Photo by Cher B of CNYPlantcycle
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cnyplantcycle
Last season, I was involved with a bee counting project through the University of SanFrancisco, in which you were given sunflower seeds to plant and then count the bees visiting the flowers. The main goal was to see how many or fewer bees there were out in nature buzzing around.
This project helped me not only to be more aware of bees and their importance, but also that there are several kinds of bees. The bad part was what I knew all along which is many of the bees are being destroyed by the over abundance of sprays used to keep our crops, and timber bug free, along with spraying to edge lawn and weeds, or some even spray their garden to kill unwanted bees in their yard.. Sad to think people are so far removed from their food and nature as to go outside and want to kill our food producers..some unknowning and some just dont care as long as they have their QP with cheese.
The topic of Bee colony collapse, seems to be a very intense topic these
days with articles first stating they had no idea what was causing total
hives to just suddenly fail to thrive. From what I learned about
what roundup alone does to insects and worms, its a wonder what it does when
farmers plant acres of GMO corn or soy beans which is Roundup resistant,
can then spray their crops so they don't have to worry about weeding.
This not only affects bees but the migrating monarch as well.
I found a good article that describes what was found from doing an
autopsy of honeybees in Georgia and comparing them with Calif. honey
bees which at the time were healthier. Even the GMO crops themselves
seem to be in question as to being unhealthy food for the bees even if
they are lucky enough to survive the crop dusting.
Not too many weeks ago I found out that spraying is also used in the
protection of tree lumber from insects that would devaluate the wood.
When the trees are sprayed bees are caught in the drift on their way
from the orchards or other plants back to the hive. So a bee doesn't
have to land on the trees to get infected. If the wind is right it
might even reach some of the hives. It doesn't matter if the hives were
there first or that we keep trying to master our natural resources and
make them into patentable commodities. Take time to read this
article.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8436
There is another article sent to me by my moderator, Kathryn, which
sheds more info on the use of Roundup and similar products that seem to
make our lives more convenient, but at what price.
http://www.thecampaign.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1159
