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Canaries in the Mine? (Bees!)
Here's an article from an International on-line news source out of Germany. The German beekeepers are starting to panic -- just as the USA beekeepers have been panicking -- because unexplained bee die-off is occurring. Beekeepers are suspicious of people creating monoculture, and spraying wildflowers, etc. Also, there's the Varroa mite that now damages bees worldwide, plus their own parasites and diseases that can strike when their immune system is weakened.
But the biggest concern may be GM food. A study showed that bees seem okay with pollen from GM food. But if a parasite is added to the mix, there is an alarming die-off -- as if the bees were changed in some form by the GM pollen, and had no resistance to any attacker. Yup -- Aids for bees? And they can't find any bee corpses to investigate what's wrong. Bees simply disappear after going on a pollen mission.
US beekeepers say they're having a 70% die-off each year on the East Coast -- and a 60% die-off on the West Coast. If I wasn't so screwed up in my own immune system, I'd investigate beekeeping. (In fact, the government was PAYING people to become beekeepers; don't know if that has changed under the current administration.)
The eerie part? Even bees from other hives will not steal the honey from these decimated hives, as they normally would do with a hive that froze during the winter.
Maybe I'm not the only canary in the mine...
But the biggest concern may be GM food. A study showed that bees seem okay with pollen from GM food. But if a parasite is added to the mix, there is an alarming die-off -- as if the bees were changed in some form by the GM pollen, and had no resistance to any attacker. Yup -- Aids for bees? And they can't find any bee corpses to investigate what's wrong. Bees simply disappear after going on a pollen mission.
US beekeepers say they're having a 70% die-off each year on the East Coast -- and a 60% die-off on the West Coast. If I wasn't so screwed up in my own immune system, I'd investigate beekeeping. (In fact, the government was PAYING people to become beekeepers; don't know if that has changed under the current administration.)
The eerie part? Even bees from other hives will not steal the honey from these decimated hives, as they normally would do with a hive that froze during the winter.
Maybe I'm not the only canary in the mine...
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