s wicked genius. 

But surely Monsanto and many others would call all of this paranoid phooey.

Take one well known scientist/beekeeper’s take on the subject. 

“Honeybees aren’t an organism that anyone, who understands anything about their molecular biology, would advise as a subject for genetic modification,” he recently told colleagues on the online Bee List.  “Do you really think that Monsanto envisions that there would be any substantive return on investment on a patented bee? It would need to be propagated by instrumental insemination, so there would be a very limited market. This discussion is beginning to sound like the Twilight Zone.”

Insect inoculation may be the latest rave, but is it the best solution?

Today we know that subsequent research failed to confirm a link between CCD and IAPV and found that although IAPV can result in honey bee mortality, the symptoms are not consistent with those of bees dying from CCD.

With that said, why does Monsanto’s site claim that ”the Remebee® product line is now proving to be a viable solution to “Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), “Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) infection and other diseases that threaten the world’s bee population.”

Is this just bad advertising copy?

Opponents meanwhile wonder whether using an antiviral agent will result in any significant decline of CCD when we now know that bees around the country and across the world are constantly exposed to an array of highly toxic pesticides that are known to have serious effects not only on our virgins of toil, but a range of other pollinators.

Perhaps anti-viral remedies are the next generation of products used to combat agricultural pests and pathogens but they don’t deal with the root of our problems such as native bee extinctions & unsustainable agriculture (ie GE crops, pesticides and herbicides).  In the end we will still have a polluted environment.

Furthermore there may likely be unknown effects in gene expression, in anti-viral abilities, and in their cability to evolve inherent defenses against viruses, etc, adds Brian Dykstra, who holds a degree in both environmental policy & in progress pollination biology. He also manages Ethnobeeology’s FB page.

And yet Beeologics is confident that the acquisition comes at an ideal time and that they are in safe hands.

Shortly after the purchase, Nitzan Paldi (CTO and co-founder of Beeologics) posted a blog where he stated that Monsanto’s “leadership team and scientists are just as passionate about helping growers and agriculture as [they] are.”

“As a scientist, it’s gratifying that research we’ve been working on may have an opportunity to be tapped for much broader use in agriculture; potentially helping growers around the world meet the ever increasing demands being placed on agriculture worldwide.”

And if you still have doubts fear not!

According to a Monsanto press release we should not be concerned, because it will be business as usual. Beelogics will continue to “promote bee health” under the new ownership. And Monsanto will simply use “the base technology from Beeologics as a part of its continuing discovery and development pipeline.” Whatever that means. 

How is using science to circumvent the laws of nature ever a positive thing? Facelifts and stem cell research aside of course.

To further reassure folks, the press release goes to describe Monsanto as “a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products that improves farm productivity and food quality.” They even state that they are into sustainability.

Jaw-dropping. Apparently Monsanto is experiencing delusions about its identity. Because the Monsanto most know is pretty much a ‘U.S. backed bioterrorist organization worthy of international intervention.’

In the past two decades, Monsanto’s seed monopoly has grown so powerful that they control the genetics of nearly 90% of five major commodity crops including corn, soybeans, cotton, canola and sugar beets!!

They make gobs of cash and yet sue farmers in poor countries who make less than $500 per year. In many cases farmers are forced to stop growing certain organic and conventional crops to avoid genetic contamination and potential lawsuits. Between 1997 and 2010, Monsanto admits to filing 144 lawsuits against America’s farmers, while settling another 700 out of court for undisclosed amounts. Due to these aggressive lawsuits, Monsanto has created an atmosphere of fear in rural America and driven dozens of farmers into bankruptcy.

As one person recently remarked on our FB page, “it’s a shitty business model to create something that can’t be controlled except by suing the hell out of people.”

And in India, thousands of farmers have committed suicide- by drinking insecticide no less- because they were promised harvests and income only to have crops fail and debts surmount thanks to their newly planted GM seeds.

So you be the judge. Is Monsanto really getting into bee protection?  Or is this another example of man tampering with the bees - with seemingly a lot more money?

Remembee is currently being reviewed for potential commercial sale by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Another product RemebeePro, is also on its way. For more on RNA interference watch this video.

***STAY TUNED A Q&A WITH BEEOLOGICS AND MONSANTO…..

http://maryamhenein.tumblr.com/post/16471484566/the-buzz-behind-the-monsanto-beeolgics-acquisition
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« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2012, 04:51:25 pm »

From the April 2009 Idaho Observer:Bayer, Monsanto killing bees with patented chemicals, process

By Dan Eden

For over a year, the media has been reporting about the dramatic loss of bees in Europe and North America. As many as 50 percent to 90 percent of the bee populations have simply vanished, leaving their hives empty and forcing farmers to demand investigations to determine the cause.

The most popular theory, aside from the varroa mite and cell phone RF radiation, has been the belief that a virus—similar to AIDS—has infected the bees. A team led by scientists from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Pennsylvania State University, the USDA Agricultural Research Service, University of Arizona, and 454 Life Sciences (a Roche company) found a significant connection between the Israeli Acute Paralysis Virus (IAPV) and colony collapse disorder (CCD) in honey bees.

A team of scientists from Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) and University of California San Francisco identified both a virus and a parasite that are likely behind the recent sudden die-off of honey-bee colonies.

But it now appears that a much more basic culprit has killed the bees—Bayer Corporation. CCD is poisoning with a known insect neurotoxin called Clothianidin, a pesticide manufactured by Bayer, which has been clearly linked to massive bee die offs in Germany and France.

Clothianidin = “Colony Collapse Disorder”

One of the most important food crops is corn. Corn is also used to make ethanol for fuel. But modern varieties of corn are vulnerable to diabrotica vergifera vergifera. Commonly known as the “root worm,” the bug burrows into the newly forming roots of the corn plant and causes the plant to wither and eventually die. By 2003, Bayer Pharmaceutical had developed “Clothianidin” to address the rootworm problem. Bayer’s own studies showed that its pesticide was highly toxic to bees but claimed that, because it would be applied to corn seed and would be buried in the soil, it would be harmless to other creatures.

Farmers were instructed to buy special machines to apply clothianidin to their seeds with a special adhesive seed coating manufactured by Monsanto. The poison is supposed to stick to the seed coat and to be toxic to the rootworm. These poison-coated seeds are now growing all over the globe.

Oooooops!

In July, 2007, the German corn crop was infested with the rootworm. The German government ordered that every possible method should be used to eradicate this pest, including the use of clothianidin. Shortly after the seeds were planted, in May of 2008, some 330-million bees abruptly died.

According to the German Research Center for Cultivated Plants, 29 out of 30 dead bees had been killed by direct contact with clothianidin.

Philipp Mimkes, spokesman for the German-based Coalition Against Bayer Dangers, said: “We have been pointing out the risks of neonicotinoids for almost 10 years now. This proves without a doubt that the chemicals can come into contact with bees and kill them. These pesticides shouldn’t be on the market.”

Imidacloprid, another neonicotinoid patented by Bayer Cropsciences that has been banned in France and Germany for its affect on bees, is also used widely in the U.S.

An investigation revealed that the seed coating did not stay in the soil but was introduced to the air (and the rest of the plant) by simple abrasion as seeds are stored, moved and injected into the soil by farming machines.

The German government quickly banned this pesticide, gave compensation to the farmers and issued a strong warning against using this chemical in agriculture. According to the German Federal Agriculture Institute, “It can unequivocally be concluded that poisoning of the bees is due to the rub-off of the pesticide ingredient clothianidin from corn seeds.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (May 30, 2003): “Clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clonianidin residue in nectar and pollen.” [In the same report] “The fate and disposition of clothianidin in the environment suggest a compound that is a systemic insecticide that is persistent and mobile, stable to hydrolysis, and has potential to leach to ground water, as well as runoff to surface waters.”

“Clothianidin is highly toxic to honey bees on an acute contact basis (killing 50% of tested populations at greater than 389 mg/kg). It has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other nontarget pollinators, through the translocation of clothianidin residues in nectar and pollen. In honey bees, the effects of this toxic chronic exposure may include lethal and/or sub-lethal effects in the larvae and reproductive effects in the queen.”

Clothianidin = neurotoxin

The cigarette industry used to brag that one or two cigarettes doesn’t give a person lung cancer. Likewise, the pharmaceutical companies are quick to show that feeding bees a specific amount of neurotoxins, like clothianidin, doesn’t kill the bees. And, of course, this is true.

While small traces of clothianidin may not kill bees outright, it can and apparently does interfere with their ability to navigate to and from the hive. The pollen that they manage to bring back to the hive is then further concentrated and exposed to the entire colony, causing suppression of their immune systems and subsequent infection by any number of parasites and pathogens. This is exactly what beekeepers and farmers have been reporting — half empty, infested bees or abandoned hives with no dead bodies to be found anywhere. It has also been noted that the empty colonies are absent the usual parasitic bugs that typically take advantage of an abandoned hive. The colonies appear sterile.

Not Just Corn

The tragedy in Germany and France showed how bees that became exposed to clothianidin also infected bee colonies that were not harvesting corn pollen, thus spreading the toxin to regions at some distance from areas cultivating corn plants. It is theorized that they could have become disoriented and mingled with bees from other colonies or contaminated the pollen of plants where other bee colonies were also pollinating.

Update

In the last two years, beekeepers have reported unexplained losses of hives – 30 percent and upward – leading to a phenomenon called colony collapse disorder. Scientists believe that the decline in bees is linked to an onslaught of pesticides, mites, parasites and viruses, as well as a loss of habitat and food.

Bees pollinate about one-third of the human diet, $15 billion worth of U.S. crops, including almonds in California, blueberries in Maine, cucumbers in North Carolina and 85 other commercial crops, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Not finding a cause of the collapse could prove costly, scientists warn.

Clothianidin is also used to coat sugar beet and sorghum seeds and is part of a class of pesticides called neonicotinoids. The pesticide was blamed for bee deaths in France and Germany, which also is dealing with a colony collapse. Those two countries have suspended its use until further study. An EPA fact sheet from 2003 says clothianidin has the potential for toxic chronic exposure to honey bees, as well as other pollinators, through residues in nectar and pollen, but is not being banned in the U.S.

The EPA granted conditional registration for clothianidin in 2003 and at the same time required that Bayer CropScience submit studies on chronic exposure to honeybees, including a complete worker bee lifecycle study as well as an evaluation of exposure and effects to the queen. “The public has no idea whether those studies have been submitted to the EPA or not and, if so, what they show. Maybe they never came in. Maybe they came in, and they show a real problem for bees. Maybe they’re poorly conducted studies that don’t satisfy EPA’s requirement,” Aaron Colangelo said.

Coalangelo is a lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council which sued the EPA last year in an effort to have the alleged studies released to the public.

A slightly longer version of the above article was originally published Sept. 18, 2008, at www.viewzone.com

http://proliberty.com/observer/20090408.htm

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« Reply #4 on: March 11, 2012, 10:31:41 pm »

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/are-honey-bees-headed-towards-extinction/

March 12, 2012 – WORLD – We have all heard about several animal species becoming extinct, even in the modern world, humans have seen whole generations of some animals disappear. Will bees become one of them? Some experts believe that the bees could be about to die and at least one third of our food depends on pollination of flowering plants. Einstein once said: “If the bees disappear, mankind would have only 4 more years of life.” Over 3 million colonies of bees have died in the USA since 2006 and over a thousand millions of bees have died in this period in the world. Scientists believe that the main reason could be the pesticides (found more than 121 pesticides in samples of bees, pollen, and wax). Another phenomenon that has perplexed scientists is that many of the colonies are abandoned, but they are the bodies of bees, in what has been called the Mary Celeste Syndrome (as inexplicably abandoned ship). Some studies relate the effect produced by telecommunications towers with the disorientation of the bees, leaving them unable to return to their hive. Many of the companies engaged in beekeeping are facing serious economic problems while the research to find the causes of the disappearance of millions of bees has a number of funds proportionate to the seriousness of the problem. –News Pakistan
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« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2012, 10:04:19 am »

http://news.yahoo.com/honeybee-deaths-linked-corn-insecticides-221639948--abc-news.html

3/15/12

What was killing all those honeybees in recent years?  New research shows a link between an increase in the death of bees and insecticides, specifically the chemicals used to coat corn seeds.

The study, titled "Assessment of the Environmental Exposure of Honeybees to Particulate Matter Containing Neonicotinoid Insecticides Coming from Corn Coated Seeds," was published in the American Chemical Society's Environmental Science & Technology journal, and provides insight into colony collapse disorder.

Colony collapse disorder, or the mass die-off of honeybees, has stumped researchers up to now. This new research may provide information that  could lead to even more answers.

According to the new study, neonicotinoid insecticides "are among the most widely used in the world, popular because they kill insects by paralyzing nerves but have lower toxicity for other animals."



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« Reply #6 on: March 27, 2012, 08:09:05 am »

August 2, 2005

It's official. Monsanto Corporation is out to own the world's food supply, the dangers of genetic engineering and reduced biodiversity notwithstanding, as they pig-headedly set about hog-tying farmers with their monopoly plans. We've discovered chilling new evidence of this in recent patents that seek to establish ownership rights over pigs and their offspring.

In the crop department,  Monsanto is well on their way to dictating what consumers will eat, what farmers will grow, and how much Monsanto will get paid for seeds. In some cases those seeds are designed not to reproduce sowable offspring. In others, a flock of lawyers stand ready to swoop down on farmers who illegally, or even unknowingly, end up with Monsanto's private property growing in their fields.

Oneway or another, Monsanto wants to make sure no food is grown that they don't own -- and the record shows they don't care if it's safe for the environment or not. Monsanto has aggressively set out to bulldoze environmental concerns about its genetically engineered (GE) seeds at every regulatory level.

So why stop in the field? Not content to own the pesticide and the herbicide and the crop, they've made a move on the barnyard by filing two patents which would make the corporate giant the sole owner of that famous Monsanto invention: the pig.



The Monsanto Pig (Patent pending)

The patent applications were published in February 2005 at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in Geneva. A Greenpeace researcher who monitors patent applications, Christoph Then, uncovered the fact that Monsanto is seeking patents not only on methods of breeding, but on actual breeding herds of pigs as well as the offspring that result.

"If these patents are granted, Monsanto can legally prevent breeders and farmers from breeding pigs whose characteristics are described in the patent claims, or force them to pay royalties," says Then. "It's a first step toward the same kind of corporate control of an animal line that Monsanto is aggressively pursuing with various grain and vegetable lines."

There are more than 160 countries and territories mentioned where the patent is sought including Europe, the Russian Federation, Asia (India, China, Philippines) America (USA, Brazil, Mexico), Australia and New Zealand. WIPO itself can only receive applications, not grant patents.  The applications are forwarded to regional patent offices.

The patents are based on simple procedures, but are incredibly broad in their claims.

In one application (WO 2005/015989 to be precise) Monsanto is describing very general methods of crossbreeding and selection, using artificial insemination and other breeding methods which are already in use. The main "invention" is nothing more than a particular combination of these elements designed to speed up the breeding cycle for selected traits, in order to make the animals more commercially profitable. (Monsanto chirps gleefully about lower fat content and higher nutritional value. But we've looked and we couldn't find any "Philanthropic altruism" line item in their annual reports, despite the fact that it's an omnipresent factor in their advertising.)

According to Then, "I couldn't believe this. I've been reviewing patents for 10 years and I had to read this three times.  Monsanto isn't just seeking a patent for the method, they are seeking a patent on the actual pigs which are bred from this method.  It's an astoundingly broad and dangerous claim."

Take patent application WO 2005/017204. This refers to pigs in which a certain gene sequence related to faster growth is detected. This is a variation on a natural occurring sequence -- Monsanto didn't invent it.

It was first identified in mice and humans. Monsanto wants to use the detection of this gene sequence to screen pig populations, in order to find which animals are likely to produce more pork per pound of feed. (And that will be Monsanto Brand genetically engineered feed grown from Monsanto Brand genetically engineered seed raised in fields sprayed with Monsanto Brand Roundup Ready herbicide and doused with Monsanto Brand pesticides, of course).

But again, Monsanto wants to own not just the selection and breeding method, not just the information about the genetic indicators, but, if you pardon the expression, the whole hog.

    Claim 16 asks for a patent on: "A pig offspring produced by a method ..."
    Claim 17 asks for a patent on: "A pig herd having an increased frequency of a specific ...gene..."
    Claim 23 asks for a patent on: "A pig population produced by the method..."
    Claim 30 asks for a patent on: "A swine herd produced by a method..."

This means the pigs, their offspring, and the use of the genetic information for breeding will be entirely owned by Monsanto, Inc. and any replication or infringement of their patent by man or beast will mean royalties or jail for the offending swine.

Not pig fodder

When it comes to profits, pigs are big. Monsanto notes that "The economic impact of the industry in rural America is immense. Annual farm sales typically exceed US$ 11 billion, while the retail value of pork sold to consumers reaches US$ 38 billion each year."

At almost every level of food production, Monsanto is seeking a monopoly position.

The company once earned its money almost exclusively through agrochemicals. But in the last ten years they've spent about US$ 10 billion buying up seed producers and companies in other sectors of the agricultural business. Their last big acquisition was Seminis, the biggest producer of vegetable seeds in the world.

Monsanto holds extremely broad patents on seeds, most, but not all of them, related to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs). Monsanto has also claimed patent rights on such non-Monsanto inventions as traditionally bred wheat from India and soy plants from China. Many of these patents apply not only tot he use of seeds but all uses of the plants and harvest that result.

Orwellian: "The Earth is flat, pigs were invented by Monsanto, and GMOs are safe."

The big picture is chilling to anyone who mistrusts Monsanto's record disinterest for environmental safety.

And if you're not worried, you should be: central control of food supply has been a standard ingredient for social and political control throughout history. By creating a monopoly position, Monsanto can force dangerous experiments like the release of GMOs into the environment on an unwilling public. They can ensure that GMOs will be sold and consumed wherever they say they will.

By claiming global monopoly patent rights throughout the entire food chain, Monsanto seeks to make farmers and food producers, and ultimately consumers, entirely dependent and reliant on one single corporate entity for a basic human need. It's the same dependence that Russian peasants had on the Soviet Government following the Russian revolution. The same dependence that French peasants had on Feudal kings during the middle ages. But control of a significant proportion of the global food supply by a single corporation would be unprecedented in human history.

It's time to ensure that doesn't happen.

It's time for a global ban of patents on seeds and farm animals.

It's time to tell Monsanto we've had enough of this hogwash.


http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/features/monsanto-pig-patent-111/
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« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2012, 06:35:43 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/latest-buzz-bee-decline-maybe-pesticides-193949303.html

3/29/12

WASHINGTON (AP) — A common class of pesticide is causing problems for honeybees and bumblebees, important species already in trouble, two studies suggest.

But the findings don't explain all the reasons behind a long-running bee decline, and other experts found one of the studies less than convincing.

The new research suggests the chemicals used in the pesticide — designed to attack the central nervous system of insects — reduces the weight and number of queens in bumblebee hives. These pesticides also cause honeybees to become disoriented and fail to return to their hives, the researchers concluded.

The two studies were published online Thursday in the journal Science.

more
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« Reply #8 on: May 22, 2012, 11:18:47 am »

Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, May 22, 2012



I was outside all the time when I was a kid but never found dead bees. Now I find them almost every time I step out into the garden. Colony Collapse Disorder is a real environmental threat and now Monsanto is hunting down whistleblowers who expose the fact that their herbicides are causing it.


http://www.prisonplanet.com/colony-collapse-disorder-i-keep-finding-dead-bees-everywhere.html
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« Reply #9 on: May 22, 2012, 12:34:15 pm »

Prison Planet.com
Tuesday, May 22, 2012



I was outside all the time when I was a kid but never found dead bees. Now I find them almost every time I step out into the garden. Colony Collapse Disorder is a real environmental threat and now Monsanto is hunting down whistleblowers who expose the fact that their herbicides are causing it.


http://www.prisonplanet.com/colony-collapse-disorder-i-keep-finding-dead-bees-everywhere.html

That is so funny that it is from Prison Planet, as sane always deleted or moved my posts on the disappearance of bees.
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« Reply #10 on: May 22, 2012, 01:01:52 pm »

That is so funny that it is from Prison Planet, as sane always deleted or moved my posts on the disappearance of bees.

Really?? It's one thing for Sane, JT, and Geo to do so with posts exposing Catholicism and the Jesuits, but with the DISAPPEARANCE OF BEES Huh Are they really that ignorant over this subject?
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« Reply #11 on: May 22, 2012, 01:17:52 pm »

Really?? It's one thing for Sane, JT, and Geo to do so with posts exposing Catholicism and the Jesuits, but with the DISAPPEARANCE OF BEES Huh Are they really that ignorant over this subject?

sane is, he did not like any posts on this subject at all.
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« Reply #12 on: May 22, 2012, 01:25:29 pm »

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=185915.0

why was the title changed to " BS Bee Decline" ?

The bees are dying because of GM crops that are being grown.


every 2 months we get the "bees will be extinct with a month" psyops just like "#3 of al-qaeda has been killed for the 10th time".

It is a psyop.

If bees are declining it is not only due to GMO (as you say) but also chemtrails, fluoridation, chemical runoff, GM of the actual bee species, etc.

The fact that they run this story every month as if it was new means it is psyops conditioning to get used to no bees which will likely be due to a full spectrum attack involving much more than GM crops. I am not saying GM crops should not be exposed but just do a search about this and you will see the historical account of how many times this has been conditioned.

The NWO has like 100 compartmentalized plans on various timers and for some reason, they are all firing at once.

This place barely receives new content (posts) and most are from the same group of people.

Has the poor moderator staff here finally caught up to prison planet forums? The seemingly endless banning spree's? The countless moving of topics?

Is it just me, or is this place dead?
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« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2012, 01:31:43 pm »

WHOOPS...
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« Reply #14 on: May 22, 2012, 05:20:05 pm »

Well now sports fans, that is basically your proverbial two-handed slam dunk!
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« Reply #15 on: June 29, 2012, 08:43:42 am »

http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/bee-disease-outbreak.17997819

6/28/12

Bee disease outbreak

AN OUTBREAK of American Foulbrood, a disease affecting colonies of honeybees, has been found in an apiary in Inverness-shire.

The disease was confirmed following laboratory diagnosis by Science and Advice for Scottish Agriculture. Other outbreaks of AFB have previously been reported – and dealt with – in this area over the last three years.

The movement of bees and related equipment into or out of the affected apiary is prohibited. As there is no permitted treatment for the disease in the UK, the infected hive will be destroyed. There are no risks to public health from AFB and no implications for the quality and safety of honey.
 
Bee farmers and beekeepers are being urged to be vigilant for signs of the disease, to maintain good husbandry practices and to notify any suspicion of disease to BeesMailbox@scotland.gsi.gov.uk. In order to assist Scottish Government Bee Inspectors to control this and other diseases, beekeepers are urged to register on BeeBase, the national bee database.
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« Reply #16 on: October 03, 2012, 01:28:59 am »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-IJikX1144&feature=player_embedded
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« Reply #17 on: January 27, 2013, 05:18:28 pm »

http://www.panna.org/blog/beekeepers-expect-worst-year-bees

1/16/13

“We’re facing the extinction of a species.” That’s what one Midwest-based large-scale commercial beekeeper told me last week at the annual gathering of the American Honey Producers Association (AHPA). And he meant it.

Bee losses have been dramatic, especially in recent years. And beekeepers are feeling the sting. According to many who manage hives, commercial beekeeping won’t pencil out in the future unless things change, and soon.

Beekeepers from across the country gathered in San Diego to swap stories and share best practices in the trade, as well as to learn more about the latest research on declines in bee populations (often referred to as Colony Collapse Disorder). Independent science continues to point to pesticides as one of the critical co-factors in bee losses — alongside nutrition and disease — and beekeepers continue to see major declines. And these losses parallel the ongoing increase in pesticide products used on seeds and in fields across the country.

As one beekeeper told me, “On average, 40% over-wintering losses across the country. That’s what we’re facing. And my losses are closer to 70% — this is likely gonna be the worst year for bees.”

But it isn’t just this year; USDA reports major bee population declines since 2006. Another beekeeper told me he lost over $250,000 in honey business last year alone, and he’s no longer pollinating melon and cherries. As he reminded me, this not only has direct impacts on him, but his employees, their communities, suppliers, vendors, the food system and agricultural economy.

Pesticide industry, front & center

Workshops on pesticides were more common than ever at this annual AHPA conference, as evidence mounts showing pesticides to be a key catalyst in bee declines. And representatives from chemical giants like Arysta, Bayer and Monsanto made their presence known, even hosting workshops to pacify concerned beekeepers.

These corporations have a lot at stake. With the market becoming increasingly consolidated, just a few companies manufacture many of the same seeds and pesticides implicated in honey bee losses. If history is any guide, these corporations will likely continue to object to finding healthy, sustainable and commonsense solutions to bee declines.

Toward commonsense solutions

By the end of the conference, several themes had emerged. Beekeepers, and the farmers they work with, don't have the necessary support from state and federal officials to protect pollinators and maintain productive businesses. They feel victim to a handful of powerful pesticide corporations and lax government regulators.

In order to support healthy pollinators, several beekeepers suggested the following:

  • Reduce pesticide use, especially near bees. With the weight of the evidence behind them, beekeepers are encouraging reductions in pesticide use, including the use of products like neonicotinoids and fungicides, and especially near bees.

    Fix the system that tracks bee incidents. Beekeepers find it burdensome and ineffective to report pesticide-related bee kills, as the onus is often placed on them, and many states have failed to create systems for monitoring bee kills.

    Create transparent state and federal systems for tracking pesticide use. Beekeepers, like rural and farmworker communities, are best served by knowing what’s being used near them, including amount, type and weather conditions. The federal government and most states — except for California, New York and Oregon— have failed to create a meaningful pesticide use tracking program.

Some beekeepers have taken matters into their own hands, forming the National Pollinator Defense Fund. With a commitment to protecting bees and their livelihood, this new band of beekeepers will “defend managed and native pollinators vital to a sustainable and affordable food supply from the adverse impacts of pesticides.”

No doubt it will take all of us to make sure they are successful, and to ensure we will have healthy bees and beekeepers for years to come.
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« Reply #18 on: February 16, 2013, 07:45:40 pm »

2/16/13

http://news.yahoo.com/fewer-bees-us-threat-worlds-almond-supply-190614961--finance.html

TURLOCK, Calif. (AP) — In an almond orchard in California's Central Valley, bee inspector Neil Trent pried open a buzzing hive and pulled out a frame to see if it was at least two-thirds covered with bees.
 
Trent has hopped from orchard to orchard this month, making sure enough bees were in each hive provided by beekeepers. Not enough bees covering a frame indicates an unhealthy hive — and fewer working bees to pollinate the almond bloom, which starts next week across hundreds of thousands of acres stretching from Red Bluff to Bakersfield.
 
"The bloom will come and go quickly," said Trent, who works for the Bakersfield-based bee broker Scientific Ag Co. "The question is: Will the almond seeds get set? It depends if you have enough of a workforce of bees."
 
That has growers concerned as nomadic beekeepers from across the country converge on the state with their semi-trucks, delivering billions of bees to the orchards for the annual pollination. Most almond trees depend on bees to transfer pollen from the flower of one tree variety to the flower of another variety before fertilization, which leads to the development of seeds.
 
It's a daunting task: California's orchards provide about 80 percent of the global almond supply. And with almond acreage increasing steadily in recent years, the bees must now pollinate 760,000 acres of trees. The number of bees needed is expected to increase as almond demand grows and orchards continue to expand.
 
Already, more than half of the country's honeybees are brought to California at the end of February for almond pollination, which requires about 1.5 million hives from out of state, and another 500,000 from elsewhere in the state. Honeybees are preferred for commercial-scale pollination, because they are social, build larger colonies than other bees, and their hives can easily be moved.
 
Bee brokers, beekeepers and almond growers around the state say there's a shortage of healthy honeybees for this year's pollination, especially after colony collapse disorder took a higher toll this winter. The disorder, in which honey bees suddenly disappear or die, wipes out thousands of colonies each year.
 
The shortage has some growers scrambling for bees — even sub-performers — as trees are about to bloom, driving up bee prices again this year, to an all-time high of more than $200 per colony.
 
"There's definitely a shortage of strong bee colonies," said Joe Traynor, owner of Scientific Ag, which connects growers with beekeepers. "There is a problem covering all the acres of almonds in the state."
 
Since it was recognized in 2006, colony collapse disorder has destroyed colonies at a rate of about 30 percent a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Before that, losses were about 15 percent a year from pests and diseases. No one has determined its cause, but most researchers point to a combination of factors, including pesticide contamination, poor nutrition and bee diseases.
 
This year, experts say, the die-off has been as high as 40 to 50 percent for some beekeepers.
 
"We have smaller populations in the hives and higher winter losses," said Eric Mussen, a bee specialist at the entomology department of University of California, Davis. "Bees across the country are not in as good a shape as last year. When you stress them far enough, the bees just give in."
 
This year, Mussen said, many bees did not get enough nutrition because a Midwest drought reduced forage. Conversion of pasture land to corn production for ethanol also reduced the number of flowers producing nectar.
 
To compensate for forage loss, beekeepers fed bees more high-fructose corn syrup and other supplements. But such substitutes don't provide all the nutrients pollen does, Mussen said. Malnourished bees are more susceptible to diseases.
 
Lance Sundberg, a beekeeper who hauled his hives for almond pollination from Columbus, Mont., lost 40 percent of his bees this winter due to the drought and mite problems.
 
"You have to buy bees elsewhere to pick up your losses, and not everything we have remaining after the loss is very strong," said Sundberg. "I had a tough time fulfilling my obligations to all the growers."
 
But at least he still has bees, Sundberg said. Some colleagues were not as lucky: they lost 75 percent or even 99 percent.
 
Traynor, the bee broker, said he's been fielding phone calls from desperate beekeepers and growers who are short several thousand colonies — but he has no more good bees to offer them. The shortage will only get worse in the future, he said, as almond acreage grows.
 
Having strong hives is critical, Traynor said, especially during rainy seasons, because bees have a short period of flight time when it's dry enough to pollinate. Fewer bees may not be able to reach all the blooms in time.
 
In recent years, the Almond Board of California, which represents more than 6,000 growers, has poured $1.4 million into bee health research. The group also worked on alternatives to reduce growers' reliance on honeybees, said Bob Curtis, associate director of agricultural affairs.
 
One is the so-called "self-compatible" almond tree, which can set nuts using pollen transferred among its own flowers, thereby needing fewer bees.
 
The group also is urging growers to plant forage to help sustain bees before and after almond pollination. And it's exploring using blue orchard bees, which are solitary bees that do not live in hives but nest in small cavities, to augment the honeybee workforce. But building up those alternatives will take time.
 
"It's tenuous right now," Curtis said. "We've got fewer bees. And if something goes wrong with the weather, some growers could be in trouble."

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Mat 24:7  For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
Mat 24:8  All these are the beginning of sorrows.
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« Reply #19 on: May 02, 2013, 12:21:33 pm »

Feds: Many causes for dramatic bee disappearance
http://news.yahoo.com/feds-many-causes-dramatic-bee-disappearance-152605922.html
5/2/13

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new federal report blames a combination of problems for a mysterious and dramatic disappearance of U.S. honeybees since 2006.

The intertwined factors cited include a parasitic mite, multiple viruses, bacteria, poor nutrition, genetics, habitat loss and pesticides.

The multiple causes make it harder to do something about what's called colony collapse disorder, experts say. The disorder has caused as much as one-third of the nation's bees to just disappear each winter since 2006.

Bees, especially honeybees, are needed to pollinate crops.

The federal report, issued Thursday by the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, said the biggest culprit is the parasitic mite varroa destructor, calling it "the single most detrimental pest of honeybees."

The problem has also hit bee colonies in Europe, where regulators are considering a ban on a type of pesticides that some environmental groups blame for the bee collapse. The U.S. report cites pesticides, but near the bottom of the list of factors. And federal officials and researchers advising them said the science doesn't justify a ban of the pesticides yet.

The report is the result of a large conference of scientists that the government brought together last year to figure out what's going on. Participant May Berenbaum, a top bee researcher from the University of Illinois, said the class of chemicals known as neonicotinoids hasn't been proven to be the sole culprit in the bee loss.

In an interview, she said she was "extremely dubious" that banning the chemical would have any effect on bee health. She was the chairwoman of a major National Academy of Sciences study on the loss of pollinators.

Dave Gaulson of the University of Stirling in Scotland, who conducted a study last year that implicated the chemical, said he can't disagree with the overall conclusions of the U.S. government report. However, he said it could have emphasized pesticides more.

Pollinators, like honeybees, are crucial to the U.S. food supply. About $30 billion a year in agriculture depends on their health, said the USDA's Sonny Ramaswamy.

USDA bee researcher Jeff Pettis said modern farming practices that often leave little forage area for bees is a big problem.

At a news conference Thursday with federal officials, Berenbaum said there's no single solution to the bee problem: "We're not really well equipped or even used to fighting on multiple fronts."
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« Reply #20 on: May 11, 2013, 06:58:00 am »

US approves new pesticides linked to mass bee deaths as EU enacts ban

In the wake of a massive US Department of Agriculture report highlighting the continuing large-scale death of honeybees, environmental groups are left wondering why the Environmental Protection Agency has decided to approve a "highly toxic" new pesticide.

The continuing mass death of honeybees, known scientifically as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and a “pollinator crisis,” could well strain production of over 100 crops in the US including apples, zucchinis, avocados and plums. The agriculture value of these products is estimated at over $200 billion globally per year.

As RT recently reported, a new USDA report has taken a broad look at the decline of bee colonies in the country, highlighting a dire situation as the number of colonies has plummeted from 3 million in 1990 to 2.5 million this year. Demonstrating that the decline is a long-term issue, that same report points to the existence of 6 million honey bee colonies in 1947.

Though dire, the report does not offer any immediate solutions, as scientists continue to examine the potential causes for the mass colony collapses, during which adult bees abandon their hives, along with the queen, brood and food supplies.

The USDA cites “multiple factors… including parasites and disease, genetics, poor nutrition and pesticide exposure,” while also citing last summer’s drought as a contributing factor.

Many environmental groups seem convinced that pesticides are a main factor in the continuing colony collapse situation. One group, Beyond Pesticides, has called the EPA’s recent green light for use of a new insecticide known as sulfoxaflor irresponsible in light of its “highly toxic” classification for honey bees.

In late April, the European Union voted to enact a two-year moratorium on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides (sulfoxaflor is considered by many to be a "fourth-generation neonicotinoid") in light of scientific studies that indicate their harm to bees.

As in the US, a number of European countries have also been monitoring declining health and colony collapses in their bee populations, including France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Groups such as the Pesticide Action Network (PAN) have praised the continent-wide ban.

rest: http://rt.com/usa/new-pesticides-linked-bee-deaths-130/
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« Reply #21 on: June 09, 2013, 05:44:26 am »

Beekeeping Industry 'Doomed' -- Might We See Destruction of Food Supply Before the End of This Decade?




For several years now, scientists have been struggling to determine why bee colonies across the world are disappearing—a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD).

 As reported by Dan Rather, the US has recently experienced the highest loss of honeybee populations so far, with most of the nation’s beekeepers losing anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of their bee population.

Honeybees are perhaps one of the least recognized workers in the agricultural industry. They contribute $15 billion in annual agriculture revenue to the US economy alone, as a full one-third of the American food supply depends on them pollinating crops.

Just about every fruit and vegetable you can imagine is dependent on the pollinating services of bees. Apple orchards, for instance, require one colony of bees per acre in order to be adequately pollinated. So, unless the mysterious disappearance of bees is reversed, major food shortages could result.
 
California Almond Orchards Threatened by Bee Loss
 

As discussed in Dan Rather’s report, 80 percent of the world’s almonds come from California’s central valley, an 800,000 acre area of almond orchards that are 100 percent dependent on bees pollinating the trees. Surprisingly, almonds are the number one agricultural product in California.

Once a year, in late winter, 1.5 million bee hives from around the country are delivered to these orchards where the bees’ pollination efforts take place over the course of just a few days. It’s the largest mass-pollination effort in the world.

This year, however, the unthinkable happened. Many of the 6,000 orchard owners simply could not find enough bees to pollinate their almond trees, at any price... One of the beekeepers featured in Rather’s report is John Miller, President of the California state Beekepers Association. His family has tended bees since 1894.

Of the 11,000 hives brought to California by Miller, hundreds of hives turned out to be dead when opened up. According to Miller, “the past 30 years have been tumultuous with 40 percent of the national herd dying or dead.”

Another fourth generation beekeeper named Anderson lost 70 percent of his hives this year. Yet another outfit lost 100 percent of his bees...
 
Fortunately, unsurpassed efforts that included persuading beekeepers as far away as Florida to ship their bees cross country, delayed bloom, and unseasonably good weather thereafter allowed almond growers to dodge the bullet—this year—despite having fewer and weaker-than-ever hives...

This narrowly-achieved success may lead some to reach the mistaken conclusion that beekeepers’ concerns are overblown.
 
Don’t be fooled. One beekeeper goes so far as to say he believes the beekeeper industry is doomed and cannot survive for more than another two to three years unless drastic changes are implemented...
 
What’s Causing Bees to Die?
 

Proposed culprits of bee colony collapse disorder include:
 •Pesticides and insecticides—Nicotinoids such as Imidacloprid and Clothianidin kills insects by attacking their nervous systems. These are known to get into pollen and nectar, and can damage beneficial insects such as bees.
•Malnutrition/Nutritional deficiencies—Many beekeepers place the hives near fields of identical crops, which may result in malnutrition as the bees are only getting one type of nectar. Essentially, this theory is identical to that of human nutrition; we need a wide variety of nutrients from different foods. If you keep eating the same limited range of foods, you can easily end up suffering from nutritional deficiencies. Poor nutrition suppresses immune function, making the bees far more susceptible to toxins from pesticides, viruses, fungi, or a combination of factors that ultimately kill them.
•Viruses and fungi—There's even the possibility that some new form of "AIDS-like" viral infection is affecting the bees.
•Electromagnetic fields (EMFs)—Researchers have discovered that when a cellular phone is placed near a hive, the radiation generated by it (900-1,800 MHz) is enough to prevent bees from returning to them, according to a study conducted at Landau University several years ago.1

 This result was duplicated in 2009 by Sainuddeen Pattazhy, a researcher and dean in the department of zoology at SN College, Punalur, Kerala. His experiments showed that microwaves from mobile phones appear to interfere with worker bees' navigation skills. When cell phones were placed near beehives, the hives collapsed completely in five to 10 days. The worker bees simply failed to return home.

More recently, a study2 published in 2011 found that the presence of microwaves from cell phones have a dramatic effect on bees, causing them to become quite disturbed.
•Lack of natural foraging areas—Mass conversions of grasslands to corn and soy in the Midwest has dramatically reduced bees’ natural foraging areas
 
EPA Blamed for Failure to Protect Bees
 

A general consensus among beekeepers is that the bee die-offs are most definitely related to toxic chemicals. Increasingly, a systemic type of pesticide called neonicotinoids is being blamed for bee die-off’s. Neonicotinoids are now used on most of American crops, especially corn. This newer class of chemicals is applied to seeds before planting, allowing the pesticide to be taken up through the plant’s vascular system as it grows. As a result, the chemical is expressed in the pollen and nectar of the plant.

These insecticides are highly toxic to bees because they are systemic, water-soluble, and pervasive. They get into the soil and groundwater where they can accumulate and remain for many years and present long-term toxicity to the hive.

Neonicotinoids affect insects' central nervous systems in ways that are cumulative and irreversible. Even minute amounts can have profound effects over time. One of the observed effects of these insecticides is weakening of the bee's immune system. Forager bees bring pesticide-laden pollen back to the hive, where it's consumed by all of the bees. Six months later, their immune systems fail, and they fall prey to secondary, seemingly "natural" bee infections, such as parasites, mites, viruses, fungi and bacteria.

The disappearance of bee colonies began accelerating in the United States shortly after the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allowed these new insecticides on the market in the mid-2000s. Last month, beekeepers and environmental groups filed a lawsuit against the agency over its failure to protect bees from these toxic pesticides.

Meanwhile, France has banned Imidacloprid for use on corn and sunflowers after reporting large losses of bees after exposure to it. They also rejected Bayer´s application for Clothianidin, and other countries, such as Italy, have banned certain neonicotinoids as well.

The EPA3 acknowledges that “pesticide poisoning” may be one factor leading to colony collapse disorder, yet they have been slow to act to protect bees from this threat. The current lawsuit may help spur them toward more urgent action, which is desperately needed as the food supply hangs in the balance.

In March, according to Dan Rather’s report, the EPA sent Jim Jones, overseer of the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, to talk to California almond growers and beekeepers. But although beekeepers said Jones got the message that bees are in serious trouble, they were dismayed by the fact that he seemed more interested in finding new places for bees to forage rather than addressing the issue of toxic pesticides...

As usual, at the core of the problem is big industry, which is blinded by greed and enabled by a corrupt governmental system that permits the profit-driven sacrifice of our environment. Unfortunately, this motivation reflects an extreme shortsightedness about the long-term survival of the human race, as well as of our planet. Clearly, if the goal of pesticides is to increase food yield to more easily feed 7 billion human beings, this goal falls flat on its face if it leads to the collapse of our food chain.
 
Do You Trust Monsanto to Solve the Bee Colony Collapse Problem?
 

Another forerunning theory of colony collapse disorder (CCD) is that it's being caused by genetically engineered crops—either as a result of the crops themselves or the pesticides and herbicides applied on them, such as Roundup. In one German study,4 when bees were released in a genetically engineered rapeseed crop, then fed the pollen to younger bees, scientists discovered the bacteria in the guts of the young ones mirrored the same genetic traits as ones found in the GE crop, indicating that horizontal gene transfer had occurred.

Chemical companies like Monsanto are clearly seeking to take as much control of the food supply as possible by controlling virtually every aspect of crop production, so research implicating their business as the cause of bee die-offs would definitely cause harm to the company's bottom line. Monsanto has received increasing amounts of bad publicity over their potential role in the devastating demise of bees around the globe.

To better field such lines of inquiry, the company appears to have taken measures to control the direction of the research into their products' effect on bees by purchasing one of the leading bee research firms – one that, conveniently, lists its primary goal as studying colony collapse disorder. Monsanto bought the company, called Beeologics, in September 2011, just months before Poland announced it would ban growing of Monsanto's genetically modified MON810 maize, noting, poignantly, that "pollen of this strain could have a harmful effect on bees.”5
 
Rodale Institute Tackles Bee Problem
 

I recently visited the Rodale Institute and got a tour of their brand new Honeybee Conservancy and research facility. As reported on their website:6
 

“The 2013 Conservancy has a new physical arrangement and a whole new set of beds that include nectar plants that bloom throughout the season and incorporate biodynamic principles... We’ll be looking at the impacts of compost, compost extracts and biodynamic preparations on the health and vitality of the plants.”



How You Can Help Protect the Bees
 

If you would like to learn more about the economic, political and ecological implications of the worldwide disappearance of the honeybee, check out the documentary film Vanishing of the Bees. If you’d like to get involved, here are four actions you can take to help preserve and protect our honeybees:
 •Support organic farmers and shop at local farmer's markets as often as possible. You can "vote with your fork" three times a day. (When you buy organic, you are making a statement by saying "no" to GMOs and toxic pesticides.)
•Cut the use of toxic chemicals in your house and on your lawn, and use only organic, all-natural forms of pest control.
•Better yet, get rid of your lawn altogether and plant a garden or other natural habitat. Lawns offer very little benefit for the environment. Both flower and vegetable gardens provide excellent natural honeybee habitats.
•Become an amateur beekeeper. Having a hive in your garden requires only about an hour of your time per week, benefits your local ecosystem, and you can enjoy your own honey! Worldofbeekeping.com,7 and beekeeping.org8 are but two websites that can help you get started.
 
If you are interested in more information about bee preservation, the following organizations are a good place to start.
 •Pesticide Action Network Bee Campaign9
•The Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees10
•American Beekeeping Federation11
•Help the Honey Bees12
 
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/06/08/bees-dying-off.aspx?e_cid=20130608_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20130608
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« Reply #22 on: June 09, 2013, 06:55:34 am »

Researchers Develop Bee Sperm Bank in Hopes of Creating a Super Bee

Researchers at Washington State University announced plans to open a “bee sperm bank” as well as employ genetic cross-breeding methods in order to produce a super bee they hope will not succumb to colony collapse disorder.
 
Concerns over the honey bee, though a constant topic in the news, are not news.
 
In 1922, shortly after tracheal mites were identified as the likely cause of bee deaths on England’s Isle of Wight, the United States restricted the importation of live honey bees, effectively preventing the parasites from reaching the nation’s shores until 1984.

However, once they did, just a few years later a more serious threat, the Varroa mite, made its way across the border.
 
“The Varroa mite feeds on the developing bees, or brood, and also introduces bacteria and viruses that damage the health of the hive,” Susan Cobey, a WSU research associate working on the project said.
 
They’re so deadly, Cobey said, they are known to wipe out an entire colony in just two years if a beekeeper does not interfere. Even if they do, project leader and professor of etymology Steve Sheppard lamented that intervention usually means chemical miticides, which are tolerated by bees in a short time, but cause harm over the long term as chemical residues accumulate in hives.
 
Creating a resistant breed of an organism in order to combat a threat to the species not new either; however, U.S. entomologists were originally forced, in this case, to contend with a limited honey bee gene pool as as result of the import ban that lasted for so long.
 
Thus, in an effort to find and utilize the needed genes, the USDA granted WSU a permit in 2008 to import honey bee semen for breeding purposes, subject to strict screening for viruses.
 
Taking only from the best, the scientists collected semen from Italian bees who are known to reproduce quickly and in order to create a bee resilient to the cold,
 
Sheppard and his team have been collecting semen from bees of the eastern Alps and mountains located in the country of Georgia. Finally, the researchers plan on mixing the strongest stock from Europe with the United States’ strongest.
 
And since live semen will survive at room temperature for about 10 to 14 days, Cobey has exactly that much time to collect the semen and either freeze it or inject it into the selected queen bee’s oviduct.
 
Meanwhile, the question of how to store the genetic material for years, was solved with the help of Sheppard’s graduate student Brandon Hopkins who discovered that liquid nitrogen maintains the semen viability for decades, helping to preserve imperiled subspecies in a honey bee genetic repository for generations to come.

http://www.natureworldnews.com/articles/2342/20130607/researchers-develop-bee-sperm-bank-hopes-creating-super.htm
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« Reply #23 on: June 21, 2013, 12:37:39 pm »

http://news.yahoo.com/tree-netting-planned-protect-ore-bees-115509295.html
6/21/13
Scramble to protect bees after 25,000 die in Oregon parking lot

WILSONVILLE, Ore. (AP) — Workers on Friday plan to wrap bee-proof netting around blooming trees in the parking lot of an Oregon shopping center in an attempt to prevent the deaths of more bees.

Portland-area bee experts with the Xerces (ZERK-zees) Society for Invertebrate Conservation estimate at least 25,000 bumble bees have died in the lot since last weekend. The bees were clustered under dozens of linden trees.

Oregon Agriculture Department officials confirm thousands of dead bees.

The Oregonian reports (http://is.gd/XIiNip ) that Agriculture officials are working with the Xerces Society, the city of Wilsonville and the distributor of an insecticide.

State officials say tests to confirm the cause of the deaths could take two or three more days. They are checking for insecticides as well as possible natural causes.

Wilsonville is southwest of Portland.

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« Reply #24 on: June 21, 2013, 02:14:12 pm »

Quote
and the distributor of an insecticide

Now I wonder who that might be!
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« Reply #25 on: June 23, 2013, 08:27:06 am »

more than just bees

Mystery Bee Kill: Causes Being Sought

Tens of thousands of bumble bees and other pollinators were found dead under trees at the Target store in Wilsonville on Monday, June 17th. The discovery was a strange and ironic start to National Pollinator Week, a symbolic annual event intended to raise public awareness about the plight of bees.
 
The massive bee kill was first documented on Monday by Rich Hatfield, a conservation biologist with the Portland-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Several shoppers at the store called him to report that there were dead and dying bees all over the parking lot. Specifically, the bees were clustered under dozens of European linden trees. The Xerces Society is internationally known for their work on bee conservation.

“After several calls at the office I visited the Target store in Wilsonville and found a parking lot full of dead bumble bees underneath blooming European linden trees,” said Rich Hatfield. “They were literally falling out of the trees. To our knowledge this is one of the largest documented bumble bee deaths in the Western U.S. It was heartbreaking to watch.”
 
The cause of the bee deaths in unknown but there are two possibilities: acute pesticide poisoning, or a poisonous species of European linden tree.

The Xerces Society contacted the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) who responded by sending staff to collect samples of the bees and foliage from the trees. According to staff at the ODA, they will be working to determine whether pesticides were used at the site.

“We are very happy with the quick action by ODA to get to the site and collect bees for testing,” said Mace Vaughan, Pollinator Conservation Program Director for the Xerces Society. “We are hopeful they will move quickly to determine the cause of this catastrophe.”

Rich Hatfield estimated there were at least 25,000 dead bumble bees at the site, a number that likely represents the loss of more than 150 colonies. There were also dead honey bees, lady bird beetles and other beneficial insects. Bumble bees are especially important to agriculture in western Oregon, where they are considered vital pollinators of many berry crops and Willamette Valley seed crops.
 
“If the trees are indeed toxic they should be cut down and replaced by something that will provide non-toxic pollen and nectar for bees,” said Scott Hoffman Black, Executive Director at the Xerces Society. “On the other hand, if pesticides are the cause, we need to spotlight this as a real-world lesson in the harm these toxic chemicals are causing to beneficial insects. It would be especially alarming to find out whether pesticides are the cause in this case because the linden trees are not even an agricultural crop. Any spraying that happened would have been done for purely cosmetic reasons.”


http://www.xerces.org/2013/06/18/mystery-bee-kill-causes-being-sought/
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« Reply #26 on: June 23, 2013, 08:42:45 am »

http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2013/06/after_50000_bees_die_in_wilson.html
After 50,000 dead bees found in Wilsonville, more dead bees discovered in Hillsboro
6/22/13

The City of Hillsboro and the Oregon Department of Agriculture are investigating the deaths of what could be hundreds of bees in downown Hillsboro over the past few days.
 
The city notified state agricultural officials and the Xerces Society Friday. The kill-off is more alarming because its discovery comes after an estimated 50,000 bumblebees were found dead at a Target parking lot in Wilsonville during the past week or so.
 
“We take it seriously,” Hillsboro spokesman Patrick Preston said, Saturday. “We recognize the importance of bees.”
 
Hillsboro officials aren’t sure what’s killing the bees, but Preston confirmed that the trees in downtown Hillsboro were treated with the same pesticide, Safari spray, as 55 trees that were sprayed in Wilsonville. Agricultural officials determined that the insecticide — which is meant to kill aphids — caused the Wilsonville bees’ deaths.

As soon as Preston learned of the Hillsboro die-off Friday, he visited the site along Southwest Washington Street. He saw about 100 dead or dying bees below one tree, and more living bees up in the tree.

Although bees have been found dead elsewhere along the street, Preston said most of them have been found dead below that one tree. It's between Fourth and Fifth avenues.

Workers were planning to cast a large net over that tree Saturday afternoon, to prevent more bees from landing on it and falling victim.
 
The trees in Wilsonville were covered with nets on Friday.
 
Preston said that one interesting difference between the die-offs is that the Wilsonville trees were sprayed recently, while Hillsboro sprayed its trees in March.
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« Reply #27 on: June 23, 2013, 08:48:12 am »

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/national_world&id=9148432
Bee kill-off due to pesticide, Oregon agency says
Saturday, June 22, 2013

June 22, 2013 (WILSONVILLE, Ore.) --  Oregon officials say a pesticide is to blame for the deaths of tens of thousands of bumble bees in a shopping center parking lot southwest of Portland.

The state Department of Agriculture said Friday that tests on bees and foliage showed the deaths are "directly related to a pesticide application on linden trees" that was meant to control aphids.

It said an investigation is under way to see if the application of the pesticide Safari, done last Saturday, violated the law.

The Oregonian reports that the Agriculture Department, the City of Wilsonville, neighboring towns and some local landscape contractors have covered the sprayed trees with netting in an effort to prevent further insect deaths.

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has upped its estimate of the bee kill to 50,000. Spokesman Scott Black calls that a very conservative number.
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« Reply #28 on: June 23, 2013, 08:58:32 am »

June 22, 2013 - Oregon Bumblebee Deaths Up to 50,000

After Neonicotinoid Safari Sprayed On Trees.

“The bumblebees were literally falling out of the trees.
 To our knowledge this is one of the largest documented bumblebee
 deaths in the Western U.S. It was heartbreaking to watch.”

- Rich Hatfield, Conservation Biologist, Xerces Society, Portland

Dozens of the 50,000 estimated bumblebees that fell dead onto a Target parking lot in
Wilsonville, Oregon, south of Portland, after linden trees were sprayed with the neonicotinoid
 Safari
to kill aphids that drip sticky secretions on cars. Nicotine-based insecticides easily kill bee
species and are strongly linked to the persistent deaths and disappearances of honey
 bees around the world since 2006. Images © by Rich Hatfield, Xerces Society.

The Oregon Dept. of Agriculture confirms at least 50,000 bumblebees have died in Wilsonville, Oregon, since the nicotine-based pesticide Safari was sprayed on linden trees earlier this week with the intent to kill aphids. Bees are easily killed by neonicotinoids which are strongly linked to the persistent die-offs and disappearances of honey bees so needed for crop pollination. That's why the European Union in April 2013, issued a 2-year ban on three of the nicotine poisons: imidacloprid, clothianidin and thiamethoxam to go into effect in December 2013. Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) was first reported in late 2006, not long after the first widespread applications of neonicotinoids started in the late 1990s, primarily with imidacloprid. All corn that is planted in the Midwestern United States is treated with either clothianidin or thiamethoxam.

http://www.earthfiles.com/

Safari Insecticide. Where the wild things aren’t.
 
Safari Insecticide, a super-systemic insecticide with quick uptake and knockdown, controls a broad spectrum of ferocious and invasive pests, including Q- and B-biotype whitefly, Hemlock woolly adelgid, emerald ash borer, mealybug, mountain pine beetle 2(ee), leafminer, fungus gnat, black vine weevil, glassy-winged sharpshooter, armored and soft scale and lacebug—some of the most costly pests that affect high value greenhouse and nursery crops such as poinsettia and hibiscus, as well as trees, shrubs and herbaceous ornamentals in the lawn and landscape market. With two formulations, Safari is super-flexible when it comes to application


product info: http://www.valent.com/professional/products/safari/index.cfm

doesnt seem to be associated with Monsanto
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« Reply #29 on: June 23, 2013, 11:48:44 pm »

http://www.thepost.on.ca/2013/06/19/bees-dying-by-the-millions
6/19/13
Bees dying by the millions

ELMWOOD - Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. He and many others, including the European Union, are pointing the finger at a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. used in planting corn and some other crops. The European Union just recently voted to ban these insecticides for two years, beginning December 1, 2013, to be able to study how it relates to the large bee kill they are experiencing there also.

Local grower Nathan Carey from the Neustadt, and National Farmers Union Local 344 member, says he noticed this spring the lack of bees and bumblebees on his farm. He believes that there is a strong connection between the insecticide use and the death of pollinators.

“I feel like we all have something at stake with this issue,” he said. He is organizing a public workshop and panel discussion about this problem at his farm June 22 at 10 a.m. He hopes that all interested parties can get together and talk about the reason bees, the prime pollinators of so any different plant species, are dying.

At the farm of Gary Kenny, south west of Hanover, eight of the 10 hives he kept for a beekeeper out of Kincardine, died this spring just after corn was planted in neighbouring fields.

What seems to be deadly to bees is that the neonicotinoid pesticides are coating corn seed and with the use of new air seeders, are blowing the pesticide dust into the air when planted. The death of millions of pollinators was looked at by American Purdue University. They found that, “Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms, analysis of dead bees revealed traces of thiamethoxam/clothianidin in each case. Seed treatments of field crops (primarily corn) are the only major source of these compounds.

Local investigations near Guelph, led to the same conclusion. A Pest Management Regulatory Agency investigation confirmed that corn seeds treated with clothianidin or thiamethoxam “contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities” last spring.

“The air seeders are the problem,” said Ontario Federation of Agriculture director Paul Wettlaufer, who farms near Neustadt. This was after this reporter called John Gillespie, OFA Bruce County president, who told me to call Wettlaufer. Unfortunately, Wettlaufer said it was, “not a local OFA issue,” and that it was an issue for the Grain Farmers of Ontario and representative, Hennry Vanakum should be notified. Vanakum could not be rached for comment.

Yet Guelph University entomologist Peter Kevan, disagreed with the EU ban.

“There’s very little evidence to say that neonicotinoids, in a very general sense, in a broad scale sense, have been a major component in the demise of honeybees or any other pollinators, anywhere in the world,” said Kevan.

But research is showing that honeybee disorders and high colony losses have become a global phenomena. An international team of scientists led by Holland’s Utrecht University concluded that, ”Large scale prophylaxic use in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers, neonicotinoids put pollinator services at risk.” This research and others rsulted in the Eurpean Union ban.

The United Church is also concerned about the death of so many pollinators and has prepared a “Take Action” paper it’s sending out to all its members. The church is basing its action on local research. The Take Action paper states among other things, “Scientific information gathered suggests that the planting of corn seeds treated with neonicotinoids contributed to the majority of the bee mortalities that occurred in corn growing regions of Ontario and Quebec in Spring 2012.”

Meanwhile Schuit is replacing his queen bees every few months now instead of years, as they are dying so frequently. “OMAFRA tells me to have faith. Well, I think it’s criminal what is happening, and it’s hard to have faith if it doesn’t look like they are going to do anything anyway,” Schuit says.
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